Join host Rick Hughes on ‘The Flatline’ as he delves into the vital concepts of spiritual growth and personal faith development. Throughout the episode, Rick emphasizes the significance of understanding and nurturing the soul, the centerpiece of spiritual life. He guides listeners on how to navigate the challenges of insecurity, frustration, and doubt through faith and wisdom. As our bodies age, Rick shares insights on keeping the soul youthful and spiritually vibrant, ensuring it becomes the seat of rational thought and divine perspective.
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 Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. For the next few minutes, I’d like to invite you to stick around because it’ll be simply 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, and no manipulation. That’s right, no con games, no asking for money, not trying to sell you anything. Just want to give you some information that will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If I’m able to do that and you want to orient and adjust to the plan, that’s good. That’s your choice, your decision. So I hope you’ll stick with us. The Flotline has been playing this morning in 112 radio stations across America. I don’t know where you are. I wish I knew where you were. I wish I knew who’s listening to me today because I never know. I record these shows in my studio and they go up over the internet and they go out to the various radio stations and I have no idea who hears them. That’s why I always encourage listeners to write to us at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. Don’t send money. We’re not asking you for money, but we love to hear from you if you’re learning anything and if this is helping you because our objective is to locate positive volition, people that are hungry for truth, and hopefully to help them find a local church where well-qualified pastors teaching the Word of God. That’s how you grow up spiritually. I’m not a pastor. I’ve never claimed to be a pastor. I’m an evangelist. I’m a recruiter for God, for the Lord Jesus Christ. My objective is to introduce you to the Lord Jesus Christ and hopefully you will receive him as your personal savior. It’s the simplest thing in the world to do and it is the single most significant thing you’ll ever do in your life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved is what the Bible says. A lot of people don’t believe that. A lot of people think you got to add something to it, but it’s not necessary because the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone would brag about it. So there is an opportunity to start your life over again today. Today, brand new life. If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things become new, quoting the Bible. So it started for me when I was 22 years old, I accepted Christ as my Savior. And what a wonderful thing, that was all the way back in 1967. Put the years together and you can see I’m not a young spring chicken. And then we’re in our 70s now and we’re trucking along as the Lord allows us to move along. And what I want to talk to you about is something that may be very essential for you to understand. Because I know a lot of young people are not up listening to the radio this morning. A lot of you are my age. You’re in your 50s, 60s, 70s. And you are the ones that are listening to the radio stations wherever we’re playing. So I want to tell you today some essential principles that are important for you to remember as you age, as you get into the latter years of your life. And here is one of them. Your body may age, but your soul is forever young. Your body may age, but your soul is forever young. The Greek word for soul is psuche, P-S-U-C-H-E, psuche. And that’s the invisible, immortal part of you that God created. Basically, you have a body, a soul, and a spirit. And when you’re born Adam’s original sin is imputed to your human spirit and you’re born physically alive, but spiritually dead. That’s why you have to be born again. And that’s a spiritual birth, but the soul is the seat of your spiritual life. This is where everything takes place in your soul. And it’s manifested by your actions and the results of your actions. So if we take your mentality, your thoughts, what you think, what you desire, what are your motives, and if we add your volition, yes or no, yes I will, no I won’t, if you add those two together, then hopefully you get the right thing. Good decisions limit bad decisions, limit future options. Good decisions opens the door for you. So you have volition. That’s important to remember. That’s self-determination. you’re listening to this radio show you determine you would listen the guy doesn’t sound too freaky or weird and nut so i’m going to listen to what he has to say you said i will and that’s your volition you have mentality that’s your mental clarity that’s the ability to think thinking skills rational or irrational But if you can think rationally, you can comprehend what I’m telling you. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you understand problem-solving device number one and two, how to rebound your sins, how to confess your sins, and how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then you can understand God’s plan in the spiritual sense. What God has in the Word has to be deciphered spiritually. The human nature can’t get it, and the Holy Spirit acts as a spiritual interpreter for you. So if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5, 18, be filled with the Spirit, how does that happen? When you confess your sin, you go to God, 1 John 1, 9, you rebound, that’s cleansing your sin, and that puts you back in fellowship with God, back under the filling of the Holy Spirit. When you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, then you can make the rational application to the word of God as it’s taught to you. So then you have a conscience. You have volition, you have mentality. This is all in your soul. I’m talking about what’s inside your soul. Your soul has a conscience, invisible part. That’s your moral reasoning, your moral compass. And hopefully it’s always pointing towards virtue. Virtue first in the Christian life is very important. Your motivational virtue to live for the Lord Jesus Christ is your personal love for God. And your functional virtue to serve God is your impersonal love for all others. So you have a volition and a mentality and a conscience and you have a self consciousness. You have self perception unless you have some dementia issues and that’s where they always get attacked in that area. But at least this morning, if you look in the mirror, you recognize yourself and you know who you are and what state you’re in. So here’s the principle. Your soul, your volition, your mentality, your consciousness, your self-consciousness, your soul is the staging area for all rational thought in your life. What’s the enemy of rational thought? Do you know what that is? It’s called emotions. Emotions are the enemy of clear, lucid thinking. The number one enemy of your mentality as you grow older can be self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself because of the situation you’re in. In Philippians 2.5, the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. which meant that you should have the same intentionality that he had and the same confidence in the Father’s plan that he had. And God wants you to be the same way. He wants you to think like the Lord Jesus Christ thought. That’s it, Philippians 2.5. So as you get older, if you are in your 50s, not so bad. 60s, getting worse. 70s, uh-oh, here we are. Then the battle switches inside internally. And it’s not any longer the lust patterns that you’re fighting now. It’s not your lust for sex, it’s not your lust for power, it’s not your lust for approbation, not your lust for attention. It’s not your chemical lust. Your lust patterns trend to change, they tend to change. And you get into insecurity and frustration, confusion, sometimes even doubt. This is a change in the arena of contention inside your mind, from having fleshly desires to now battling the soul’s mentality. Now it’s no longer about the flesh. Now you’re past that, and now it’s about your mentality, what you think. Are you insecure? Are you frustrated? Are you confused? Do you have doubt? Because only a strong spiritual life can keep you encouraged. only a strong spiritual life can keep you focused as your body begins to disintegrate and it will and so we have a warning in the bible about that mentality of your soul as you get older listen to this warning in proverbs 4 23 above all else guard your heart for everything you do flows from it. Your heart, the Greek word for heart is kardia, K-A-R-D-I-A. We get the English word cardiac, cardiology, et cetera. There’s another word in the Bible for your mind, and that’s called the nous, N-O-U-S. We’re talking here about the part of your soul that is a mentality of your soul. The heart is referring to the mentality of your soul, especially the memory center where your word of God or Bible doctrine is stored and recalled when you need it. And the challenge as you get older is to keep those lanes of thinking open. As you get older, you have to be able to recall and not let the rate of forgetting exceed the rate of learning. You’ve got to keep that lane open, not let it get clogged up with stinking thinking such as self-pity and et cetera, things we’ve been talking about. So this is where you have to, as you get older, you have to guard your heart, not let the adverse circumstances affect you to where you get full of self-pity and frustration. where you get insecure, that’s not the spiritual life. The Hebrew word for guard, guard your heart, Proverbs 4.23, were written in Hebrew. That Hebrew word is nasar, N-A-S-A-R, nasar. And it is an imperative mood verb in the Hebrew, meaning this is a divine mandate recorded by the Holy Spirit for your application. If you can learn and store the word of God in your heart, then this is what’s called divine wisdom. Divine wisdom is the word of God you’ve learned and stored in your heart. Proverbs 2, 10, for wisdom will enter your heart. There it is. Wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. There’s the word soul. Then discretion will protect you and understanding will guard you. So we have the word heart and we have the word soul right here in this passage. God wants you to put in your heart his word because it will sustain you and give you understanding and discretion in your life as you get older. So that command to guard your heart is an indication of where the real enemy is as you get older. where the real attack will come from as you get older. It comes from what you think. This is where you have to be very careful because Satan will do anything he can to neutralize your spiritual life, anything he can to knock you out of the arena of contention. So your thoughts, what you think, can be hijacked. or even redirected through this never ending call to worry, to be afraid, to be afraid of the pandemic, to be afraid of the food shortage, to be afraid of social tension, to be afraid of political intrigue. What about my poor children? You know, it just gets into everything and you fail to think clearly. Using the faith rest drill, problem solving device number three, using grace orientation and biblical orientation, essential for you. If you’re going to live right, you must think right. That reminds me, I need to tell you, we’ve redone the book on Bible promises and principles, and it’s revised with more different promises. All of it’s organized alphabetically by category. It’s a small book. It’ll be easy for you to carry around. If you want it, just get in touch with us. It’s free. We’ll send it to you. All right, so don’t let your thoughts be hijacked by worrying, by being afraid, by being full of self-pity, because as the fog ascends across America, fog, F-O-G, maybe you’ve heard me mention that. That’s what’s going on in America today. Failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion in the streets, and God’s word rejected, fog. failure of spiritual leadership, open rebellion in the streets, God’s word rejected. As this fog descends across America, you will find it very hard not to be frustrated. Very hard. So how do you actually do what the Bible says, guard your heart? How do you do that? Well, the mechanics are found in Philippians four, eight Philippians four, eight, think about the right things. So just as you worked hard to keep your body in shape when you were young, running, you know, on the treadmill, doing your yoga, doing your Pilates, doing everything you have to work even harder as you get older to keep your soul’s mentality in shape. to keep your soul in shape. Psalm 73, 24, with your word in my soul, you will guide me and then afterwards take me up to glory. With your word in my soul. There it is again. This is how God guides you through his word in the mentality of your soul. So why is your soul important? Well, because of rational thought versus irrational emotions. You can’t live the Christian life based on irrational emotions. It’ll distract you and destroy you. So when first Peter two 11, the Bible says, dearly beloved, I beseech you as travelers and pilgrims and foreign lands abstain from fleshly lusts, which make war against your soul. Make war against your soul. There it is right there. This is why you have to guard your heart. You have to keep away from the emotions and not, it’s always the battle, emotions versus rational thinking. You know, emotions always react to situations. And As a mature believer, you can respond. If you have something that goes crazy, haywire, weird, you can get mad, angry, jump up and down, kick the ground, curse, do whatever you want to do. That’s your emotions. It’s not going to solve anything. Or you can use the spiritual solution. Human solutions are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. What do I do? Faith, rest, and drill. Stand behind the promises of God. Realize the Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. Take it easy. Laugh about it. Satan just trying to get to you, trying to frustrate you, trying to get your mind off of the Word of God in your soul had you ever learned it to start with. If you haven’t taken in the Word of God, if you haven’t applied the Word of God to your soul, then you have no biblical wisdom. And you don’t get wisdom unless you study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Scripture, scripture, scripture. Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Scripture, scripture, scripture. You can’t have wisdom without doing those things, studying and growing. So why is your soul important? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because it is saved for eternal life. Your body of corruption will go to dust. It will be destroyed. You’re in the process of dying. Face it, we’re all dying. All of us are. We cannot go to heaven in this human body. It won’t work. And so the body of corruption is being destroyed and we will be given a resurrection body, a beautiful, unbelievable body where our soul will live forever and ever and ever. Psalm 34, 22, the Lord redeems the souls of his servants. and none of them who trust in him shall be desolate, which means abandoned or forsaken. So the Father will not abandon you. He will not forsake you. You will die. You must die if you want to get to heaven and have a new resurrection body. And dying grace is a phenomenal part of the Christian’s life. being able to face that time in your life and not be afraid. Look forward to the promotion. I call it being called to the home office, and that’s going to happen for you and me and every living person alive. If you’re not a believer, if you’ve never accepted Jesus Christ, it’s not a very nice thing because it’s the lake of fire. It’s hell for you, not because God wants to, not because he’s mad at you, because you in your arrogance rejected God’s life preserver. He sent his son to die for you. He sent his son to take your place on the cross. And you said, no, I don’t want that. Okay, it’s your decision, your choice. You face your own destiny, you decided it. I pray you’re smart enough not to do that. I pray you’re smart enough to say, Father, if it’s real, show me, let me know so I can put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the greatest conflicts in your life this morning are the conflicts in the mentality of your soul. They are invisible and they are unseen except for God. God can see what you’re going through. God does know what you’re thinking. He can see your irrational fears. He can see your emotional outbursts. He sees these things because he’s omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. So our greatest conflicts are what we think in our mind. Again, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ never got full of self-pity. He never doubted the Father’s plan. He forged ahead, even though he was treated very unfairly. All the way to the cross, he put his faith in his Father, where he said, not my will, but thy will be done. Many people try to hide their thoughts from God. Maybe you’ve tried that this morning, trying to not let God know what you’re thinking. That’s impossible because those who try to hide their thoughts from God, their intentions and their desires, they can’t hide it. Their intentions and their desires are called the mentality in their soul. And the Bible says in Proverbs 24, seven, as a man thinks in his heart, so he is. God knows what you’re thinking. So this tells us that if we think right, we’ll do right. Right motives, right intentions, right desires are all the responsibility of your own personal volition. And it has to be based on biblical wisdom in your soul. Therefore, Romans 12 three says, stop thinking, there it is, I told you it’s thinking, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. But think in terms of sanity as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. Thinking in terms of arrogance means you justify what’s wrong and you say it’s right. It means you lie to yourself and lie to others. Self-justification, self-deception, and then eventually self-absorption. You can tell it lie long enough to where you eventually believe it actually happened and it didn’t. This is important for you. You must understand this. You must have a right sort of thinking in your mind. You cannot think in terms of arrogance. That’s emotional thinking and that will destroy you. You have to think divine viewpoint. That’s why we have to establish the flat line in your soul. What does it mean to think in terms of arrogance? Well, self-justification leads to jealousy, bitterness. Self-deception leads to implacability and anger. And self-absorption leads to revenge, motivation, malice, violence, et cetera. Now you can do that, or you can do what the Bible says, but in Psalm 32, nine, I like this little short verse, because sometimes it’s descriptive of what we really are. don’t be like a horse or a mule that has no understanding psalm 32 9 do not be like a horse or a mule that has no understanding thick-headed muse don’t understand much god doesn’t need you to be thick-headed he needs you to listen and learn and apply and so paul wrote in philippians 4 8 finally my brethren whatever things are true whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue, if there’s any praise, these are the things you should think on. Think on these things. Here’s your spiritual life right here. It’s lit between your ears, it’s in your head, it’s your soul, the invisible, immortal part of you. That’s where your spiritual life takes place. And he says, concentrate on these things. Think on these things. That verb is what we call a present middle imperative of the word logizomai. An imperative mood is a command from God. This is not a request. This is a command from God. This is what you must think on, focus on, concentrate on. This is where your concentration must be regardless of your age. Why? So you can form soul stability. So you can stay out of arrogant preoccupation with yourself or political or personal issues. And by doing things, these things, you are guarding the mentality of your soul. By doing what? What I just read you. Think on these things. What if things are honest? What if things are just? What if things are pure? You cannot afford to be overwhelmed by anxiety and stress in the later years of your life. So whatever things are true, what does that mean? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is truth. You must have the ability to distinguish the truth from the lie. And evil is the lie. You know what the most evil thing in the world is? Organized religion. Most evil thing in the world. More people will go to the lake of fire in the name of organized religion because they rejected Christ as Savior. The Bible says you’re saved by grace through faith. Organized religion says you’re saved by keeping a ritual system, by doing this or doing that, and that’s not salvation. And so whatever things are true means you must understand what the truth is compared to what the lie is. Thus insight and discernment from biblical wisdom And this is what the Apostle Paul said puts on the belt of truth. Put on the belt of truth. Stand firm, Ephesians 6, 14, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist so you know what the truth is. Whatever things are honest, honest, Isaiah 32, 8, he who is honest plans honest things and on honesty he stands. So whatever things are honest means that you’re not allowed to deceive people. You’re not allowed to bamboozle people. Whatever things are just, whatever things are divine standard. Divine standards, what’s that? James 2, 1, show no partiality as you hold your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You’re not allowed to be partial. You’re not allowed to be racially prejudiced. Whatever things are pure means thinking free from the influence of evil. Whatever things are lovely, and this is an interesting word, and this is not referring to a beautiful sunset, but rather referring to the beauty of coming face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever things are a good report, speaking confidently or favorably about a person or about circumstances. if there’s any virtue think on these things that’s what he said if there’s any virtue think on these things because as we ought to think then we will love as we ought to love if we think like we ought to think we will love like we ought to love so to think as we ought to think is to be motivated not by any personal desire but to be motivated by the divine standards of the word of god called biblical wisdom in your soul Grace and truth are God’s standard of thinking. Grace and truth are God’s standard of thinking. John 1, 17, for the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth are given, are realized through the Lord Jesus Christ. And then the Lord Jesus Christ prayed in John 17, 17, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. This is where you live the Christian life in the mentality of your soul. So to reach your own potential and to be accomplishing your capabilities, you have to think correct thoughts. You have to think the correct thoughts. You have to arm your soul, establish your soul with a biblical inventory of what the word of God says so that you can have the right kind of spiritual life. Because if you don’t arm your soul, you’re going to be a sitting duck in the angelic conflict. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re paying attention. Because you might not have any control over your DNA, but you have a lot of control over the formation of your soul. Study, grow, learn, apply, live, glorify God to the maximum. And you will hear, well done, my good and faithful servant. The soul is important. It’s where you live your spiritual life and the mentality of your soul. I hope you’re learning. I hope you’re listening. And I hope most of all you will apply. If you have a question, please don’t hesitate to contact us at rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. Until next week, this is Rick saying thank you for listening. Be back same time, same channel next week. Until then, may God bless you richly.
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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.
