In this episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes dives deep into understanding the spiritual life and its significance beyond mere church attendance. Is your spiritual life thriving or merely surviving? Rick delves into biblical perspectives to demonstrate how a truly fulfilled Christian life begins with understanding and embracing your spiritual journey. Learn how spiritual maturity extends beyond emotional experiences to actionable, faith-driven living.
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 stick around. 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And we try to do that with no manipulation, which means we don’t con people. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not trying to ask you to join anything. We’re not asking you for money. We’re just asking you to listen as we try to verify and identify God’s plan for your life. The Flatline, that’s our show, sharing the wonderful problem-solving devices found in the Bible. So many of you have called me and said you enjoy the show and you’ve written me letters. Thank you. Many of you have even made contributions, and thank you for those as well. But let me remind you that we have a great book called Christian Problem Solving, Practicing Your Christianity, and Crash Course in Christianity. They’re all available. We also have the book on Promises and Principles that’s available, as well as our transcripts. If you go to our website, it’s rickhughesministries.org. It’s not Richard Hughes Ministries. Unfortunately, that’s a different person. Same name, different person. Unfortunately, but it’s rickhughesministries.org. There you’ll find our website and you’ll find all our books available. And many of them you can play right there and listen online. If you don’t particularly care about reading or have a hard time reading, you can listen online, especially to our book called God’s Creation Aging. One of our best books we’ve given in a long time. So many people have requested that book. If you’d like to have a copy, let us know. Go to the website and order it or call 800-831-0718. That’s 800-831-0718. Now today, I want to talk to you about something that’s a continuation from last week’s show. We’ve been talking about the spiritual life. The spiritual life. The craze in media advertisement today is all about buying something or doing something that’ll make you feel better, make you live longer. Modern advertisements spend millions of dollars trying to entice us into buying their products. Exercise machines, special foods that are supposed to be healthy and heck, they’ll even deliver it to your door. You don’t even have to cook it. Or you can buy pills to enhance your performance in the bedroom. It’s all about the body. Some skinny people try to gain weight. Some heavy people try to lose weight. But listen to what God says about your body. In Psalm 139 verse 14, I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. You are what God created. And there’s nothing wrong with trying to take care of yourself. Nothing wrong with trying to get in shape. Nothing wrong with trying to eat proper and eat healthy. But there is something wrong if all you focus on is your body. It’s true, you need to be concerned about your physical health, but what about the health of your soul, the invisible part of you? If you are a Christian, and many of you are that are listening to me today, if you’re not a Christian, this verse is not even gonna apply to you because you don’t have a spiritual life. At best, you have a body and a soul, but you have no spirit. Therefore, you have no ability to have fellowship with God because the Bible clearly says if we’re going to worship God, we must worship him in spirit and in truth. But if you’re a Christian, you’ve been given a spiritual life, and that functions inside of your invisible, immortal soul, your mentality, your volition, your consciousness, and your self-consciousness. That’s basically the makeup of your soul, and that’s the image of God as we were created in his image. So when I talk about the spiritual life, capital letters, the spiritual life, that’s a term seldom spoke of in most churches today. As a matter of fact, when I ask folks to describe their spiritual life, many people have no answer. Most often the spiritual life is related to going to church and attending a worship service. As a matter of fact, many believers will attend church services this morning during the radio show. and they will be in a state glazed and dazed going through a ritual that often has no reality to it. Many people think they are being spiritual as they sing and offer praise to God. And praising God, that’s a good thing. Psalm 50, 23 says, whosoever offers praise glorifies me. However, the spiritual life includes much more than offering praise to God. We need to understand what the spiritual life actually is and how the spiritual life actually operates. So I’m gonna ask you a question. Answer this to the best of your ability, to yourself, privately of course, but how’s your spiritual life going? If I ask you that face to face, how’s your spiritual life going, what would you say? I mean, if I ask you how’s your physical life going, you’d say, oh, I got arthritis, or my eyes are failing me, or my hearing’s not too good, but I’m asking you about your spiritual life. How is your spiritual life going? Many people think activity or human ability is the function of the Christian life, and that eventually leads to emotion as a criteria for the Christian life. My pastor taught me that a long time ago. Emotion is not the criteria for the spiritual life. The spiritual life of the Christian like you and I is based on quality, not activity. meaning that we must understand what the spiritual life is before we understand the activities that actually God wants us to do or expects from us. So this quality requires thought, thinking. People are changed by thought. The Bible tells us that, Romans 12, two and three. 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. So when you become a Christian, the objective is to begin to think differently. A Christian is changed by cognition of the Word of God, which empowers that spiritual life I’m talking about. The Holy Spirit that God gives you at salvation is direct power from God to live the spiritual life. And the scripture, our Bible doctrine, is the delegated power by God, which he entrusted to you to learn, to use, and to share. But your spiritual life will not function without these two divine assets. What is that? The filling of the Holy Spirit and the word of God are the scriptures. These two combine to form spiritual skills necessary to live the spiritual life. And we know these skills as we try to call it the flat line in your soul. The ability in your soul’s mentality to establish a main line of resistance so you can stop the outside sources of pressure before they become the inside source of stress. But no Christian can live the spiritual life without the word of God directing and empowering them. How do I know that? Well, Hebrews 4.12 tells us that. The word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and to the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there you go, what you think and what you do right there. It’s the word of God that’s supposed to guide you under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So where does the spiritual life start? How does it get going? Well, The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone’s in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Basically, what that means is before you accepted Christ, you had a body and a soul. You were two people, body and soul. But now that you’ve accepted Christ, you have a body and a soul and a spirit. My pastor used to say you were a bicotomist. Now you’re a tricotomist. Three of you, body, soul, and spirit. So your spiritual life begins at salvation. At salvation, you are born again. That means your dead human spirit that was infected by Adam’s original sin is now made alive, so in essence you now have a physical life, yes, that didn’t change, but you have a spiritual life, which is required to have fellowship with God. As I told you in John 4, 24, God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So the natural man, the man that has not been saved, the man who has not trusted Christ to save him, He has not been born again and he cannot, it is impossible for him to understand the things of God. You hear me? The person who is not saved, the natural man, the person who has not been born again cannot understand the things of God. Why is that? Because it requires a spiritual life to receive spiritual instruction. Again, listen, it requires a spiritual life to receive spiritual instruction. Where would I get a thought like that? 1 Corinthians 2.14, but the natural man, the unsaved person, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. There it is right there. So the spiritual life is lived in the mentality of your soul. Don’t forget that every action you do begins with a thought. And that thought will eventually become an attitude and that attitude will eventually become an action. So the unique thing about the spiritual life provided for the believer is this, it’s called divine viewpoint. And divine viewpoint is built by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit plus positive volition to learning and obeying God’s command, God’s word. And the motivation to do this comes from personal love for God. That’s your motivation. 1 John 5, 3, this is the love of God. If I ask you, do you love God? And you say, yes, sir, I love God. I’ve asked a thousand people that question. Do you love God? Yes, I love God. Well, listen to the verse. This is the love of God. Here’s the proof. Now you love God that we keep his commandments and they are not hard. Do you obey God? If you don’t obey him, you don’t love him. So just as a physical body requires nutrients to survive, a good old steak, some good old fried chicken, some good old pork chops, some good salmon, some good catfish, your body requires nutrients to survive. Well, the spiritual life requires spiritual nutrients to grow into a spiritually mature Christian. A Christian who’s in fellowship with God by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit is said to be spiritual, yes, but not necessarily spiritually mature. The Christian who has grieved the Holy Spirit by committing personal sin is said to be carnal. So at any one time in your life, you are either spiritual or you are carnal. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, you’re carnal. If you don’t have unconfessed sin in your life, if you’ve used Rebound, problem-solving device number one, and you’ve named your known sins to God when they occurred, you’re spiritual. That does not mean you’re spiritually mature. It just means you’re spiritual. So a Christian who’s in fellowship with God is said to be spiritual, not necessarily spiritually mature. And that’s what I’m interested in, your spiritual life becoming a spiritually mature Christian. 1 Corinthians 3, one through three, Paul wrote about the carnal people when he said, and I, brethren, writing to the church at Corinth, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, That means they were not staying in fellowship, but as unto carnal. That means they were getting out of fellowship, not confessing their sin. As to babies in Christ Jesus. He said, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it. And even now you are still not able, for you are still carnal. And then he identifies what their carnality is. He goes on to say there’s envy within the church there. Let me see if I can turn this page. There’s envy, there’s strife, and there’s division among you. Are you not carnal and behaving like mere men, like mere lost people? In other words, they were emulating a lost individual by the way they were acting, and they’re carnal. When you get out of fellowship with God, When you quench and grieve the Holy Spirit, you will imitate a lost person. You’ll go back to what you used to do. You’ll live like you used to live. But our objective as a new Christian is to become spiritually mature. That’s the question I’m asking you. Are you becoming spiritually mature? How’s your spiritual life going? Are you growing in grace? Listen to 1 Peter 2, 2. As newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. Spiritual childhood begins the moment you accept Christ as your Savior. But we’ve got to learn how to recover from our sin, recover from our failure, as well as learn how to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and use the faith rest drill. Because our ultimate objective is spiritual maturity. Why is that? Because that’s where we begin to replicate the life of Christ. Listen to Hebrews chapter six verse one. Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity. Hear the word maturity? not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God. You don’t have to get saved again. You just need to grow up, the Bible’s saying. Because in spiritual maturity, the Christian has the spiritual skills to handle difficulties in life. I mean, it could be adversity or even worse, it could be prosperity. Both are equally distracting. And if you don’t have the spiritual coping skills to deal with it, either one of them will destroy you Paul identified it in Philippians 4, 11 through 13 when he said these words, not that I speak in regards of need for I’ve learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I’ve learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need and I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength or who strengthens me. Yeah, prosperity is a terrible test. I’ve seen people say, if I could just win the lottery, I’d be happy. If I could just get that big inheritance, I’d be happy. I’ve seen people fight and do bad things to their siblings to be sure to get their share of the inheritance, thinking they’re going to be happy. Unhappy people take their unhappiness with them wherever they go. Remember that. And we spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t even like. Isn’t that a pitiful thing? So the primary objective of your spiritual life and mine also is for us to reach spiritual maturity, which in effect is occupation for the person of Christ. That’s what God wants us to do. Philippians 3, 13. Brethren, I don’t count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, I forget those things which are behind me and I reach forward to those things which are ahead of me. That’s going to occupation with Christ. Remember those 10 problem solving devices. Do you know them? We have a bookmark that has all 10 of them on there. If you want that, just write to me through the website and say, send me the bookmark on the 10 problem solving devices and put it in your Bible so you can learn them and use them because you will never learn how to use the Christian life without understanding this. have to learn how to rebound how to deal with your sin you have to learn how to be filled with the holy spirit so you don’t quench the spirit you have to learn how to walk by faith using the faithless drill you have to learn how to orient to the grace of god especially through salvation for by grace are you saved grace orientation you have to orient to bible doctrine or learning the word of god you have to have a personal sense of destiny These are all problem-solving devices, and we are motivated by our personal love for God, a wonderful virtue that God says is a great thing. And it’s impersonal love for others is another thing that’s great. So virtue love includes loving God and loving other people, but how do you love people that you don’t like? You love them based on who you are, not based on who they are. But sharing the happiness of God is a wonderful problem-solving device, and that’s what the Lord said in John 15, 11. I’ve told you these things so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full. And then obviously occupation with Christ. Those are 10 unique problem-solving devices that you need to know and understand. And I pray you’ll order that little bookmark and you’ll learn what that means so that you can gain Christ Jesus. Now your spiritual life can stall out. And that’s the next question I want to ask you. Are you stalled out? Have you stalled out? If you fail to maintain the filling of the Holy Spirit, you will stall out because unconfessed sin will grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians chapter four, verse 30. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Because once the Holy Spirit has been grieved and he’s quenched, 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, do not quench the Holy Spirit. What does all that mean? The bottom line is this, that sin quenches the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. That power that gives you the ability to execute the spiritual life. Thus the Holy Spirit is grieved, the Greek word lopeo, and the verb is a present active imperative verb, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve him, that’s a command from God for you as a Christian. That means don’t let unconfessed sin live in your life. If you sin, name it immediately, not when you go to bed at night, not the next day, immediately. Don’t hide it from God. Tell him what you did, and he will be faithful and just to forgive you. That’s why this verb is a present active imperative, and there is a time when you’re not to confess your sin. The active voice of the verb means the subject produces the action, that’s you and me, and the imperative mood is God’s command to us. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. So, meaning to distress him. Our unconfessed sin produces grief with the Holy Spirit. This is not an emotional reaction. I think it’s more like a disappointment that we shut down his influence and the power that had been provided by God’s grace. So, remember you cannot execute the spiritual life without the power and the influence of the Holy Spirit. And how do I avoid the sin we’re talking about? Well, first of all, you’re not gonna be able to avoid sinning, but we can sin less and don’t sin as much when we observe what the Scriptures say. Is there a way to quit sinning as much? Yes. Psalm 119 verse 11, your word I hid in my heart so that I might not sin against you. There’s the power to overcome sin is the word of God when the Holy Spirit takes it and uses it to remind you. So why should you learn the word of God? Psalm 119 verse 16, I will delight myself in your statutes and your word and I will not forget it. When you hide the word of God in your heart, What does that mean? Well, first of all, it means you heard it. And secondly, it means you believed it and you stored it in your memory bank so you can recall it at a later time. The question I want to ask you is, do you delight in learning the scriptures? Can you recall promises and provisions given to you in the scriptures? Do you have a well-qualified pastor who teaches you explains to you how those verses apply to your life do you so when i say how’s your spiritual life going here’s what i don’t want to hear well i’m staying in fellowship in other words i’m staying for the holy spirit i’m learning god’s word on a daily basis and i’m beginning to replicate the life of christ we’re being occupied with christ That means we cannot live the spiritual life without the filling of the Holy Spirit, and you should know. So are you filled with the Holy Spirit right now? Should you feel it? No, you’re not gonna feel it. Should you know it? Yes. How would you know you’re filled with the Holy Spirit? Well, is there any unconfessed sin in your life? You say, well, I may have done something I don’t remember. Listen to what the Bible says. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That means even the ones you don’t remember. So when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you have the power to live the Christian life. You empower your spiritual life through the filling of the Holy Spirit. And then when you add the doctrine to it, that’s like putting gas in the tank. Once you put the word of God in there, then you give the Holy Spirit something to work with. So your spiritual life is very, very critical for you. Does your pastor talk about your spiritual life? Has anyone in your church ever mentioned that word to you? How’s your spiritual life going? Meaning, are you growing in grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? There’s several verses I could give you about that. 2 Peter 3.18. How about study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. How about take my yoke and learn of me? My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Study, grow, learn. You cannot live the spiritual life without these things. And you cannot do these things without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Without being filled with the Holy Spirit, without taking and learning the Word of God, metabolizing it into your soul, you will have no spiritual life. You may go through the ritual, but there will be no reality to it. You’ll just be impersonating a mature believer. What a waste of your time that is. Because your spiritual life is not empowered by your emotions, what you feel. Emotions are not thought now, come on, but rather a feeling, and that can be tricky. When I used to do a lot of bass fishing, I loved to be out early in the morning on the lake and see the sun come up and the fog and the mist come off the water. And I had an emotional feeling, it felt wonderful, it felt great, it was beautiful. But that didn’t mean I was gonna be a great fisherman, that didn’t mean I was gonna catch my creole limit that day. So when someone tries to get you to be empowered by your emotions, do a big worship service, some kind of emotional thing to turn you on, that doesn’t mean you’re growing. You don’t grow with your emotions, you grow with your mentality. Emotions can stimulate you to do that, but that’s not what the fuel comes from. You grow from the mentality of your soul as you put the word of God into your soul, learn it and use it as the Lord Jesus Christ said. We repeat it all the time. Happiness belongs to those people who hear my Father’s word and who keep it. So your spiritual life, the spiritual life I’m talking about, that’s not just on Sunday. It’s not observed one day a week. Your spiritual life must be lived 24-7. So when you get up in the morning, you ask yourself, how’s my body feel? Oh, creaky, achy, hard to move my leg, my elbow hurts, my back hurts, but how’s your spiritual life feel? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you taking in the Word of God today? Are you beginning to replicate the life of Christ? Are you thinking like he thought? That’s what I’m concerned with. Because this body will go away, but that spiritual life will live forever. Because you’re going to take it to heaven with you. So are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you? Are you learning and storing scripture in your soul’s mentality daily? Are you? Do you have discernment and understanding of your enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil? Do you? These are things critical for you to know. If you will pray with us, we’re trying to think about putting together a book on the spiritual life, what it is, what it actually does, how you can actually understand it, use it. But if you are a Christian, you have a spiritual life. And you must live your Christian life with that power inside that spiritual life. And it’s all in your head. It’ll come out in your actions. It’ll start with a thought and then come into an attitude and then an action. And a spiritually mature believer, that’ll overflow into his body where he will do things physically that are pleasing to God. So I hope you’re listening and I hope you’re learning this. I hope you’re understanding this. I’ve talked about it for two Sundays now. Your spiritual life is critical for you. So listen next Sunday for it. Listen to your friends talk about it. Listen to see if your pastor mentions it. Do you have a spiritual life? It’s critical. I thank you for listening. I thank you for being with me. I hope you’re learning something. Let me know if you need anything. Just give us a shout. Rick at rickhughesministries.org. Until next week, thank you for listening.
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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.
