Join Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he dives deep into understanding the essential doctrines of the faith rest drill and rebound. This episode highlights the unique problem-solving devices that are the foundation of grounding and stabilizing one’s spirituality. With a focus on the importance of distinguishing between knowing God and truly understanding His works, Rick encourages listeners to establish a more profound connection with the Divine.
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, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. It’s always about 30 minutes long, a lot of motivation, a lot of inspiration, a whole lot of education, and no manipulation because we don’t sell anything. We’re not trying to raise money. We’re not trying to con you to do anything. We would just like for you to listen as we present to you the Word of God to help you verify and identify god’s plan for your life if you’re interested and if you are then you have the freedom to orient and adjust to the plan but our show the flatline flot is based around god’s unique problem-solving devices found in the bible 10 of them per se and this is something my pastor taught me years ago and he with his blessings i can present it to you but 10 unique problem-solving devices called a flat line, or in other words, a main line of resistance that stop the outside sources of adversity from becoming the inside sources of stress. Number three on the flat line of your soul is the faith, rest, and drill. Very critical doctrine. We’re going to talk a little bit about that today. Number one is rebound. That’s how you recover from sin when you mess up, and you will. Because the Bible says if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourself and the truth is not in us. But when we sin, we are given the gracious means of rebounding, 1 John 1, 9. And it says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and purify us from all of our wrongdoing. That leads us to the filling of the Holy Spirit. That gives us the victory over the flesh, because the Bible says in Galatians, the flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit wars against the flesh. And we are mandated in Ephesians 5.18 to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So by rebounding, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. And then you begin to use your volition to trust God as you go through certain circumstances in your life with the faith rest drill. Now this show has always been about motivation, as I said earlier, inspiration, education, And my objective remains the same, always has been, always will be, to use the scriptures. And I try to explain how an individual can have a personal relationship with God because if the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, because of that. And I’ve told you, I’ve explained to you how God judged Christ instead of us, instead of you, instead of me. He judged the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf so that by believing in his finished work on the cross, you and I can be the recipients of eternal life. Very simply put, a couple of verses, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, John 3, 17, but that the world through him, by means of him, might be saved. And in John 3, 15, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. If you would like to have eternal life, it comes through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that’s the only way. That’s why John 3.36 says, he who believes in the Son has everlasting life. And he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him right then forever. If you haven’t made this decision, my earnest plea is to urge you to place your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross and express that faith to prayer, to God in your prayer. Because the Bible says in Romans 10, 13, whoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And you can actually do that right now. I’ve spoken in many churches, many schools, many business associations, and I’ve seen many people do this. If you would be willing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, I would be willing to lead you in a simple prayer. And that prayer would express your desire to be saved. It expresses your desire to what you want God to do for you. You want to pray with me? If you’ve never asked God to save you before, here’s the prayer. Why don’t you pray it with me? Not out loud, just silently. You can say, Father, I know I’m a sinner. and that I desire to be saved. Just repeat it. Father, I know I’m a sinner, and that I desire to be saved. Today, I’m willing to put my trust in your son, Jesus, and receive him as my savior. Thank you for hearing my prayer, and thank you for saving me. That’s a simple prayer. I wonder if you prayed that with me. Did you? Did you utter those words after I gave them to you? Did you pray them along with me? So if you did, what happened? Well, in 1 John 5, 14 and 15, this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Well, we know it’s God’s will that none should perish, no, not one. And we know that if he hears us, John 5, 15, whatever we ask, we know we have of him. So you ask God to save you, and God did that. He did exactly what you asked him to do. Now, you probably didn’t feel anything. You didn’t see an angel. You didn’t hear any harps. Neither did I when I prayed a prayer like that. That’s what it takes. If you did that today, you became a Christian. I hope if you prayed along with me that you’d let me know. I’d love to hear from you. You can write us a letter and go to our website and send us an email or write us at P.O. Box 100 in the city of Cropwell, Alabama, 35054. And just simply say, Rick, I prayed with you to receive Christ as my Savior. I would love to send you a couple of books that we’ve written that would help you understand what took place. And if you’ve prayed along with me and that’s the first time you’ve ever asked God to save you, please, please let me know. And that would be great. Now, I want to ask those of you who are already believers, already Christians, how well, listen carefully now, how well do you know the God you worship? How well do you know the God you worship? The Bible says in the scriptures that God is looking for those who know him and understand him. And I’d like to tell you, and you’ve heard me say this before, there is a difference between knowing God and understanding God. It’s possible you know God through Christ, but you don’t understand the God you know. How do I know what this is saying? God is looking for those that know him and understand him. Where did that come from? Jeremiah 9, 24. But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands me and he knows me, that I am the Lord, exercising love and kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight, saith the Lord. Wow, do you understand the gods you know and love? How could you even possibly worship a god you don’t understand? That’s the question. On the flat line of your soul, you are told to establish and use the faith rest drill. You heard me say earlier, problem solving device number three, the faith rest drill. One of the steps in using the faith rest drill to stabilize your thinking is claiming a biblical rationale in order not to panic, in order to stabilize your thoughts when you go through adversity so you don’t get into the fear panic ploy. What is a rationale? What’s that? Well, it’s a set of logic or reason, exactly what it is, some better set of reason to trust God. It’s the concept of his essence. Can you trust God based on his essence? That’s a rationale for you to understand, the essence of God. The essence of God always refers to what his attributes are. Do you know, listen carefully, do you know the attributes of God, the God you worship, the God you say you love, the God you’re depending on to provide for your needs and protection and give you eternal life? Do you know his attributes? Should you even know them? I say yes, because they’re part of the problem-solving devices called the faith rest drill. Faith rest drill starts off with you claiming a promise to settle down, then it moves to you going to a biblical rationale or set of reasons or logic, and then it goes to forming a conclusion. I want to go over with you something today that I don’t think I’ve ever been over this with you on the radio show. But if you don’t have a clear understanding of how God functions and how God operates, then you’re never going to have any true thanksgiving in your life. And you’ll never even be grateful for anything that’s happened to you. So let me go over some of the attributes of God with you. Could you let me do that? Maybe you might want to write these down. First of all, God is sovereign, sovereignty, sovereign, S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N, sovereign. The sovereignty of God is his infinite, immutable, eternal, and perfect divine volition, his choice. His decisions, his decisions, his volition, he makes these decisions are based on his thinking. But here’s the thing, God never had to come up with a thought. There was never a thought or a decision, there was never a thought or a decision that he didn’t have from eternity past because God, number one, never made a bad decision like you and I, and there never was or there never will be a person for whom God did not have a perfect plan in eternity past, you or me. God’s plan for our life is the only way to have any happiness, the only way to have any tranquility, and the only way to have any blessing, based on the sovereignty of God. Listen to Philippians 2.13. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do his good pleasure. We can never have any happiness in life until we do his good pleasure. God’s good pleasure is found in the canon of Scripture in Psalm 93.1. The Lord reigns. He is clothed with majesty. The Lord has clothed himself with power. In fact, the world is firmly established and he will not be moved. That is God’s sovereignty. The Lord reigns, clothed with majesty. The God you worship is a sovereign God. He is the only God, there are not any other gods. He is the immutable, eternal, unchanging, perfect God. And every decision made based on us is based on his thinking. So he’s sovereign. Write that down, God is sovereign. And then secondly, I want you to write down he is just. God is justice. God is fair, that’s what that means. As a matter of fact, it’s impossible for God to be unfair in the function of his divine justice. He is the only judge who’s never rendered a wrong decision, unlike some we see on TV today. In all the trillions of decisions that God has rendered, and there have been trillions of them throughout the history of the world, God has never been unfair or incorrect because the justice of God administers the penalties and decisions which are demanded by his perfect righteousness. The justice of God does not need any help in dealing with the unfairness and injustice that we have. He can handle it if you will turn it over to the Supreme Court of Heaven. This is where we fail a lot of times because we want to handle it ourselves. We get upset, we get mad, we get discouraged, and we want to get revenge. Let God handle it. Go to the Supreme Court of Heaven and lay it at his feet. He will take care of it. So God is sovereign, God is just, and God is righteous. He’s absolutely righteous. That’s another part of his attributes. He’s absolutely good and free of any sin, perfect in his nature, because without perfect righteousness, he could not even be God. And it’s only by possessing this sort of righteousness that we could have a relationship with him. You can have the same righteousness because it comes through Christ. Listen to these verses. Here’s the righteousness of God, Isaiah 64, six and seven. We are all like an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses, the things we manufacture, are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf. and our iniquities like the wind having taken us away. And there’s no one who calls on your name, who stirs himself up to take hold of you. For you have hidden your face from us and have consumed us because of our iniquities. So is the righteousness of God available to you and me? He’s absolutely righteous, can we be? Absolutely we can. How could you and I be absolutely righteous? Romans 3.22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ is for all who believe and there’s no distinction made between Jew and Gentile. Again, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. By praying a simple prayer like you did earlier, you are given the equal righteousness of Christ, thus you have a relationship with God now, not based on what you do, not based on what you say, but based on what Christ did for you on that cross. So God is sovereign, he’s just, he’s righteous, and he’s love. We know that. We know God is love. But to understand God’s love, it helps us to appreciate and understand what’s available to us under the wisdom and power of God by way of love in the human race. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. What motivated our father to send his only begotten son? His love for you. Love for God as a personal love and impersonal love for all mankind. We’re told to use that. And you can understand that. That’s part of the problem-solving package. Problem-solving devices number seven and eight. Personal love for God and personal love for others. But God is love. God is eternal. Therefore, God’s love existed eternally. And it’s unsustained by himself or any other source. There never was a time when God was not love. And this love is unsustained by God or any other source, as I said, in contrast to human love. which must be sustained by something. You gotta love something. You love your wife, your husband, you love your car, you love your boat, you love your children, you love your job. But God does not like that. Doesn’t need anything to be sustaining his love. God’s love never had a beginning and it has always existed and it always will. God’s love does not stop. God’s love does not turn away because someone insults him or blasphemes him. You don’t have the power or the ability to change God’s love because his love is absolutely perfect. Cause God foreknew human failure. He knew this was coming. He did not cancel his love for those of us who fail. He is love. So when you’re using the faith thrust drill, trying to understand why something happened to you, if you back up in your mind, use the biblical rationale of his essence, his attributes. Did he love me? Yes. Did he know this was going to happen to me? Yes. Is it unfair? No. Watch how this works. Now here’s another attribute of God. It’s called immutability, immutable. God is immutable. What does that mean? It means that God is unchangeable. He is absolutely stable. He doesn’t vary, no variations. He’s the same yesterday. He’s the same today and the same forever. Hebrews 13, six, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So God doesn’t change his mind. God doesn’t change. The God you came to know when you believed in Christ is still the same God. He’s the same God in the Old Testament, the same God in the New Testament, a God with a new covenant now for the church. But he is immutable. He will never change. And here’s another word, a big word for you. I want you to learn this one. God is omniscient. What does that mean, omniscient? O-M-N-I-S-C-I-E-N-T, omniscient. That simply means that God knows every thought that every person ever had throughout human history. He knows what you’re thinking right now, and he knows what you thought yesterday, and he knows what you’re gonna think tomorrow because the Bible says as a man thinking in his heart, so he is. And if God wants to check you out, he’s not looking at your image and your style. He’s looking at what you’re thinking. He’s looking at what you’re thinking. He knows perfectly. He knows eternally and simultaneously all that is even possible to know. And that’s called the foreknowledge of God. Scientists are trying to discover the black holes, trying to discover an alternate universe, trying to discover this, trying to discover that. God knew that millions and millions and millions of years ago. He knows everything. He knows everything because he’s omniscient. What about another word? God is omnipotent. There’s another word starts with an O, omnipotent. What does that mean? It means he’s all powerful. He has the power to do whatever he wishes to do. He had the power to save you, the power to save me, the power to deliver us. He’s all powerful and it’s unlimited in his ability and in his authority. Revelation 4.8 mentions the power and authority of God. It says this, the four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they did not rest day or night saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. That’s the power of God, his omnipotent. There’s nothing God cannot do. There’s nothing he has not done. And there’s nothing he will not do for you if you trust him. Because nothing with God is impossible. Nothing with God is impossible. Luke 137, for with God, nothing shall be impossible. Do you hear it? With God, nothing shall be impossible. So not only is he omniscient, not only is he omnipotent, he’s also omnipresent. This is what gets me a lot of times. People have a worship service and say, oh, God was here tonight, we felt him. That’s so silly because God is imminent and transcendent. God was in that building before you got there, and he’ll be in the building when you’re gone. Wherever you are, you might have got emotional and you might have felt something, but it wasn’t God. He was already there. He’s eternally present everywhere. In Jeremiah 23, 24, can anyone hide himself in a secret place so I should not see him, says the Lord? Do I not fill heaven and earth, says the Lord? Absolutely he does. He is omnipresent. So if I travel to Georgia, if I travel to Texas, if I travel to California, God is there with me. And he was there before I got there. Wherever you’re listening today, in whatever city you might be in, there are about 100 plus cities of you that are listening to me today, God is there with you. And when you turn the radio off and when you go into your bedroom tonight, God will be there with you. He’s omnipresent. He’s not going to leave your side. He assures you you are never, never, never alone. And he witnesses everything we do. He sees it all. And he is immediately available at any moment you need him. All you have to do is call on him and he’s there. He is omnipresent. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is immutable. He is what? He is love. He’s righteousness. He’s justice. He’s sovereignty. Wow, those are some of the attributes of God. Maybe you didn’t know all of that. I hope I’m teaching you something you haven’t heard before. Here’s another word maybe you haven’t heard before. God is veracity. Veracity, V-E-R-A-C-I-T-Y, veracity. What does that mean? It means that God is absolute truth. Absolute truth. In John 8 45, Jesus said, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me? Our Lord Jesus Christ never lied, never misled anybody. As God, he was absolute truth. And remember, he was God. He was undiminished deity and true humanity in one body forever. The God-man. He is the origin of truth. God is the origin of all truth. Listen to John 17, 17. Sanctify them by your truth because your word is truth. There it is. This alone should give you confidence to trust God’s plan for your life. the plan that’s revealed in the scriptures, should you have a desire to investigate it. But many of us have managed to mess things up by ignoring what he said. Do you even have a desire to learn what God has for you? Do you have an interest in that? Because he’s truth, he won’t mislead you. He has a fabulous plan for your life. And it starts by you accepting Christ as your savior and entering into his royal family. Now also, God is eternal life. Finally, the attribute we want to close out with. God is eternal life. And he invites you to have eternal life as well. In Psalm 90 verse two, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. There was no beginning and there was no ending. He’s God from everlasting to everlasting. There was never a time when God did not exist and he continues to exist without any termination. In Deuteronomy 32, 40, for I raise my hand to heaven and say as I live forever. See, the Bible says to God one day is like a thousand years. In 2 Peter 3, 8, but beloved, do not forget this. One thing that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. What does that mean? It means there are no clocks in heaven. When you get to heaven, there’s not going to be a clock. It’s not going to be one day, two days, three days. It’s forever. so god has extended to you and i a gracious offer would you like to share that eternal life with him would you like to have eternal life you can and you can share it with him because the bible says he who believes in the son has eternal life And he who does not believe the Son shall not see eternal life, but the wrath of God would abide on him. John 3.36. Again, I’m going to read it again. Listen. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life. And he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. These attributes are the essence of God, and they are a guarantee for you that you can depend on him regardless of what may come your way. So when you use a faithless drill, you have some adversity hit your life and you don’t understand what’s going on. Once you claim a promise and calm down, relax, one of those 7,000 promises in the Bible, grab a hold of it, hold on to it, And then reverse your concentration. Go back to a biblical logic, a biblical rationale. Go through the essence of God that I just gave you. God’s veracity. Would he lie to me? No. God is love. Does he love me? Yes. God is immutable. Will he ever change? No. God is what? Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Each one of these guarantees you that he is in control and he knows what you’re going through and you never have to worry about one thing if you turn it over to him. I hope you wrote these down. I hope you remember them. I hope you won’t forget them. Those are the attributes of God taught to me by my pastor many years ago. I hope it encourages you, and I hope you’ll come back next week. Same time, same place. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.
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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.
