Rick Hughes continues his enlightening discourse on The Flotline, drawing attention to the pressing need for spiritual maturity amidst a rapidly changing cultural landscape. Through detailed exposition, Hughes explains how understanding and applying the concept of grace can propel personal transformation and societal influence, challenging listeners to embrace their divine destinies. As America stands at a critical crossroad, Hughes calls on believers to align more closely with God’s will, using biblical orientation and grace as cornerstones for a life of purposeful impact.
Welcome to The Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to The Flotline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, you have a cordial invitation to listen up, stay with me, hang around. It’ll be just a few minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. And always, always, always no manipulation, no requesting for money, no soliciting support, not selling you anything, not asking you to join up. It’s just some information to help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life if you’re interested. And if in fact you are, you can always orient and adjust to the plan that’s up to you. But our show, The Flotline, is designed to give you some simple problem-solving devices found in the Word of God. This is not something new that I invented. This is something that was actually taught to me by my pastor many years ago. And I’m simply reintroducing these series of concepts that he taught re-teaching them to you. Nobody owns it. It’s from the Bible. It’s the Word of God. It’s not some new discovery. You’ll recognize it when you hear it, but sometimes I say it in a way you haven’t heard it said before. That helps you to comprehend it just a little bit more. But, excuse me, it’s a rainy day here in the recording booth and I’m glad to be talking to you. We talked last week about soul renovation, soul renovation. And I told you that no one can renovate what’s on the outside until they renovate what’s on the inside. And so if someone goes to a meeting and says, I’m going to do better and I will promise I’ll do better, until they change the way they think, they will not do better. They will always go back and repeat their errors and their mistakes. So before you can change your actions, you have to change your soul. Remember that your soul has mentality. It has the ability to think and logic and reason and comprehend. Remember that your soul has volition. It has the ability to choose. Yes, I will. No, I won’t. Your soul is a mainframe of conscience where your norms and standards are housed. These are things you learned as a child, norms, things that protected you all your life, and your standards are These are the rules that you obey and live by in your life. So you have to have norms and standards to have a normal life. Without any norms and standards, you’ll be a criminal and you’ll do whatever you want to do and justify it with your own arrogance. So, actually, your soul is the invisible part of you that lives forever. The body does not live forever. The body is decaying and will go into the grave and rot away. That’s fine. It has to because it’s identified with Adam’s original sin. We have a sin nature. And this body won’t function in heaven. Thus, God himself will give us a new body, a glorious body. A body like that of our Savior, Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. And so as we get our new body, and we’ll be able to operate in that new body in heaven, what a wonderful thing it will be. But while we’re here, we are visitors in the devil’s world. We don’t belong here. We’re passing through, if in fact you are a Christian. And thus, the Bible says you need to have a main line of resistance in your soul so you can stop the outside sources of adversity from ever becoming the inside sources of stress. We know that we’re told in the Bible and Ephesians to put on the armor of God so we can stand against the strategy of the devil. We know the devil has a strategy on how to defeat you, how to discourage you, how to get you disillusioned. He’s very good at that. And we know that he is not omnipresent like God is. God our Father is indeed omnipresent. He’s eminent and transcendent. But not Satan. He’s a created being. He can only be one place at one time. Thus, if you say Satan’s after you, I don’t think that’s really true because I think he has much bigger fish to get after than me or you. However, there are fallen angels that followed him out of heaven, and they are what we call demons today, and they have the doctrine of demons. The doctrine of demons is taught in the Bible. It’s false doctrine. It’s salvation by works, spirituality by works. In other words, I’m a good Christian because I don’t smoke, drink, or chew and hang out with those that do. That’s not what makes a good Christian. And I’m going to heaven because I don’t drink and cuss, and that’s not how you get to heaven. How you get to heaven is faith alone, in Christ alone. That’s why the Bible says, not by works of righteousness, which we’ve done, but But according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that being justified by his grace, justified by his grace, not our works, we would be made heirs according to the confidence we have of eternal life. And so here you are, here I am. We have a show called The Flot Line, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops. That forward line of troops is your main line of resistance to stand against the strategy of the devil. And it consists of 10 unique problem-solving devices. This is pretty well the way you can highlight the Christian life, which our Lord Jesus Christ lived first. He came into the devil’s world, and he lived in the devil’s world. And he showed us how we can do it. And some of these things that I’m going to tell you, he did not need because he For example, he did not need rebound. He did not need to confess his sin because he never sinned. And he did not need to be occupied with Christ because he was Christ. But those are two things you and I must do. The rest of these problem-solving devices, you will see how our Lord used them consistently in his life. And if you can learn the Word of God and metabolize what you learn, Not just let it become knowledge, but let it become full knowledge. The difference in that is found in the Greek New Testament, where knowledge is called gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, the Greek word gnosis. However, the word we’re looking for is epinosis, E-P-I-G-N-O-S-I-S, and that’s the word full knowledge. So knowledge heard is one thing. Knowledge heard and applied is another thing. So until you learn and apply the word of God, you will continue to follow the same trends your sin nature has always had you locked into. You’ll never be able to break away from them because you’ll try to renovate the way you think without renovating it through Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine or the Word of God metabolized will remove these old patterns and thus help you fulfill your purpose in life. So last Sunday we went through the first three problem-solving devices. We went through Rebound, which solves the problem of our personal sin. We went through the filling of the Holy Spirit, which solves the problem of the energy of the flesh and how we sin to operate in the flesh and how it won’t work. We went through faith, rest, drill, how we stand behind the promises of God and trust God. Today we move to biblical orientation and grace orientation to follow. So why should you study the Bible? What’s the deal about that? Well, if you’re going to have a main line of resistance, there has to be some capacity. There has to be some thoughts in there. And the Bible says in 2 Timothy 2.15, a mandate in the Greek New Testament using the word spoudazo, spoudazo, S-P-O-U-D-A-Z-O, spoudazo. And that is the word translated into the English study. Study. That verb is an imperative mood verb in the context of the scripture, which means this is a divine command. Study to show thyself approved unto God. rightly dividing the word of truth. Rightly dividing is an interesting word called orthotomeo, the Greek word, orthotomeo, O-R-T-H-O-T-O-M-E-O, orthotomeo. And it means to cut straight. Ironically, we get a word from that that we use in our English, orthodontist, to straighten your teeth. So this means to teach Scripture accurately. Teach it accurately. so we are mandated to study the word of god this is how we build a main line of resistance in our soul so that we can rightly divide or to make it out straight the word of god so here’s the principle dividing is division rightly dividing that’s division And Bible study certainly causes division. Some people study for the wrong reasons. Some people study the wrong way. Some even teach with hidden agendas where they try to build a clique. Some teach from ignorance, not really knowing the languages and not therefore misinterpreting the scripture when they teach it. And some claim they even have extra biblical revelation that God taught. revealed stuff to them that he didn’t reveal to anybody else, and that’s garbage. So here is your principle. If God told us to be careful that we get it straight, then he must have known there’s a possibility that you and I could mess it up. That’s why the Bible says he is not the author of confusion. 1 Corinthians 14, 33 says, He is not the author of confusion. And that word confusion means instability or disorder or disturbance, but of peace in all the churches of the saints. He’s not the author of confusion. By the way, in 1434, the very next verse says, let the women keep silent in church. That’s kind of strange. Don’t be talking out of line. Let the women keep silent in the church. Is it wrong for a woman to talk in church? If the pastor is teaching the Word of God, it’s wrong for anybody to talk in church because teaching the Word of God demands academic discipline. Therefore, there should always be quietness and reverence when the Word of God is taught. So the Bible does not contradict itself. God never gets unfair. He never gets emotional. But there’s another verse that says why we should have biblical orientation. And that’s 2 Peter 3.18 where we’re told to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That word grow is another verb. It’s pronounced auxano, A-U-X-A-N-O, auxano. And like the last word, spudazo, study, this word grow, auxano, means a present active imperative in the morphology of that verb. It’s another command. The active voice says you do it. The present tense says there never is a time when you’re not to grow. As long as you are here, you are to grow. I have known people that were on their deathbed and they were listening to the teaching of the scripture. There never will be a time in your life when you can say, okay, I’ve got it. I now know it all. I now can go fishing. Fine, go fishing, but you don’t have it all. You don’t know it all. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If I ask you to explain how grace functions, could you tell me there’s saving grace, there’s living grace, there’s dying grace, and there’s even surpassing grace. So we must grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So that it may be well with you and you may live a long time on the earth. The Bible says in Ephesians 6, 1 and 2, why we should study. So we could live a long life. You can actually shorten your life. You can. You can get under the sin unto death as a believer. You get out of fellowship and don’t rebound. You can mismanage your health, abuse your body. You can run with the wrong crowd and that’ll get you an early death, etc. So grow in the grace and in the knowledge our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ a divine commandment from God now this is critical we have today the crossroads of history in America and I’ve had said this on this show many times there’s only one thing that can deliver us and that’s you as a mature believer you your life will hold off God’s judgment on this nation Because we are in trouble as a nation. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that everything that used to be wrong has now been considered to be okay. And everything that used to be right has now been considered to be prejudicial and wrong. So America has turned upside down. We’ve given in to the demands of diversity, and we have lost our direction, and we have gotten distracted because of our prosperity. That’s the hardest test for anybody to face, prosperity. And the end result is we’re in serious trouble with God because unto whom much is given, much is expected. God has blessed us in a phenomenal way, and there are tremendous things that he expects of us. So I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention because biblical orientation is critical for your life. And then there is grace orientation, and that’s where you have to understand and live by the concepts of grace. God graced you out. He loved you when you were unlovable. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He loved you when you were unlovable. And that’s grace. For by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift from God. So we have the wonderful saving grace of God to us provided through the sacrificial death of our Savior, our Redeemer. Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God. Also, we have living grace. God has provided grace for us to live every day. Every time you take a breath of air, that’s the grace of God. Every time you walk and don’t float up into the atmosphere due to the gravity, that’s the grace of God. Every time you wake up and look outside and see the sunrise, that’s the grace of God. We have living grace. He has provided for you not only protection for your physical life, but he has provided everything you need to renovate your soul life. You have a Bible. You have a New Testament. You have a canon of scripture. You have the gift of pastor teacher. You have the indwelling and the filling of the Holy Spirit. You have your very own spiritual gift that God equipped you with. These are all grace assets. And by understanding these things and using these things, then the potential for a phenomenal life awaits you if you orient to grace. Living grace is amazing, not legalism. Legalism is what our Lord fought. The legalists were the ones that crucified our Lord. They were the ones that wanted to get him in trouble because they picked an ear of corn on the 7th or healed somebody on the 7th. And really it was all about a threat to their power, see. And so we get into legalism. Then we start trying to manipulate people. And we start telling people, you can’t… You can’t chew bubble gum and dance. That’s a big sin. You can’t drink colas and eat crackers. That’s a big sin. I’m being facetious, but you understand. There are so many legalistic things that organized religion throws on you. And when I first got saved, I didn’t think I could live the Christian life. I can’t do all that stuff. And then I finally found out that wasn’t the Christian life at all. That was what man was telling me was the Christian life. The Christian life is grace orientation, learning the grace of God, exploiting the grace of God, promoting the grace of God, sharing the grace of God. What a wonderful, wonderful thing to be able to grace those out who Your friends, grace them out because God graced you out. And gracing people out means taking care of them, paying for their meals, paying for their whatever they need, helping them in any way you can without expecting anything in return. You grace them out just like God graced you out. So, grace orientation, biblical orientation, these are key assets in our lives for a flat line in our soul. And I’m just skimming across the surface. I mean, I could really teach you, I’m serious, 10 to 15 hours on grace orientation. going through the Bible line by line, word by word, verse by verse, and I’ve just skimmed over it like a rock skimming across the flat surface of the pond. You’ve seen it, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop. That’s all I’m doing here, just hopping across, giving, highlighting. these unique problem-solving devices. We have a book that’s called Christian Problem Solving. We’ll be glad to send you. And it lists all of these and mentions them in detail to a degree. But there’s much more detail than what’s in that book. But it’s how you start. If you have a hunger to know these things, then we can provide a place for you to start. So we come to another problem-solving device. And that’s you having a personal sense of destiny. Every church-age believer has a destiny, something we are destined to do, God’s appointed course for our life. So the minute that we believed in Jesus Christ, we took off on this fantastic voyage. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ had destiny from the womb to the tomb. Yes, he did. He knew why he came, and he knew where he was going, and he knew when it would happen. And he told the disciples it would happen. And, of course, they were in unrealistic self-image. They didn’t believe it. Even when he told Peter, you’re going to deny me, In the morning before the rooster crows, he arrogantly claimed, I would never do that. I would die for you. But he did. And you and I have failed Christ so many times. Don’t act like you’re self-righteous. You have blown it and I have blown it. If it wasn’t for the grace of God. we actually might could be a greasy spot right now he loved you he forgave you he restored you and you are still here and you’re listening and learning this morning but there’s so much more to learn my prayer is always that i will find positive volition across these radio waves that i will find somebody in denver somebody in california somebody in in Wyoming, somebody in Mississippi, somebody in New York, somebody in Alabama, somebody who wants to grow and is tired of playing games, somebody who wants it all, somebody who wants to learn it all. That’s what I pray for and look for with this radio show. I’m a recruiter for God. I’m looking for positive volition. I’m looking for hunger, people that are willing to dig it out and learn it and use it and apply it and become invisible heroes in God’s plan with a tremendous historical impact through their lives. That’s your destiny. It’s important that you remember this. The destiny that you have is like a door you walk through and go out the other side. For the first time in your life, you will be living on God’s agenda, not your agenda. 2 Timothy 1.12, I know whom I believed in. I’m persuaded he’s able to keep that which I’ve committed unto him against that day. So God has a plan, and his plan is perfect for you. When you learn that plan, when you see that plan, when you see your spiritual gift unfold, it’s an amazing thing. That doesn’t imply that we’re going to be successful in our spiritual lives. That’s not what I’m telling you. But all of that depends on your attitude towards Bible doctrine. not God’s faithful provisions of eternal life. He gives it. Whether you’re faithful or not, God is never unfaithful. He’s always faithful. You’re the one that’s unfaithful. I’m the one that fails, not you, not him. We do. So you have to remember that. There’s no sin that we could ever commit that would cause God to cancel the 40 unique things he gave us at salvation. He’s not gonna do that. So we are in God’s royal family. We’re in the church age. We have a sense of destiny. We know what this dispensation is designed for, the calling out of the royal family of God. And this complements our Lord Jesus Christ. We know he’s coming back for the exit resurrection. We know that at the sound of the trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise first, and we who are alive and remain together shall be caught up together with him in the clouds, and so shall we evermore be with the Lord. We know we will return with him at the millennial reign of Christ where he will rule in Jerusalem for a thousand years and we will be here in our resurrection bodies ruling and reigning with him. So if you have that sense of destiny, And that eliminates all your boredom and all your self-pity and all your self-induced problems. There’s no room for that because I know what’s out there. I know what’s ahead of me. I know he’s given me equal privilege and equal opportunity to grow and learn and apply in my life. But none of these things that I’m telling you can ever become a reality if you don’t learn it and apply it in your life. You see, being aware of your destiny, that motivates you to seek it out and to fulfill it. That motivates you to achieve spiritual self-esteem where you have some cognitive self-confidence in your life. You don’t have to depend on other people. That motivates you to move to spiritual autonomy where you have cognitive independence. And then spiritual maturity, where you have cognitive invincibility. There you are, self-centered and arrogant, nothing happening. But self-confident, trying to think of the word I used a while ago, my mind went brink. Self-confidence and independence and invincibility is what God wants you to have. As a mature believer, in spiritual maturity, if you’re going to have a spiritual sense of destiny, that will outweigh any problem, any disaster, any heartache, anything that may come your way. Just listen to the psalmist in Psalm 40, verse 8. I delight to do your will, O my God. Listen to what Jesus said in John 4. My food is to do the will of the one that sent me and finish his work. And then Paul testified to the church at Colossae. Since the day we heard of you, we don’t cease to pray for you, Colossians 1.9. And ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. The knowledge of his will. What is your destiny? What does God have in store for you? That’s critical. That’s really critical. You have a personal sense of destiny. It started the day you believed in Jesus Christ and the day that God imputed to you 40 irrevocable assets. That’s when it started. And now here you are a few years later. The question I have for you is have you realized that destiny? Have you seized the opportunities in front of you? Have you glorified Jesus Christ to the max by renovating your soul and beginning to think like he thought? Romans 12, 1 through 3 mandated us to do that, along with Philippians 2, 5. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. You need to leave a legacy. We’ve talked about that on this show. You will not leave a spiritual legacy if you’re self-centered. You will not leave a spiritual legacy if you’re not learning and applying the Word of God in your life. You will not have an impact for Jesus Christ in your community, in your family, if you can’t replicate his thinking. That’s why he left you here, to replicate him, to represent him to your neighbors, to your family, to your friend. There is no legacy if you can’t represent Christ to your children and your grandchildren. So think about these things. It’s critical that you understand them. I’ve always been here for you, and I’ll always be here for you as long as God provides. We trust he will do that. But we will be back next week, same time, same place, same station. So until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
