In today’s episode, Rick Hughes delves into the transformative power of a relaxed mental attitude. Amidst political turmoil and personal challenges, discover how maintaining RMA can protect from stress and enhance your spiritual journey. Rick also shares practical advice on using impersonal love and problem-solving devices for greater peace and creativity in life. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insights on living a content and fulfilled Christian life even in the midst of chaos.
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 thank you for listening. For the next 30 minutes, stick around. Some motivation, some inspiration, some education, all without any type of manipulation. Before we get going, let me just make sure you understand that. If you enjoy listening to the Flotline Radio Show there in your city, you may or may not wonder how we afford to broadcast in over 100 cities every Sunday morning. Well, I assume you’ve noticed that we don’t hustle any money from you. We’re not trying to sell anything. We’re not making appeals for money because I live by a verse that Paul the Apostle wrote in 2 Corinthians 2.17. That verse says, For we are not like many who peddle the word of God, but from sincerity, but as from the God, we speak Christ in the sight of God. Now, listen, I don’t claim to have a better understanding than many others on the airway of the radio stations that you may listen to, anyone else who has a Christian teaching show, but I do proclaim liberty from selling my books. Christian marketing, I believe, is atrocious, and I think it’s sad. I get numerous ads over social media, sometimes TV, other communication mediums, all trying to sell me some book or some video about God or about his word. I don’t think Christian marketing is right. I think it’s totally wrong. I think it’s dishonoring. Grace living frees us from human dependency, and I and my associates have learned that if God’s in it, he will pay for it. So our job is to proclaim the message, teach God’s word, and let the Father handle the finances. He does, he has, and he always will. Enough said. Today, I want to turn our attention to an amazing thing. It’s an amazing opportunity for you and I to live by. It’s called an RMA, having a relaxed mental attitude. What a great way to live. And that’s possible if you assemble a FLOT line in your soul, FLOT, Forward Line of Troops. That’s our military acronym for the main line of resistance in your soul where you learn God’s 10 unique problem-solving devices. And that keeps you from letting the outside sources of adversity become the inside source of stress. Because as you hear us say, every time we’re on the air, adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. So turmoil in the nation’s capital, you got it. Chaos in the nation’s streets, it’s here. Confusion in the nation’s schools, consternation in the homes, what in the world is going on? Are you and I witnessing the downfall of a once great America? Or are we perhaps seeing the birth of a new way of thinking across these states that will lead to a new lifestyle in our nation’s history? Now, I know what I think is happening, but I’m not here to talk about politics. That’s never my job. I’m not a politician. The question I want to ask you this morning is this. How are you handling things in this daily changing environment in Client Nation USA? Should you and I be concerned? Absolutely, we should be concerned. Should we worry? Absolutely not. No way should you ever worry. Jesus Christ controls history. You need to remember that. God was in business before we got here, and he’ll be in business when we’re long gone. So he’s in charge. But adversity is inevitable, and as I said, stress is optional. In John 16, 2, the Lord is quoted as telling the disciples these words. He’s trying to get them to have an RMA, a relaxed mental attitude. Here’s what he told them. They, they being the religious crowd, will make you outcasts from the synagogue. But an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to thank this, that he’s offering service to God. Now, each of these men were told beforehand their lives would now be at risk for following Jesus Christ. In John 15, eight, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me first. This attitude of hatred for our Lord Jesus Christ and the rebellion against God’s rules of order are still prevalent today, especially in client nation USA. Nothing has changed. Why? Well, Satan is still the God of this world as he has always has been. The question you and I must answer is what are the mechanics to maintain the a relaxed mental attitude during this time of turmoil and chaos in our country? And I think I have the answer. The Lord Jesus Christ faced the greatest opposition in history. In Matthew 4, you can read yourself the first few verses where he had a confrontation with Satan, and it’s well documented. And then in John 15, 11, he stated to the disciples these words, that in spite of the conflict they would face, that he himself maintain an attitude of joy and that they themselves could be made complete by experiencing the same joy in the trials that they would face. So the truth is that you and I can maintain happiness in the face of uncertain future. If we keep an R M a, a relaxed mental attitude. Now the question is what in the world is an RMA? What’s a relaxed mental attitude. Well, first you have the conflict. The conflict has the potential to cause suffering. The question that has to be asked is can we avoid conflict in this devil’s world? And the answer is no. Can we stay free of worry? The answer is yes. This is when the faith rest drill must kick in. And this is where that relaxed mental attitude comes from using problem solving device number three, the faith rest drill. Isaiah 54, 17 is a great verse for you to claim to act as a shield of faith over your life. Isaiah 54, 17 says, No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, saith the Lord. So there’s conflict, and there’s a solution using the faith rest drill. If you don’t understand the faith rest drill, you should. You should know it. If you don’t, write to us and get our book, Christian Problem Solving. It’s free, no charge. And we cover the faith rest drill in that book. I don’t have time to cover it right now, but there’s three stages to it. And if you will use one of those 7,000 promises God has in the Bible for you, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity from becoming the inside source of stress. That means you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to be antagonistic. You don’t have to be bitter. There’s a better way to live. It’s called the Christian life with a relaxed mental attitude. So you have a conflict. Yes, we got a conflict. And the conflict calls for us to have courage. Yes, it does. In Psalm 56, 3, whenever I’m afraid, I will trust in you. That’s courage, and that’s faith. Has it ever dawned on you that fear might actually be a mental attitude sin? Fear, in my opinion, is a symptom of assuming an unassigned responsibility. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, controls history, and the Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. What do I have to be afraid of? Turn it over to God. Let him handle the circumstances. If you think somebody’s going to get away with something in this country, you’re dead wrong. Our Father knows exactly what’s going on. He’s well aware of what’s happening in this nation. And nobody, I don’t care what politician it is, they’re not going to get away with anything in God’s system of judgment. So it calls for courage. Trust the Lord. Trust, that’s faith. Trust requires faith. Can you trust that God will handle the situation? You can’t straighten it out. God didn’t send you to straighten it out. God didn’t send me to straighten it out. And the more you and I get involved in anger and worrying and complaining about what’s going on politically, the more it distracts us from what our real objective is, which is to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to represent Christ to our friends and our family. So we have a conflict, and that conflict calls for courage. And that courage, if you use the faith rest drill, can produce confidence in God’s provisions and in God’s protection. Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength. There is the words of the Apostle Paul again. It doesn’t make any difference what the objective is, what the task is. You can do it in Christ Jesus. That’s the prepositional phrase, in Christ Jesus. Well, listen, occupation with Christ is the 10th problem-solving device. Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, meaning have you received him as your Savior? If you have, you are in Christ. You are a new creation. If any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things are passed away. All things become new. That’s a Bible verse. It’s clear you are in Christ Jesus. And so you have to have confidence through Christ who gives you the strength. How does he do it? By means of the Holy Spirit who indwells you and lives in you, who Christ our Lord promised he would send the disciples. When I leave, he told them he was going to send his Holy Spirit to mentor them, tutor them, help them to recall what he taught them. And then they put it in a book called the Bible. And they were letters that they wrote out and assembled later and come to the Bible. So these are our two assets, the Holy Spirit and the Bible. And God provided a man with a gift called the pastor teacher. His objective is to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and to study and teach the Bible so that you and I can learn God’s word and apply it into our life and represent Jesus Christ to our friends. So this courage that is called for produces confidence, and courage produces contentment as well. Notice all the C words. We have a conflict. We have courage. We have confidence. Now we have contentment. What does that mean? In Philippians 4.11, I have learned, the Apostle Paul said, how to be content in whatever circumstances I face. That means no animosity. That means no looking back and complaining about what you should or should not have done. It’s contentment. It’s a wonderful way to live. It’s the greatest capacity for life you could ever have. If you’re not content, God can’t give you anything that’ll make you happy. You know, I believe this. Listen to me carefully. I believe there are many of you that are out there today that would like to receive some gifts from God and he would like to give them to you, but he can’t do it right now because you can’t handle it. You’re not content with what you have. If you’re content with what you have, then God can fill your cup up and it can overflow. But if you’re not content, then whatever he gives you, it’s not going to be enough. It’ll distract you. And that’s the thing about contentment is distraction, staying away from distraction in your spiritual life. You can’t grow spiritually if you’re not content. And that means whatever he gives you, if it’s a lot or if it’s a little, doesn’t make any difference. It means you have to keep a relaxed mental attitude. You have to stay content. You have to know that Jesus Christ is in control of history and God has a plan for your life. Are you content today? There’s nothing wrong with having goals and ambitions and objectives in your life, but just remember that’s not the source of happiness. Happiness comes from what Jesus Christ, our Savior, taught us in Luke 11, 27. Happiness belongs to those people who hear my Father’s Word and keep it. If you hear the Word of God and you keep the Word of God, then you will develop capacity, righteousness, and the ability to be content in every situation. So this contentment is a wonderful thing, and it leads to a final conclusion. And that conclusion is you and I using an RMA, a relaxed mental attitude. What a great way to live. What’s it like? If you have an RMA, what’s it really like? Well, it’s demonstrated by being able to think under pressure. Remember the Bible talks about the fantastic four, wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and understanding. Wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and understanding. An RMA is based and demonstrated by thinking under pressure. A prize fighter, when he gets into the ring, doesn’t get in there and just start swinging away. He’s thinking. He’s learning how to counterpunch. He’s timing his opponent’s punches towards him. He’s learning how to slip a punch. You have an RMA. You think, think, think under pressure. You don’t get mad. You don’t get upset. You don’t get frustrated. You must recall pertinent Bible doctrines you’ve learned and then apply them to the situation. That’s using the faith rest drill. Have you ever seen your dog who gets excited to see you and his tail starts wagging like an agitator on a washing machine just going back and forth? Sometimes your mind gets like that. If you’re under adversity, if you’re under pressure, if you’re under adverse circumstances and you can’t concentrate, you’re not gonna be able to use a faith rest drill. So you have to claim a verse to calm down, claim a verse to use to stabilize your thinking. And that’s where that verse that I gave you in Isaiah comes in handy. No weapon formed against you will ever prosper. You can claim that verse. That can be your verse. You can recite it to yourself. No weapon formed against you will ever prosper. And every tongue which comes up against you in judgment, you will condemn. This is your heritage, says the Lord. So relax. Recall that pertinent doctrine you’ve learned and apply it to the situation. Hear it and keep it. Hear it and keep it. That’s what Jesus said. Happiness belongs to those people who hear my Father’s word and keep it. Hear it and keep it. That’s faith. You learned it. You apply it. So an RMA, a relaxed mental attitude, what a great way to live. It’s the result of using some impersonal love with people. You know, one of the biggest tests in life is people testing. I was talking to my grandson last night and he was talking about at school where some guy said he wasn’t very good at playing football because he dropped a pass and so on. He just said, you’re just not very good, and it hurt his feelings. Well, how do you deal with people that hurt your feelings? How do you deal with people that say bad things about you, that say you’re a loser, that say you’re no good? You use impersonal love. I’m sure there are people in your community, people in your neighborhood, people in your church, people in your school that don’t like you and say things about you. That’s the way the world is because everybody has a sin nature. I don’t care who you are. You’re not going to make everybody happy. Somebody’s going to dislike you, and it may be for weird reasons. I mean, I’ve had people turn on me and never talk to me again, and I never even knew why because you didn’t pay attention to them. So a relaxed mental attitude is a result of impersonal love, and impersonal love is a wonderful problem-solving device, problem-solving device number eight in the 10 problem-solving devices built on your flatline. It cannot be corrupted by flattery. It cannot be corrupted by human rapport, emotional rapport. It cannot be corrupted by being arrogant. It’s free from mental attitude sins. If you have an RMA, a relaxed mental attitude, you can love even the worst type of people because you love them based on who you are, not based on who they are. And as I’ve told you so many times before, this is exactly the way God loved you. Remember John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son Have you forgotten what a jerk you were when God loved you? You weren’t perfect. You didn’t have perfect righteousness, and he loved you. How did he do it? He loved you with his love, not you. He was loving you based on who he is, not based on who you are. Once you believe in Christ and you’re brought into the royal family of God, then it becomes a personal love. You’re his child. Prior to that, it’s an impersonal love. You can use the same impersonal love in your life to love people that don’t like you, people that malign or criticize you or gossip or slander you. You can love them and stay free of any revenge motivation by using impersonal love, and that’s part of an RMA. So if you have enough of the Word of God in your soul, you can think under pressure, You can recall the pertinent word of God you need to use under pressure, and you can use impersonal love when dealing with people that don’t like you, people that put you down, people that malign you. That relaxed mental attitude is an amazing thing. It’s an attitude of being a mature believer. And one thing it indicates is that you’ve got a great sense of humor. Yeah. I told my grandson, laugh it off. If the guy said, you’re no good, laugh at him and say, yeah, you’re right. I’m no good, but I’m trying to get better. Pray for me, brother. That’s a good way to turn them off. So you’ve got to have a good sense of humor. This sense of humor indicates that you have capacity for life as a mature believer. If you’re content, you can have that sense of humor. If you’re not content, you’ll always be frustrated. You’ll always be mad because there’s something you don’t have or something you want or something you wish you had. I think you think something I deserve to have, but I don’t have it yet. If you’re looking at other people and judging your life based on what they have, you’re out of line. Once you begin to have a personal love for God, problem solving device number six, personal love for God, and once you begin to be occupied with Christ, problem solving device number 10, then you will no longer be threatened by things in your life that used to disturb you. You will lose that inferiority complex, which is part of your own arrogance, and you can replace it with what we’re calling a relaxed mental attitude. You’ve turned it over to the Father. You’ve claimed your verses of Scripture. You’re standing on faith, and you’re letting God handle the details. Nothing to worry about. Never have anything to worry about. Relaxed mental attitude. Now, you’re never going to be relaxed in a human relationship until you acquire your personal love. That’s important. You have to understand that. It’s unconditional. It doesn’t put conditions on you loving them. You can love them regardless of who they are. And this means that you can accept people. You can tolerate people as you find them. God didn’t send you to straighten people out. Remember that. you’ll stop being critical, you’ll stop looking down your nose, and you’ll stop being legalistic and saying, well, that person’s not going to heaven. He said a bad word. That person’s not going to heaven. He drinks beer. That’s not true. The only people that don’t go to heaven are the people that refuse to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. That’s plain and simple in the Bible. So impersonal love, this wonderful problem-solving device, is actually you having a relaxed mental attitude by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit rather than being overtly friendly or some sort of hypocrisy It’s you being filled with the Holy Spirit, claiming God’s Word, relaxing, letting the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ handle the circumstances in your life. That gives you harmony. Harmony is that relaxed mental attitude related to the thinking and the function of your spiritual life, which means you’re not second-guessing yourself all the time. And when there’s harmony among believers, well, that demands that there’s some humility and grace orientation and virtue love. You know something else? When you have a relaxed mental attitude, you can have creative thinking. It’s strange, but when we get under stress, our personality can change into an emotional, hypersensitive, caustic person. We even get sarcastic sometimes when we get under stress. That’s you doing it yourself. When under stress, our routine and even our good eating habits become non-existent. And the end result is that we hurt ourselves. We run ourselves down. We think crazy. We can’t sleep. We can’t think. We can’t eat because we’re under stress. Well, when you’re under stress, you can’t even plan for long-term things in your life. You can’t even make short-term decisions. And that’s why people can self-destruct because stress feeds on stress and eventually becomes a lifestyle. It becomes a coping machine for you. And the stressed out person needs a stressful life to keep him from thinking in terms of reality and taking stock of his life and what’s really going on. So the stressed out person’s number one priority is himself and himself only and his obsession with himself. So when tranquility and contentment become a major part of your life, people will no longer hurt you. People can no longer shock you. People can no longer cause you to react. And then you have capacity for life, capacity for love, and the happiness that God provides for you. Then you would have the capacity to see objectively with a relaxed mental attitude everything that used to disturb you can no longer do it. What a wonderful way to live. The opposite of that RMA is stress, that’s what I said. Stress in the soul always results in sin nature controlling your life. Stress in your soul destroys the spiritual life that you may have attained or you’re trying to live because it causes you to get into reversionism or going backwards. And you combine that with some nature control in your soul and it completely destroys any capacity you had to live your life, to love life, to have happiness. Because stress can destroy the inner spiritual strength of the soul. When you combine stress with a sin nature, it results in inner tension and it causes you to have mental disorders, multiple personality dysfunction, even unchecked and perpetuated stress in the soul produces a psychotic Christian. God doesn’t intend for you to be a psychotic Christian. God intends for you to be a normal Christian who thinks right. And what does that mean? Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, what the Bible said. That’s what God intends. who humbled himself and made himself of no reputation. That’s the end of arrogance right there. So the RMA, the person with an RMA is not arrogant. The person with the RMA is not justifying why it’s okay to lash out at someone. He’s not self-absorbed. He’s not judgmental. Remember that that arrogance system starts with self-justification, self-deception, and self-absorption. That always leads to self-destruction. You can’t afford to go there. I mean, come on, your life has been on the edge for a long time now because you don’t have an RMA. You haven’t learned enough of the Word of God to even function with an RMA. You don’t even know what those 10 problem-solving devices are, and they’ve been in the Word of God forever. This is not something new. You must get a hold of the situation in your life. You must be the man or the woman God intended you to be, and it’s time you stepped up to the plate and took charge of your life and developed that RMA, relaxed mental attitude. Now listen, before we end this show, if you’ve got questions, I have a new book that we’ve written. It’s a significant revision of an old book called Crash Course in Christianity. It’s your game plan to how to grow to be a spiritually mature believer, and it’s laid out clearly, and everything is supported by Scripture, and it’s organized under phase one, phase two, and phase three of the Christian life, and it’s free. That’s the most important thing, free upon request. All you got to do is go to the website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, and you can order it there from the website, or you can write to us at post office box 100, post office box 100. in the city of Cropwell, Alabama, Cropwell, Alabama. Our zip code is 35054. We have a couple of other books that are new, Christian Problem Solving, which is a new book. And also we have all the transcriptions of the 2020 Flatline Radio Shows available, 52 of them in print, so that you can read them at your own pace if you want to study them. So I encourage you, order those books and check out our daily podcast. The Flotline Show, it’s podcasted in a convenient way on your smartphone, on your computer. You can find it on Spotify. You can find it on Apple, iTunes, or any other podcast platform. Just go to the podcast platform, hit the search button, type in The Flotline, and you’ll see it. It comes right up, and it’s a daily podcast. As a matter of fact, the show you’re hearing today will be rebroadcast on the podcast next Tuesday. So these are all for you. These are the assets that I’m making available for you. I hope you’ll take advantage of them. What a great opportunity it is for me to give you this information. I thank my father that he’s still allowing me to communicate this truth to you. What a great privilege it is for me. I trust you’re listening. I trust it’s making a difference in your life. If you have a question, get in touch with us anytime possible through our website, rickhughesministries.org. So until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening to this concept of the relaxed mental attitude. And I’ll see you next week, same time, same place.
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.
