In this episode of The Flotline, Rick Hughes explores the distinction between human good and divine good, emphasizing the importance of maintaining holiness in our lives. Learn about the profound impact of looking into the mirror of God’s word and how it reflects your inner soul. Whether you’re new in your spiritual journey or have been walking in faith for years, this episode offers valuable tips on how to stay in fellowship with God and truly live a blessed life.
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.
SPEAKER 02 :
good morning and welcome to the flatline i’m your host rick hughes and for the next few minutes you have a cordial invitation to stick around it’ll be a few minutes of motivation inspiration some education and you know we do this without any manipulation because we do not solicit money We are not trying to sell anything. We’re not asking you to join anything. The only thing I would ask of you is to listen up, learn, and apply the Word of God that we give you today. I’m looking for people that are willing to orient and adjust to the plan of God in their life. I can give you the information. I can verify it and identify it from the Scriptures, but it’s up to you to do the rest. The reason we do this Flatline show is that we want to see, number one, people that don’t know Christ come to Christ. The greatest thing that ever happened to me is when I became a believer at the age of 22 years old. I had never considered Christ. I never went to church. I was never involved in any religious organization. It took a date with a young girl and I encountered a small Bible study group where someone spoke to me directly and there I made a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as my Savior. And I never knew, I never had a clue what was about to happen. But my life changed dramatically over a period of time as I learned God’s word and got under a good pastor that began to teach me the word of God. I began to recognize what my spiritual gift was and God opened the door to use me. And here it is 50 years later and we’re still paddling along in the sea of life. What a great honor it has been to serve our Lord and our Savior. And what a great honor it’s been for me to be able to speak to you over the radio for the last 13 years. And we will continue to do so as long as the Lord makes that provision for us to do. So the FLOT line, a wonderful show, divided to teach you those biblical truths, introduce you to a new way of thinking. FLOT, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops. We’re talking about an invisible barrier in your soul, an invisible barrier in your soul that can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside sources of stress. Adversity is what the world may do to you. You may do it to yourself. Adversity is inevitable. Stress is always optional. So it’s up to you. You can have a wonderful, unique, great life called the Christian life, a life with no worry, no fear, no bitterness, no guilt, no jealousy, no animosity, or you can live like the rest of the world lives, dog eat dog in the dog eat dog race. It’s really up to you. But God has made provisions for you to have a most fantastic life, and it’s free of charge. It just takes you learning and understanding what his plan is. And that’s what we would like to talk to you about a little bit today. What does it mean to be a spiritually mature believer, to have a spiritual profile, I call it, A spiritual profile. Do you have, in fact, a spiritual profile? That’s a question I like to ask you on the radio show this morning. And what is the definition of a profile? Well, that’s a brief written description that provides information about someone or something, or it could be an outline or a drawing. But we’re talking about your life. When God looks at you, what is the profile he sees in your life? What I’d like for you to do this morning is to look into the mirror of God’s Word and get a realistic self-image of who you actually are. It’s true for me, too. Who am I? I don’t just talk about you. Every time I talk to you, I’m talking to me, I promise. So listen to what the Scripture says about the mirror of the Word of God. In James 1, 22 through 25, but prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he’s like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. For once he’s looked at himself and goes away, he forgets what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, which is the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” So the mirror for you and for me is, in fact, the Bible, the Word of God. And this verse says we are to be doers, not merely hearers. People that are hearers are people that don’t have any faith perception. They don’t take what they’ve learned and put it to application in their life. When you learn the Word of God, the Bible says it becomes wisdom in your soul. Wisdom gives you insight and discernment. So by learning the word of God and having wisdom in your soul, you can save yourself a lot of heartache and a lot of misery and a lot of money by just doing what God tells you to do in the Bible and not running off down what we call the my way highway path. And it’s a dead end, a cul-de-sac, and you wind up wasting many years because you wouldn’t listen. You want to do it your way. So what if anyone is a hearer of the word, not a doer? Well, the parable is, the illustration is, he looks at himself in a mirror and sees a big old glitch there, and he just doesn’t pay any attention to it and walks on away, maybe like seeing food still on his mouth from dinner, and he doesn’t wipe the food off his mouth. And he walks out into the public, and everybody can see what an idiot he is. Once he’s looked at himself and gone away, he immediately forgets, the Bible says, what kind of person he is. But here’s the one God’s looking for, verse 25 of James chapter one. But whoever looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, that’s the word of God, the Bible, and abides by it, that’s positive volition. That’s not only do you hear it, but you apply it into your life. Not becoming a forgetful hearer, that means he doesn’t let the rate of forgetting exceed the rate of learning. But an effectual doer, in other words, he applies it into his life when he learns it. This man will be blessed. This is a promise from God, how you can be blessed by having a spiritually mature profile in your life. God just told you right there, I will bless you if you will be a doer. and not just to hear. If you will exercise positive volition and follow my instruction, I will bless you. So the mirror of the Word of God reflects what’s in our soul, not what’s on the outside. You know, if you stand in front of the mirror every day like I do when you shave or put on your makeup, you see what’s on the outside. But the Bible reflects what’s on the inside. And that’s an amazing thing. Listen to 1 Samuel 16, 7, when Jesse had a son named Eliab, and Samuel was about to anoint him to be the future king of Israel because he looked good on the outside. He had the appearance of a professional leader on the outside. And Samuel was about to make a mistake. The prophet went down to Bethlehem, to Jesse’s house, where God said one of his sons will be the future king of Israel. And he picked the wrong one. Listen to what God told him. The Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance. Do not look at the height of his statue. I rejected him. For God sees not as man sees, Man looks on the outward appearance, but I, the Lord, look on the heart. This is an amazing statement. Our Father has the ability to look into your right lobe, your heart, your memory center, your consciousness. He can see what your intentions and your motives and your desires are, even if you may try to hide it and may put on a good show. Act like you’re a great Christian. You go to church. You tithe. You sing in the choir. You take the mission trip. But on the inside, you have a cluttered, nasty soul. You may even be a disukos. That word means double-minded man. Double-minded Christian is a terrible person. That’s a person that dabbles in sin, and yet at the same time, he tries to act like he’s a great guy for God. A Christian out of fellowship, if you are, if you’re that Christian and you’re out of fellowship, well, that means you have unconfessed sin in your life. You are not a doer of the word. You are simply a caricature of Christ. I call that a Christian caricature. When I was in college, I had a caricature drawn of me. It was an artist that could draw a humorous picture of you that was supposed to be you, but it didn’t look like you. He’d talk to your friends, and he’d talk to others about you, and then you’d come up with this caricature. Well, a Christian caricature is a person who is not imitating Christ. He’s not reflecting Christ. He claims to be a Christian and he may in fact be a Christian, but he is not doing the word and he’s not even maybe even hearing the word. So a Christian out of fellowship is merely what I call a caricature of Christ. He’s not reflecting the true image of Jesus Christ. How do you get out of fellowship with God? Does that mean you’re not saved anymore? No, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying you’re out of fellowship because you have unconfessed sin in your life. Whenever we sin, we break fellowship with God. The Bible’s clear about that. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body. The Bible’s clear that we have a sin nature. The Bible says the flesh wars against the spirit and the spirit wars against the flesh. These are contrary one to the other, and this is the battle you and I have every day. The flesh wants to control our life. The sin nature wants to dictate policy. And the Holy Spirit, as a believer, lives inside you. And it’s his job to guide you into truth, to help you to override the volitional temptations that are coming your way. But if there’s nothing in your soul to support those thoughts, then you’re in trouble. So you can maintain a good neutral image. You know, people say he’s a nice guy. He goes to church and he tithes and he doesn’t cuss and he doesn’t drink and he doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t run around on his spouse. I mean, you can maintain a good neutral image, maybe through service organizations, with human good productions. Or, on the other hand, you can reflect the true image of Jesus Christ. How about you reflect the true image of Jesus Christ? Am I saying God would not want you in a service organization? No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying some people look good, sound good, smell good, but they’re not good. It’s human good versus divine good. Human good we know in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 3 is going to be burned up as wood, hay, and stubble. And the divine good in 1 Corinthians 3 is going to be rewardable as gold, silver, precious stones. There are a lot of people amassing a lot of human good. but there are very few amassing a lot of divine good. What are you amassing in your life? Are you reflecting Jesus Christ? Do you have the spiritual profile that we’re talking about? Let’s see what it is. What is a spiritual profile? One, it means you are in fellowship with God when no one confesses sin in your life. Now, immediately you’re saying that’s impossible. I can’t keep up with my sins. Well, nobody can. That’s why the Bible says if we confess our sin, God’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The word all means even the ones you don’t remember. God does expect you, when you know you’ve sinned and the Holy Spirit will let you know, to rebound that sin and that problem-solving device, number one, on the flatline of your soul. Nothing else works unless you rebound. Because rebound is how you maintain the filling of the Holy Spirit. So if you are going to be a spiritual, if you’re going to have a spiritual profile, you must stay in fellowship longer than an hour at a time. It’s possible for you to stay in fellowship two hours or three hours at a time. And not sin. What kind of sin are we talking about? Well, there’s mental attitude sins. There’s sins of the tongue. There’s the overt sins. You know, drunkenness, anger, bitterness, jealousy, worry, fear, implacability. We got all kind of sins. Don’t just think I’m talking about booze. I’m not just talking about booze. You know, I’m not just talking about adulterers. I’m talking about mental attitude sins. sins of the tongue and some overt sins. So you are not reflecting Jesus Christ out of fellowship. You are nothing but a Christian caricature, an image, a funny image of what Christ is. And people will compare themselves to you and get a good chuckle sometimes because They’re actually better than you are. They’re more good than you are in the human good status. So if you want to stay in fellowship, then Rebound is the number one problem-solving device. And you may find yourself, if you live in a large city, and if you’re impatient in traffic, you may find yourself rebounding many times before you even get home because of the way some people drive. I got to make a big trip this weekend, and I dread hassle of people on the interstate that are inconsiderate and weird. But it’s true, and sometimes I have to rebound because I get out of fellowship too. So that’s the first thing. Stay in fellowship. As soon as you know you’ve committed a sin, immediately name the sin to God, and he will be faithful. He’ll be just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Don’t promise you won’t do it again. That’s crazy. You probably will, but go name the sin to God. Now, this is not a license to sin, but Because the Bible tells you, don’t let sin reign in your mortal body. But this is a way to handle failure and flaws in your life. The failure of sin and the flaw of the sin nature. The second way to have a spiritually mature profile, a spiritually profiled believer, is for you to acquire the mind of Christ. That’s important. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2, 5. Acquiring the mind of Christ means you’re changing the way you think. You are amassing divine viewpoint, and it is replacing human viewpoint. In Romans chapter 12, verse 3, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance. Beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. That’s critical for you. You must change the way you think. And that’s renovating your thinking. That’s amassing divine viewpoint. And how do you do that? by taking in the Word of God under a well-qualified pastor, learning the Bible, applying the Bible, and it will change you from the inside out. That’s where it starts. And listen, the Word of God insists you do this. These three simple things, stay in fellowship, acquire the mind of Christ, and fight that arrogance syndrome in your soul, Romans 12, 3. Stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. Now, the Word of God insists that we live a holy lifestyle. This kind of shook me up. A holy lifestyle. Holy, holy, holy. What does that mean to be holy? Does that mean put on a long tunic and walk around and not shave and call everybody brother and sister? I mean, what does that mean? Well, in 1 Peter 1, 15 through 16 says, But like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all of your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. This means that God does not expect you to dabble in sin. God does not expect you to compromise and sin. God expects you to be holy. The word for holy in the Greek New Testament is the word hagios, hagios, H-A-G-I-O-S, holy. And it means morally blameless or pure. And with that, we have an aorist middle imperative of a Greek verb called genomai, G-I-N-O-M-A-I, genomai, which means to become. So the verse says, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. Become holy. And become being an imperative mood means that this is a command from God. This is not a request. And the aorist tense means there’s never a time you’re not to be holy. But the middle voice is always reflexive, and it means you get this by means of the Holy Spirit. This is what we call a deponent verb. It comes from the Holy Spirit. You don’t manufacture your own holiness. As you’re filled with the Spirit, as you take in the Word of God on a consistent basis and form a memory center in your soul and log the information in, then those two things, the filling of the Holy Spirit and the living word of God, transform you into a holy person. That means a person that God is well pleased with, a person that God is happy with. So we know our God is holy, and we know that he has righteousness and justice, and we know that in him no sin resides at all. So in, excuse me, in our position with Christ, we receive the same righteousness that Christ had. This is how it works. Listen carefully. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things pass away and all things become new. The moment a person believes in Jesus Christ, he goes from being just a body and a soul to being a body, a soul, and an alive, living, breathing human spirit. See, the spirit dies at birth. That’s called spiritual death. One man’s sin came into the world, and death by sin, and now death is passed on all, for all have sinned. And so when we’re born, we’re born in a sinful state. We’re in the state of Adam. That’s why we have to be born again. born again that doesn’t mean you go back to your mother’s womb like nicodemus thought in john chapter three it means excuse me that this that the spirit which is which is dead has to be made alive and that occurs when god the holy spirit comes to live inside your human spirit, and you’re made spiritually alive, and you’re able to have fellowship with God and worship God, because the Bible says those that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. And when you leave this planet, your soul and your spirit will go to be with the Lord. You’ll get a resurrection body, and that’s the body you’ll endure forever. The sin-infected body will go back to dust. Don’t need it. It doesn’t work anyhow. So we know that God is holy and we know that we receive the righteousness of Christ. Let me give you the verse so you can see it. I said we all become new creations. Listen carefully. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so we might become the righteousness of God in him. This is referring to your position. In your position in the royal family of God, you have perfect righteousness. But in time, you and I still possess a sin nature. And thus we have the ability to sin and break fellowship with God by becoming unholy or infected with sin. That’s why we have a problem-solving device. Number one, rebound so we can recover from the sin, get back into fellowship with God through the filling of the Holy Spirit, and resume our spiritual advance to maturity. As representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ, we, you and me, we must maintain a lifestyle that reflects him. This requires problem-solving devices like faith rest, or standing on the promises of the Word of God, using the faith rest technique, and living by what we call faith perception. The Word of God says it, you believe it, as well as developing virtue love, which is the motivation to obey God. If you love me, you’ll obey me, and my mandates are not grievous, the Bible says. So virtue, love, and then occupation with Christ, these are all a flat line doctrines. These are all part of the 10 problem solving devices on the flat line. If you’re going to maintain a lifestyle that reflects Christ, you must do this. You must use the faith rest drill. You must come to biblical orientation. You must develop virtue love. You must get to occupation with Christ. So it’s no longer I, but Christ in me. You know, legalism loves to insist that you walk holy. Legalism loves to insist that you talk holy, that you live holy. But what really does all that mean? I mean, this is the same people that opposed our Lord, the holy Pharisees and the holy Sadducees. They were holy men, and people looked up to them, but they hated the Lord Jesus Christ because he represented to them the destruction of their power. And in the church today, we got holy men. You probably got a holy man at your church, a reverend, doing some, well, let me just put it this way. Sometimes holy men or holy women do things to those in the congregation that’s not so holy. And maybe you’ve witnessed that firsthand. But here’s what I want to ask you. Are you living a holy lifestyle? Do you rebound when you sin? Are you learning God’s word daily and letting it shape your intentions and your desires? Are you recognizing your very own arrogance and naming it as a sin? Being holy does not mean you abstain from certain items in life. That’s what most people will tell you. You know, if you’re going to be holy, brother, you can’t do that. I had a guy tell me one time when I was a young Christian, brother, do you love the Lord, brother? And I went, yes, sir. Well, you just can’t do that, brother. And I’m like, well, where does it say that in the Bible? It doesn’t. It’s just his pet peeve. And so many religious people have pet peeves. And they will love to tell you what it means to be holy. But being holy does not mean you abstain from certain items in life. It’s an attitude of obedience. It’s an attitude of faith perception and application and spiritual growth. That’s what holiness is. And the distracted believer never gets to that point in his life. In Hebrews 5.11, you’ve been saved a long time now. You ought to be teaching others. But instead, you’ve gone back where you need to learn all over again the very first principles of the basics of the Word of God. That’s not a holy person. That’s a person who’s been distracted. But here’s the greatest comeuppance you’ll ever hear. 1 Corinthians 3, 16. Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy. that’s what you are you are the temple of god god will discipline you when you break fellowship with him god will apply intense discipline if you don’t rebound the sin god will not tolerate your mocking him because the bible clearly says whatsoever men sows that he’s going to reap are you mocking god by being a caricature of christ Or are you serious about becoming holy and living that holy lifestyle and having the spiritual lifestyle, the spiritual profile that we talked about? I know you got questions. We got answers. We just don’t have the time. Let me know. Anytime, anywhere, we’ll reply. Thank you for listening today. I’m Rick Hughes, host of The Flotline, praying you’ll come back with us same time next week, same station.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
