Satan can’t make you do anything. He can tempt you and your sin nature can tempt you, but the source of all sin is your volition. You choose to sin. Base your decisions on thought, not emotions. The Word of God in your soul is the only thing that will sustain you, carry you through adversity and prosperity in life. Don’t dwell on past failures. “Forgetting those things that are behind” (Phil 3:13). Move ahead in your spiritual life. Use your situation to gain an advantage. Your volition chooses to sin and your volition chooses to confess the sin.
A Divine Pardon Review – Part 5
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 584 aired on November 6, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. It will be 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration,
education, without any manipulation. We give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. This is because we take it from the Word of God. We’re not using human speculation.
We’re giving divine revelation from the Scripture, from the Bible. It is a show about the Bible
but don’t freak out yet. There’s no jumping up and down, no ranting, no raving. We’re just here to
give you the information. If you can orient and adjust to the information, then that’s wonderful.
You can make some life-changing decisions that can change and affect you for the rest of your
life. We call the show The FLOT Line because we’re talking about building an invisible barrier
in your soul, a wall, a main line of resistance. It’s called a FLOT line and this is a military
acronym for forward line of troops. The concept is, using the military metaphor, that you can
build in your soul a main line of resistance made up of a forward line of troops that can stop the
outside sources of adversity before they come crashing through and turn into the inside sources
of stress. This is why we always tell you that adversity is inevitable and stress is optional. In the
last two shows we have been discussing our recent book called
A Divine Pardon.
We talked
about thought versus emotion and this is critical in your life. If you are going to live a successful
life, you cannot let your emotions control you. Your life and actions need to be controlled by
your thoughts.
Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
Most of the time
we think, we formulate, and then we do. We have motives, we have intentions, and then we do
things. The problems arise when we don’t think, rather we just act on our emotions. Emotions are
not a thinking process. They’re an appreciator.
Emotions appreciate, thinking evaluates. My
favorite pastime activity is fishing. I love to fish. I love to bass fish. That’s my forte, my hobby
and I love this time of year to night fish. As I was out this week, the big harvest moon began to
come up over the lake and I had an emotional experience. I thought, “My, that is so beautiful.” It
was uplifting, wonderful to see but it didn’t make me catch more fish. I appreciated the moment
but I didn’t evaluate. When you want to catch the fish you have to understand what lure to use,
where to go, and what process to go through. It’s true in your soul also. Every one of us has a
soul. This is the invisible, immortal part of us. People can’t see it, they can only see what’s on the
outside. They see our image. They see our style. They see what we let them see. But
Deuteronomy 6:5 says,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your
soul, and with all of your strength.”
Your soul, the invisible part of you, contains characteristics
that people can’t see. The first one is the ability to think, this is your mentality. This is what’s
interesting about God. He can read your mind. God knows what you’re thinking. Jesus Christ
demonstrated this on many occasions when He walked here on this planet. God gives us volition.
Part of the format of our soul is not only mentality but also volition.
Volition is a chooser, a
decider. It’s like going to the polls to vote. Who do you want to vote for, the Democrat or the
Republican? Your volition decides who it wants to obey, this one or that one. Your volition has a
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
lot to do in your life.
Satan can’t make you do anything. He can tempt you, your sin nature
can tempt you, but the source of all sin in our lives is our volition.
We choose to do it. Our
soul also has a conscience and this is a wonderful thing because it protects us if it’s programmed
right. This is the job of the parents, to program the conscience. If you don’t program the
conscience with respect for authority and genuine humility, then you have a maladjusted child
that insists on having it their way. They grow up under arrogance, preoccupation with self, self-
justification, and self-righteousness. The conscience is wonderful if you program it right. It will
protect you. It will keep you from violating norms and standards that you know are there. We
also have something called self-consciousness and it’s an awareness of self. We can pick
ourselves out of a picture. You can go look at your senior class yearbook and identify yourself.
“That’s me right there, see?” You are aware of yourself. We also possess, not as part of our soul
but we have it, emotions. Emotions are in our life and they are designed as a way to appreciate
not evaluate. However we were not designed by God to let our emotions control our soul because
they can be very dangerous. Listen, they can be wonderful but if they interact with your volition
and if the emotions begin to run the show, then you will begin to make some decisions based on
what you feel, not based on what you think. For every decision you make, there must be a
motive. There must be a desire.
If you make a decision based on what you feel, you could
make the wrong decision. If you make a decision based on what you think then hopefully
you’re thinking the right thoughts
. Emotions can actually affect the way you think. They can
cause you to daydream. How many times have you laid there on the couch, in your easy chair, in
your bed and imagined yourself somewhere else? Emotions can make you sad. They can even
make you shed a tear. You’ve probably done this. If you’ve seen some tear jerker movie and a
tear leaks out of your eye and you turn your head, wiped it away because you don’t want
anybody to see it. Emotions are real. They can make us happy and they can make us sad which
are normal emotional responses. However, volition coupled with emotion can go absolutely wild
when it’s not restrained by the conscience. Volition, that’s the chooser, coupled with emotions,
that’s not the evaluator, that’s the appreciator, they can go wild if they are not restrained by the
conscience. The conscience is the part of your soul which is suppose to house all of your norms
and standards, things you’ve learned are right and things you’ve learned are wrong. You learned
them at an early age. You learned how to brush your teeth. You learned how to wash your
clothes. You learned how to give privacy, respect for human life, and obedience to the rules.
When you use your volition to override these and you act on your emotions, then you’re very
likely to make some bad decisions. It happens all the time in regard to romance. It happens all
the time in regard to finance. People get angry and their emotions override their conscience even
though they know something’s wrong, they know they shouldn’t do it, they wind up making a bad
decision. I’ll tell you something, two things that fuel the emotions and get your emotions off the
chart, are drugs and alcohol. They bring out the emotions and cloud the conscience. Basically
when you get drunk or when you get high you quit thinking because everything you do becomes
based on your feelings. At this point you just don’t have many boundaries because your
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
conscience is impeded. You may even justify committing a crime in order to sustain the habit that
can slowly destroy your life. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a judge but I know trouble when I see it
brewing in my life and you know it too. Contrary to what we may have been told, Christianity
has nothing to do with our emotions. It’s not about getting all worked up at the church service.
It’s not about weeping tears at the altar. It’s not about telling your neighbor that you love them or
feeling really close to God. It’s not even about singing and reciting prayers or parroting back
phrases from a worship manual. These things, although they may be legitimate, don’t have any
lasting impact. When you do them, you’re going through the motions but they’re not going to
carry you past the Sunday lunch.
The only thing that will carry you, the only thing that will
sustain you, the only thing that will motivate you is the Word of God in your soul.
This will
sustain you through life’s up and downs. This is why 2 Timothy 2:15 says,
“Study to show thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of
truth.”
Living the Christian life is all about what you think. Any type of emotional response is
fine if it comes through appreciation and gratitude for all that God has provided for you. You’ve
been given eternal life. There is nothing wrong with being emotional about this. Every time he
talks about it, a friend of mine starts weeping. He just gets overwhelmed with the fact that God
forgave him and guaranteed him eternal life. We have been given the mind of Christ (1
Corinthians 2:16). Although we haven’t seen Him and we haven’t talked to Him personally, we
have been given a pastor who can tell us what the Scripture means. You should understand this.
You must have a well-qualified pastor to teach you God’s Word. The Bible is not a novel. I meet
people all the time that read through the Bible. There’s nothing wrong with this.
The Bible is not
a novel, it is a textbook, and designed to be taught to you. This is why God equips men
called pastor-teachers, to teach you the Bible.
The Greek term is
poimen kai didaskalos,
pastor
and teacher. Their job by means of their spiritual gift is to dig out the meaning of the Scripture
and explain it to you so that you can make the application in your life. When you begin to
understand how the Lord Jesus Christ thought then you began to have the opportunity to make
His thoughts your thoughts. This is why you hear me quote Philippians 2:5 all the time,
“Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
This is you learning to think like He thinks and
this only comes when you renovate or rebuild the way you think. Instead of seeing life through
human eyes, I call this human viewpoint, you see your life through God’s eyes and this is called
divine viewpoint. Romans 12:2 even tells you,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind
[the changing of your mind, the rebuilding of your
mind]
so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
This is
what God wants you to do, He wants you to learn His plan. This is why Jesus Christ the
Lord said,
“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you and learn from Me”
(Matthew 11:28-29).
The disciples were learners, that’s
what they were, and the Lord Jesus Christ spent three years teaching them things they needed to
understand and know in His absence because He was going to leave them. He told them He was
going to be killed, crucified. They had to know how to carry on. Like me, maybe you are
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
growing older. I’ve heard from some people this week in Northern California talking about being
older. I love to hear from listeners wherever you are. Don’t ever hesitate to pick up the phone and
call me if you’d like to. You can always call the 800 number on our website or don’t hesitate to
write to us. I always love to hear how God is working in your life. As we grow older we can
break the old patterns and the old habits and learn a new way to live. That’s the Christian life.
Our mindset begins to change. Our arrogant preoccupation with self and justification begins to
be broken. We start responding to unfair situations and not reacting to them because we now can
forgive people, not be bitter, and not seek revenge. In essence we begin to think like Christ
thought when He was here on this planet and we can grow to become spiritually mature
believers.
In order to be a spiritually mature believer, you’ve got to know and apply
Scripture.
I’m talking about a maximum amount of the Word of God in your soul. Let me tell
you what I do. Every day I sit down under the authority of my pastor. I get a cup of coffee, get
into my study, open my Bible, open my notebook, and I listen to the Word of God taught to me
by my pastor every day. My pastor is in Houston, Texas at Berachah Church. I get the DVDs of
his messages which are four hours a week and I’m able to consistently listen on a daily basis to
the teaching of the Word of God. It’s more important to me than eating breakfast. It’s more
important to me than eating lunch because it is a type of feeding. I’m feeding on the Word of
God. Jeremiah said that he ate God’s words. They nurtured him and nourished him. You can do
the same thing. If you don’t have a well-qualified pastor, I can tell you how to get accurate
studies and you can sit down, listen, and study right there at your desk or at your dining room
table. Get a cup of coffee in the morning or the evening, or get a soda and open a notebook, listen
and take notes. My pastor has been teaching the
Life of Christ
series for almost 1,000 hours.
You’re a little behind the curve aren’t you, but if you started listening to this 1,000 hours, we’re
talking about three years of teaching. Wow, there’s so much to learn and put into your life. My
overall objective and your overall objective is to glorify God at all times by making good
decisions every day in our lives based on what the Bible says. If I’m going to grow up, if I’m
going to be a mature believer, if I’m going to glorify God, then I need to use the environment that
I’m in to study. Some of you listening to me today may be incarcerated. If you are incarcerated,
you need to get this book,
A Divine Pardon.
There are thousands of them circulating in
institutions across America today. If you’re incarcerated you have a lot of time to study, a lot of
time to learn and apply what you learn. Let’s face the facts. You could sit there incarcerated, be
angry about it, and plot the revenge that you are going to do when you get out or you could admit
your sin and your failure and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Don’t dwell on past failures.
Paul said in Philippians 3:13,
“Forgetting those things that are behind,”
move ahead in the
spiritual life.
Use your situation to gain an advantage.
Remember Paul, David, Moses, all
committed murder and they were all exonerated. They all had tremendous ministries in their lives
but they were all sinners. Me too, I haven’t committed murder but I’m a sinner just like you.
Romans 3:23 says,
“All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.”
1 John 1:8 says,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
There’s not one
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
perfect person among us. We all have a sin nature. Sometimes I get frustrated when I see people
that act like they don’t sin. They have that holy language, they look at you and roll their eyes
toward heaven and say, “Oh brother, it’s so good to see you brother.” I’m thinking, “This is a guy
fixing to stick it to me.” My job, your job is to grow, to advance, to learn God’s Word, not to get
sucked into ritual that has no reality to it. You have time to do it right now.
God always offers us
a second chance
. If He didn’t offer us a second chance, you and I would be a greasy spot right
now. The truth is, not only does He give us two chances, He’s given me and probably you three
or four chances, many more chances than we deserve. 1 Corinthians 15:22 says,
“In Christ all
are made alive.”
We are alive. We have a new spiritual life. We are a new spiritual species. We
are not just Americans. We are not just black or white or red or yellow. We are also Christians,
this is a new species. John 4:24 says, “If we are going to worship God, we have to worship Him
in Spirit and in truth.”
We have to be filled with God the Holy Spirit and we have to learn
God’s Word.
In Christ, all are made alive, every one of us, we are alive. Jesus said as He was
talking to the disciples, “when I go away
, I am going to ask for the Father to send the Comforter
to you, and He will be with you forever”
(John 14:16). This demonstrates His commitment to
those disciples. The question that He asks us is will we be committed to Him? Staying in
fellowship with God every moment, every day, using problem-solving device #1 which is
rebound, rebounding sin, is critical. It is critical if I want the Holy Spirit rather than my sin
nature to control me.
Fellowship with God by means of God the Holy Spirit is essential
because we can never become a mature believer if we don’t do this.
There is only one way to
accomplish the goal and it is not by sheer determination alone. It is only by your positive
volition, staying filled with the Holy Spirit. As a believer in Jesus Christ, as a member of the
royal family of God, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and you are told to be filled by the Holy
Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit reveals the plan to you and He enables you to do it.
John
14:26,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
He guaranteed the
disciples that even though He was going to leave, they would have a Helper, an Assistant, a
Mentor, and we have Him too. Ephesians 4:30 says we are,
“Sealed by the Holy Spirit until the
day of redemption.”
Paul warned us in Galatians 5:16,
“Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill
the lust of the flesh.”
If you do not understand this, you will frustrate yourself because it’s not
possible to live the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Morality is not the
Christian life. Even people that don’t believe in Jesus Christ can be moral. Let me state it one
more time for you. The filling of the Holy Spirit is attained every time you use rebound.
Every
time you go to God and confess your sin, you are filled with the Holy Spirit.
You are indwelt
by the Holy Spirit at salvation, but when you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit and you grieve the
Holy Spirit according to the Bible. When you confess your sin, rebound, then you are reinstated
to fellowship with God and this is where we can grow. This is the only way, we can’t do it any
other way. Either you learn this and you grow in grace or you don’t learn this and you continue to
live a life of works, thinking that God will be impressed with you because you don’t smoke or
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
drink or chew or do some goofy thing that you think the Bible tells you not to do. You think you
are turning God on because you don’t do this. What will excite your Heavenly Father? He doesn’t
have emotions like you and I do, but I can assure you He will appreciate your effort to learn His
plan and put it to use in your life. There is a process, you have to learn it. You have to go through
the process. You have to put it to work in your life. When you do this, then you can put the sin
nature in the box and keep the cap on it. Even though it’s going to come out from time to time,
you can still confess the sin and get back in fellowship because your volition makes the decision.
Your volition chooses to sin and your volition chooses to confess the sin.
Either you are in
fellowship or out fellowship, there are no two ways about it. You are either in fellowship with
God walking in the light or you are out of fellowship with God walking in the darkness.
In Luke
11:28 Jesus says that,
“Happiness belongs to those who hear My Father’s
Word and keep it.”
All spiritual momentum, everything in your life if you’re going to grow spiritually, consists
of you hearing God’s Word and keeping God’s Word.
We cannot grow up spiritually without
listening to the teaching of the Word of God. Romans 10:17 tells us,
“Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God.”
The more we hear, the greater the opportunity we have to
learn and the more we learn the greater the opportunity we have to grow if you’re listening to the
right person.
Now you might listen to the wrong person. You might listen to some con artist who
tells you that “In order to serve Je-sus,” that’s a way they say it, I often wondered when they got
on a first name basis with the King of kings and the Lord of lords? “In order to serve Je-sus you
need to buy my latest book and read about it. You need to give up something. You need to turn
over a new leaf.” This is not the spiritual life. God does not authorize anybody to hawk His
messages. We are not allowed to sell the Word of God. We got it free. Yet today Christians sell it.
Every time I turn around I see it for sale. Every gas station I stop in, I see it for sale. I am proud
of one thing, we don’t sell anything. Everything is free. If you want something from this ministry,
just write to us, don’t send a check. We’ll send it to you immediately, no charge whatsoever. I
learned the acronym
LAG
from a friend to teach the concept of
learn, apply, and glorify.
If you
want to glorify God you have to learn His Word, and apply it into your life, and do the right thing
in the right way. Being a mature believer is you doing the right thing in the right way. It’s you
learning the protocol plan of God. Simply put, you follow the right procedure, doing a right thing
in a right way. If you do a right thing in a wrong way, it’s still wrong. Is it right to pray? Yes. Is
there a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray? Yes. Are there times that my prayer will not
be answered? Yes. Why? Because you’re doing the right thing in the wrong way. For example,
Psalm 66:18 says,
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
With
unconfessed sin in your life, you can pray up a storm, get up in front of the church and sound
holy and pray to God, but it’s not going to go any higher than the ceiling. Everybody in the
audience might think, “Oooh, what a spiritual giant that is. Did you hear the way he prayed?” If
you have unconfessed sin in your life, it does not impress God. It’s not going to God because the
Holy Spirit is quenched, He’s grieved, and you are not following the protocol plan of God. You
must learn to follow the protocol plan of God. A Christian out of fellowship with unconfessed sin
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
in his life can still do all these right things and even look holy while he’s doing them, go to
church, attend Sunday school, give money, pray, he looks great but he’s not following the plan.
It’s ritual without reality and it is meaningless. I hope you’re listening today. I don’t know what
you’ve been through or what you’ve been going through but this show is designed to open the
blinds to let you see what’s really there. If you have some hunger and you’re interested in
growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you’re listening to
the right show. I hope you’ll stay in touch. I hope you’ll come back next Sunday. Until next
week, I am your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line.A Divine Pardon Review – Part 5
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 584 aired on November 6, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. It will be 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration,
education, without any manipulation. We give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. This is because we take it from the Word of God. We’re not using human speculation.
We’re giving divine revelation from the Scripture, from the Bible. It is a show about the Bible
but don’t freak out yet. There’s no jumping up and down, no ranting, no raving. We’re just here to
give you the information. If you can orient and adjust to the information, then that’s wonderful.
You can make some life-changing decisions that can change and affect you for the rest of your
life. We call the show The FLOT Line because we’re talking about building an invisible barrier
in your soul, a wall, a main line of resistance. It’s called a FLOT line and this is a military
acronym for forward line of troops. The concept is, using the military metaphor, that you can
build in your soul a main line of resistance made up of a forward line of troops that can stop the
outside sources of adversity before they come crashing through and turn into the inside sources
of stress. This is why we always tell you that adversity is inevitable and stress is optional. In the
last two shows we have been discussing our recent book called
A Divine Pardon.
We talked
about thought versus emotion and this is critical in your life. If you are going to live a successful
life, you cannot let your emotions control you. Your life and actions need to be controlled by
your thoughts.
Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
Most of the time
we think, we formulate, and then we do. We have motives, we have intentions, and then we do
things. The problems arise when we don’t think, rather we just act on our emotions. Emotions are
not a thinking process. They’re an appreciator.
Emotions appreciate, thinking evaluates. My
favorite pastime activity is fishing. I love to fish. I love to bass fish. That’s my forte, my hobby
and I love this time of year to night fish. As I was out this week, the big harvest moon began to
come up over the lake and I had an emotional experience. I thought, “My, that is so beautiful.” It
was uplifting, wonderful to see but it didn’t make me catch more fish. I appreciated the moment
but I didn’t evaluate. When you want to catch the fish you have to understand what lure to use,
where to go, and what process to go through. It’s true in your soul also. Every one of us has a
soul. This is the invisible, immortal part of us. People can’t see it, they can only see what’s on the
outside. They see our image. They see our style. They see what we let them see. But
Deuteronomy 6:5 says,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your
soul, and with all of your strength.”
Your soul, the invisible part of you, contains characteristics
that people can’t see. The first one is the ability to think, this is your mentality. This is what’s
interesting about God. He can read your mind. God knows what you’re thinking. Jesus Christ
demonstrated this on many occasions when He walked here on this planet. God gives us volition.
Part of the format of our soul is not only mentality but also volition.
Volition is a chooser, a
decider. It’s like going to the polls to vote. Who do you want to vote for, the Democrat or the
Republican? Your volition decides who it wants to obey, this one or that one. Your volition has a
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
lot to do in your life.
Satan can’t make you do anything. He can tempt you, your sin nature
can tempt you, but the source of all sin in our lives is our volition.
We choose to do it. Our
soul also has a conscience and this is a wonderful thing because it protects us if it’s programmed
right. This is the job of the parents, to program the conscience. If you don’t program the
conscience with respect for authority and genuine humility, then you have a maladjusted child
that insists on having it their way. They grow up under arrogance, preoccupation with self, self-
justification, and self-righteousness. The conscience is wonderful if you program it right. It will
protect you. It will keep you from violating norms and standards that you know are there. We
also have something called self-consciousness and it’s an awareness of self. We can pick
ourselves out of a picture. You can go look at your senior class yearbook and identify yourself.
“That’s me right there, see?” You are aware of yourself. We also possess, not as part of our soul
but we have it, emotions. Emotions are in our life and they are designed as a way to appreciate
not evaluate. However we were not designed by God to let our emotions control our soul because
they can be very dangerous. Listen, they can be wonderful but if they interact with your volition
and if the emotions begin to run the show, then you will begin to make some decisions based on
what you feel, not based on what you think. For every decision you make, there must be a
motive. There must be a desire.
If you make a decision based on what you feel, you could
make the wrong decision. If you make a decision based on what you think then hopefully
you’re thinking the right thoughts
. Emotions can actually affect the way you think. They can
cause you to daydream. How many times have you laid there on the couch, in your easy chair, in
your bed and imagined yourself somewhere else? Emotions can make you sad. They can even
make you shed a tear. You’ve probably done this. If you’ve seen some tear jerker movie and a
tear leaks out of your eye and you turn your head, wiped it away because you don’t want
anybody to see it. Emotions are real. They can make us happy and they can make us sad which
are normal emotional responses. However, volition coupled with emotion can go absolutely wild
when it’s not restrained by the conscience. Volition, that’s the chooser, coupled with emotions,
that’s not the evaluator, that’s the appreciator, they can go wild if they are not restrained by the
conscience. The conscience is the part of your soul which is suppose to house all of your norms
and standards, things you’ve learned are right and things you’ve learned are wrong. You learned
them at an early age. You learned how to brush your teeth. You learned how to wash your
clothes. You learned how to give privacy, respect for human life, and obedience to the rules.
When you use your volition to override these and you act on your emotions, then you’re very
likely to make some bad decisions. It happens all the time in regard to romance. It happens all
the time in regard to finance. People get angry and their emotions override their conscience even
though they know something’s wrong, they know they shouldn’t do it, they wind up making a bad
decision. I’ll tell you something, two things that fuel the emotions and get your emotions off the
chart, are drugs and alcohol. They bring out the emotions and cloud the conscience. Basically
when you get drunk or when you get high you quit thinking because everything you do becomes
based on your feelings. At this point you just don’t have many boundaries because your
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
conscience is impeded. You may even justify committing a crime in order to sustain the habit that
can slowly destroy your life. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a judge but I know trouble when I see it
brewing in my life and you know it too. Contrary to what we may have been told, Christianity
has nothing to do with our emotions. It’s not about getting all worked up at the church service.
It’s not about weeping tears at the altar. It’s not about telling your neighbor that you love them or
feeling really close to God. It’s not even about singing and reciting prayers or parroting back
phrases from a worship manual. These things, although they may be legitimate, don’t have any
lasting impact. When you do them, you’re going through the motions but they’re not going to
carry you past the Sunday lunch.
The only thing that will carry you, the only thing that will
sustain you, the only thing that will motivate you is the Word of God in your soul.
This will
sustain you through life’s up and downs. This is why 2 Timothy 2:15 says,
“Study to show thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of
truth.”
Living the Christian life is all about what you think. Any type of emotional response is
fine if it comes through appreciation and gratitude for all that God has provided for you. You’ve
been given eternal life. There is nothing wrong with being emotional about this. Every time he
talks about it, a friend of mine starts weeping. He just gets overwhelmed with the fact that God
forgave him and guaranteed him eternal life. We have been given the mind of Christ (1
Corinthians 2:16). Although we haven’t seen Him and we haven’t talked to Him personally, we
have been given a pastor who can tell us what the Scripture means. You should understand this.
You must have a well-qualified pastor to teach you God’s Word. The Bible is not a novel. I meet
people all the time that read through the Bible. There’s nothing wrong with this.
The Bible is not
a novel, it is a textbook, and designed to be taught to you. This is why God equips men
called pastor-teachers, to teach you the Bible.
The Greek term is
poimen kai didaskalos,
pastor
and teacher. Their job by means of their spiritual gift is to dig out the meaning of the Scripture
and explain it to you so that you can make the application in your life. When you begin to
understand how the Lord Jesus Christ thought then you began to have the opportunity to make
His thoughts your thoughts. This is why you hear me quote Philippians 2:5 all the time,
“Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
This is you learning to think like He thinks and
this only comes when you renovate or rebuild the way you think. Instead of seeing life through
human eyes, I call this human viewpoint, you see your life through God’s eyes and this is called
divine viewpoint. Romans 12:2 even tells you,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind
[the changing of your mind, the rebuilding of your
mind]
so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
This is
what God wants you to do, He wants you to learn His plan. This is why Jesus Christ the
Lord said,
“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you and learn from Me”
(Matthew 11:28-29).
The disciples were learners, that’s
what they were, and the Lord Jesus Christ spent three years teaching them things they needed to
understand and know in His absence because He was going to leave them. He told them He was
going to be killed, crucified. They had to know how to carry on. Like me, maybe you are
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
growing older. I’ve heard from some people this week in Northern California talking about being
older. I love to hear from listeners wherever you are. Don’t ever hesitate to pick up the phone and
call me if you’d like to. You can always call the 800 number on our website or don’t hesitate to
write to us. I always love to hear how God is working in your life. As we grow older we can
break the old patterns and the old habits and learn a new way to live. That’s the Christian life.
Our mindset begins to change. Our arrogant preoccupation with self and justification begins to
be broken. We start responding to unfair situations and not reacting to them because we now can
forgive people, not be bitter, and not seek revenge. In essence we begin to think like Christ
thought when He was here on this planet and we can grow to become spiritually mature
believers.
In order to be a spiritually mature believer, you’ve got to know and apply
Scripture.
I’m talking about a maximum amount of the Word of God in your soul. Let me tell
you what I do. Every day I sit down under the authority of my pastor. I get a cup of coffee, get
into my study, open my Bible, open my notebook, and I listen to the Word of God taught to me
by my pastor every day. My pastor is in Houston, Texas at Berachah Church. I get the DVDs of
his messages which are four hours a week and I’m able to consistently listen on a daily basis to
the teaching of the Word of God. It’s more important to me than eating breakfast. It’s more
important to me than eating lunch because it is a type of feeding. I’m feeding on the Word of
God. Jeremiah said that he ate God’s words. They nurtured him and nourished him. You can do
the same thing. If you don’t have a well-qualified pastor, I can tell you how to get accurate
studies and you can sit down, listen, and study right there at your desk or at your dining room
table. Get a cup of coffee in the morning or the evening, or get a soda and open a notebook, listen
and take notes. My pastor has been teaching the
Life of Christ
series for almost 1,000 hours.
You’re a little behind the curve aren’t you, but if you started listening to this 1,000 hours, we’re
talking about three years of teaching. Wow, there’s so much to learn and put into your life. My
overall objective and your overall objective is to glorify God at all times by making good
decisions every day in our lives based on what the Bible says. If I’m going to grow up, if I’m
going to be a mature believer, if I’m going to glorify God, then I need to use the environment that
I’m in to study. Some of you listening to me today may be incarcerated. If you are incarcerated,
you need to get this book,
A Divine Pardon.
There are thousands of them circulating in
institutions across America today. If you’re incarcerated you have a lot of time to study, a lot of
time to learn and apply what you learn. Let’s face the facts. You could sit there incarcerated, be
angry about it, and plot the revenge that you are going to do when you get out or you could admit
your sin and your failure and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Don’t dwell on past failures.
Paul said in Philippians 3:13,
“Forgetting those things that are behind,”
move ahead in the
spiritual life.
Use your situation to gain an advantage.
Remember Paul, David, Moses, all
committed murder and they were all exonerated. They all had tremendous ministries in their lives
but they were all sinners. Me too, I haven’t committed murder but I’m a sinner just like you.
Romans 3:23 says,
“All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.”
1 John 1:8 says,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
There’s not one
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
perfect person among us. We all have a sin nature. Sometimes I get frustrated when I see people
that act like they don’t sin. They have that holy language, they look at you and roll their eyes
toward heaven and say, “Oh brother, it’s so good to see you brother.” I’m thinking, “This is a guy
fixing to stick it to me.” My job, your job is to grow, to advance, to learn God’s Word, not to get
sucked into ritual that has no reality to it. You have time to do it right now.
God always offers us
a second chance
. If He didn’t offer us a second chance, you and I would be a greasy spot right
now. The truth is, not only does He give us two chances, He’s given me and probably you three
or four chances, many more chances than we deserve. 1 Corinthians 15:22 says,
“In Christ all
are made alive.”
We are alive. We have a new spiritual life. We are a new spiritual species. We
are not just Americans. We are not just black or white or red or yellow. We are also Christians,
this is a new species. John 4:24 says, “If we are going to worship God, we have to worship Him
in Spirit and in truth.”
We have to be filled with God the Holy Spirit and we have to learn
God’s Word.
In Christ, all are made alive, every one of us, we are alive. Jesus said as He was
talking to the disciples, “when I go away
, I am going to ask for the Father to send the Comforter
to you, and He will be with you forever”
(John 14:16). This demonstrates His commitment to
those disciples. The question that He asks us is will we be committed to Him? Staying in
fellowship with God every moment, every day, using problem-solving device #1 which is
rebound, rebounding sin, is critical. It is critical if I want the Holy Spirit rather than my sin
nature to control me.
Fellowship with God by means of God the Holy Spirit is essential
because we can never become a mature believer if we don’t do this.
There is only one way to
accomplish the goal and it is not by sheer determination alone. It is only by your positive
volition, staying filled with the Holy Spirit. As a believer in Jesus Christ, as a member of the
royal family of God, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and you are told to be filled by the Holy
Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit reveals the plan to you and He enables you to do it.
John
14:26,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
He guaranteed the
disciples that even though He was going to leave, they would have a Helper, an Assistant, a
Mentor, and we have Him too. Ephesians 4:30 says we are,
“Sealed by the Holy Spirit until the
day of redemption.”
Paul warned us in Galatians 5:16,
“Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill
the lust of the flesh.”
If you do not understand this, you will frustrate yourself because it’s not
possible to live the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Morality is not the
Christian life. Even people that don’t believe in Jesus Christ can be moral. Let me state it one
more time for you. The filling of the Holy Spirit is attained every time you use rebound.
Every
time you go to God and confess your sin, you are filled with the Holy Spirit.
You are indwelt
by the Holy Spirit at salvation, but when you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit and you grieve the
Holy Spirit according to the Bible. When you confess your sin, rebound, then you are reinstated
to fellowship with God and this is where we can grow. This is the only way, we can’t do it any
other way. Either you learn this and you grow in grace or you don’t learn this and you continue to
live a life of works, thinking that God will be impressed with you because you don’t smoke or
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
drink or chew or do some goofy thing that you think the Bible tells you not to do. You think you
are turning God on because you don’t do this. What will excite your Heavenly Father? He doesn’t
have emotions like you and I do, but I can assure you He will appreciate your effort to learn His
plan and put it to use in your life. There is a process, you have to learn it. You have to go through
the process. You have to put it to work in your life. When you do this, then you can put the sin
nature in the box and keep the cap on it. Even though it’s going to come out from time to time,
you can still confess the sin and get back in fellowship because your volition makes the decision.
Your volition chooses to sin and your volition chooses to confess the sin.
Either you are in
fellowship or out fellowship, there are no two ways about it. You are either in fellowship with
God walking in the light or you are out of fellowship with God walking in the darkness.
In Luke
11:28 Jesus says that,
“Happiness belongs to those who hear My Father’s
Word and keep it.”
All spiritual momentum, everything in your life if you’re going to grow spiritually, consists
of you hearing God’s Word and keeping God’s Word.
We cannot grow up spiritually without
listening to the teaching of the Word of God. Romans 10:17 tells us,
“Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God.”
The more we hear, the greater the opportunity we have to
learn and the more we learn the greater the opportunity we have to grow if you’re listening to the
right person.
Now you might listen to the wrong person. You might listen to some con artist who
tells you that “In order to serve Je-sus,” that’s a way they say it, I often wondered when they got
on a first name basis with the King of kings and the Lord of lords? “In order to serve Je-sus you
need to buy my latest book and read about it. You need to give up something. You need to turn
over a new leaf.” This is not the spiritual life. God does not authorize anybody to hawk His
messages. We are not allowed to sell the Word of God. We got it free. Yet today Christians sell it.
Every time I turn around I see it for sale. Every gas station I stop in, I see it for sale. I am proud
of one thing, we don’t sell anything. Everything is free. If you want something from this ministry,
just write to us, don’t send a check. We’ll send it to you immediately, no charge whatsoever. I
learned the acronym
LAG
from a friend to teach the concept of
learn, apply, and glorify.
If you
want to glorify God you have to learn His Word, and apply it into your life, and do the right thing
in the right way. Being a mature believer is you doing the right thing in the right way. It’s you
learning the protocol plan of God. Simply put, you follow the right procedure, doing a right thing
in a right way. If you do a right thing in a wrong way, it’s still wrong. Is it right to pray? Yes. Is
there a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray? Yes. Are there times that my prayer will not
be answered? Yes. Why? Because you’re doing the right thing in the wrong way. For example,
Psalm 66:18 says,
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
With
unconfessed sin in your life, you can pray up a storm, get up in front of the church and sound
holy and pray to God, but it’s not going to go any higher than the ceiling. Everybody in the
audience might think, “Oooh, what a spiritual giant that is. Did you hear the way he prayed?” If
you have unconfessed sin in your life, it does not impress God. It’s not going to God because the
Holy Spirit is quenched, He’s grieved, and you are not following the protocol plan of God. You
must learn to follow the protocol plan of God. A Christian out of fellowship with unconfessed sin
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
in his life can still do all these right things and even look holy while he’s doing them, go to
church, attend Sunday school, give money, pray, he looks great but he’s not following the plan.
It’s ritual without reality and it is meaningless. I hope you’re listening today. I don’t know what
you’ve been through or what you’ve been going through but this show is designed to open the
blinds to let you see what’s really there. If you have some hunger and you’re interested in
growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you’re listening to
the right show. I hope you’ll stay in touch. I hope you’ll come back next Sunday. Until next
week, I am your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line.A Divine Pardon Review – Part 5
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 584 aired on November 6, 2016
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. It will be 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration,
education, without any manipulation. We give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. This is because we take it from the Word of God. We’re not using human speculation.
We’re giving divine revelation from the Scripture, from the Bible. It is a show about the Bible
but don’t freak out yet. There’s no jumping up and down, no ranting, no raving. We’re just here to
give you the information. If you can orient and adjust to the information, then that’s wonderful.
You can make some life-changing decisions that can change and affect you for the rest of your
life. We call the show The FLOT Line because we’re talking about building an invisible barrier
in your soul, a wall, a main line of resistance. It’s called a FLOT line and this is a military
acronym for forward line of troops. The concept is, using the military metaphor, that you can
build in your soul a main line of resistance made up of a forward line of troops that can stop the
outside sources of adversity before they come crashing through and turn into the inside sources
of stress. This is why we always tell you that adversity is inevitable and stress is optional. In the
last two shows we have been discussing our recent book called
A Divine Pardon.
We talked
about thought versus emotion and this is critical in your life. If you are going to live a successful
life, you cannot let your emotions control you. Your life and actions need to be controlled by
your thoughts.
Proverbs 23:7 says,
“As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.”
Most of the time
we think, we formulate, and then we do. We have motives, we have intentions, and then we do
things. The problems arise when we don’t think, rather we just act on our emotions. Emotions are
not a thinking process. They’re an appreciator.
Emotions appreciate, thinking evaluates. My
favorite pastime activity is fishing. I love to fish. I love to bass fish. That’s my forte, my hobby
and I love this time of year to night fish. As I was out this week, the big harvest moon began to
come up over the lake and I had an emotional experience. I thought, “My, that is so beautiful.” It
was uplifting, wonderful to see but it didn’t make me catch more fish. I appreciated the moment
but I didn’t evaluate. When you want to catch the fish you have to understand what lure to use,
where to go, and what process to go through. It’s true in your soul also. Every one of us has a
soul. This is the invisible, immortal part of us. People can’t see it, they can only see what’s on the
outside. They see our image. They see our style. They see what we let them see. But
Deuteronomy 6:5 says,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your
soul, and with all of your strength.”
Your soul, the invisible part of you, contains characteristics
that people can’t see. The first one is the ability to think, this is your mentality. This is what’s
interesting about God. He can read your mind. God knows what you’re thinking. Jesus Christ
demonstrated this on many occasions when He walked here on this planet. God gives us volition.
Part of the format of our soul is not only mentality but also volition.
Volition is a chooser, a
decider. It’s like going to the polls to vote. Who do you want to vote for, the Democrat or the
Republican? Your volition decides who it wants to obey, this one or that one. Your volition has a
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
lot to do in your life.
Satan can’t make you do anything. He can tempt you, your sin nature
can tempt you, but the source of all sin in our lives is our volition.
We choose to do it. Our
soul also has a conscience and this is a wonderful thing because it protects us if it’s programmed
right. This is the job of the parents, to program the conscience. If you don’t program the
conscience with respect for authority and genuine humility, then you have a maladjusted child
that insists on having it their way. They grow up under arrogance, preoccupation with self, self-
justification, and self-righteousness. The conscience is wonderful if you program it right. It will
protect you. It will keep you from violating norms and standards that you know are there. We
also have something called self-consciousness and it’s an awareness of self. We can pick
ourselves out of a picture. You can go look at your senior class yearbook and identify yourself.
“That’s me right there, see?” You are aware of yourself. We also possess, not as part of our soul
but we have it, emotions. Emotions are in our life and they are designed as a way to appreciate
not evaluate. However we were not designed by God to let our emotions control our soul because
they can be very dangerous. Listen, they can be wonderful but if they interact with your volition
and if the emotions begin to run the show, then you will begin to make some decisions based on
what you feel, not based on what you think. For every decision you make, there must be a
motive. There must be a desire.
If you make a decision based on what you feel, you could
make the wrong decision. If you make a decision based on what you think then hopefully
you’re thinking the right thoughts
. Emotions can actually affect the way you think. They can
cause you to daydream. How many times have you laid there on the couch, in your easy chair, in
your bed and imagined yourself somewhere else? Emotions can make you sad. They can even
make you shed a tear. You’ve probably done this. If you’ve seen some tear jerker movie and a
tear leaks out of your eye and you turn your head, wiped it away because you don’t want
anybody to see it. Emotions are real. They can make us happy and they can make us sad which
are normal emotional responses. However, volition coupled with emotion can go absolutely wild
when it’s not restrained by the conscience. Volition, that’s the chooser, coupled with emotions,
that’s not the evaluator, that’s the appreciator, they can go wild if they are not restrained by the
conscience. The conscience is the part of your soul which is suppose to house all of your norms
and standards, things you’ve learned are right and things you’ve learned are wrong. You learned
them at an early age. You learned how to brush your teeth. You learned how to wash your
clothes. You learned how to give privacy, respect for human life, and obedience to the rules.
When you use your volition to override these and you act on your emotions, then you’re very
likely to make some bad decisions. It happens all the time in regard to romance. It happens all
the time in regard to finance. People get angry and their emotions override their conscience even
though they know something’s wrong, they know they shouldn’t do it, they wind up making a bad
decision. I’ll tell you something, two things that fuel the emotions and get your emotions off the
chart, are drugs and alcohol. They bring out the emotions and cloud the conscience. Basically
when you get drunk or when you get high you quit thinking because everything you do becomes
based on your feelings. At this point you just don’t have many boundaries because your
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
conscience is impeded. You may even justify committing a crime in order to sustain the habit that
can slowly destroy your life. I’m not a lawyer, I’m not a judge but I know trouble when I see it
brewing in my life and you know it too. Contrary to what we may have been told, Christianity
has nothing to do with our emotions. It’s not about getting all worked up at the church service.
It’s not about weeping tears at the altar. It’s not about telling your neighbor that you love them or
feeling really close to God. It’s not even about singing and reciting prayers or parroting back
phrases from a worship manual. These things, although they may be legitimate, don’t have any
lasting impact. When you do them, you’re going through the motions but they’re not going to
carry you past the Sunday lunch.
The only thing that will carry you, the only thing that will
sustain you, the only thing that will motivate you is the Word of God in your soul.
This will
sustain you through life’s up and downs. This is why 2 Timothy 2:15 says,
“Study to show thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of
truth.”
Living the Christian life is all about what you think. Any type of emotional response is
fine if it comes through appreciation and gratitude for all that God has provided for you. You’ve
been given eternal life. There is nothing wrong with being emotional about this. Every time he
talks about it, a friend of mine starts weeping. He just gets overwhelmed with the fact that God
forgave him and guaranteed him eternal life. We have been given the mind of Christ (1
Corinthians 2:16). Although we haven’t seen Him and we haven’t talked to Him personally, we
have been given a pastor who can tell us what the Scripture means. You should understand this.
You must have a well-qualified pastor to teach you God’s Word. The Bible is not a novel. I meet
people all the time that read through the Bible. There’s nothing wrong with this.
The Bible is not
a novel, it is a textbook, and designed to be taught to you. This is why God equips men
called pastor-teachers, to teach you the Bible.
The Greek term is
poimen kai didaskalos,
pastor
and teacher. Their job by means of their spiritual gift is to dig out the meaning of the Scripture
and explain it to you so that you can make the application in your life. When you begin to
understand how the Lord Jesus Christ thought then you began to have the opportunity to make
His thoughts your thoughts. This is why you hear me quote Philippians 2:5 all the time,
“Let this
mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
This is you learning to think like He thinks and
this only comes when you renovate or rebuild the way you think. Instead of seeing life through
human eyes, I call this human viewpoint, you see your life through God’s eyes and this is called
divine viewpoint. Romans 12:2 even tells you,
“Do not be conformed to this world but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind
[the changing of your mind, the rebuilding of your
mind]
so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
This is
what God wants you to do, He wants you to learn His plan. This is why Jesus Christ the
Lord said,
“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take
My yoke upon you and learn from Me”
(Matthew 11:28-29).
The disciples were learners, that’s
what they were, and the Lord Jesus Christ spent three years teaching them things they needed to
understand and know in His absence because He was going to leave them. He told them He was
going to be killed, crucified. They had to know how to carry on. Like me, maybe you are
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
growing older. I’ve heard from some people this week in Northern California talking about being
older. I love to hear from listeners wherever you are. Don’t ever hesitate to pick up the phone and
call me if you’d like to. You can always call the 800 number on our website or don’t hesitate to
write to us. I always love to hear how God is working in your life. As we grow older we can
break the old patterns and the old habits and learn a new way to live. That’s the Christian life.
Our mindset begins to change. Our arrogant preoccupation with self and justification begins to
be broken. We start responding to unfair situations and not reacting to them because we now can
forgive people, not be bitter, and not seek revenge. In essence we begin to think like Christ
thought when He was here on this planet and we can grow to become spiritually mature
believers.
In order to be a spiritually mature believer, you’ve got to know and apply
Scripture.
I’m talking about a maximum amount of the Word of God in your soul. Let me tell
you what I do. Every day I sit down under the authority of my pastor. I get a cup of coffee, get
into my study, open my Bible, open my notebook, and I listen to the Word of God taught to me
by my pastor every day. My pastor is in Houston, Texas at Berachah Church. I get the DVDs of
his messages which are four hours a week and I’m able to consistently listen on a daily basis to
the teaching of the Word of God. It’s more important to me than eating breakfast. It’s more
important to me than eating lunch because it is a type of feeding. I’m feeding on the Word of
God. Jeremiah said that he ate God’s words. They nurtured him and nourished him. You can do
the same thing. If you don’t have a well-qualified pastor, I can tell you how to get accurate
studies and you can sit down, listen, and study right there at your desk or at your dining room
table. Get a cup of coffee in the morning or the evening, or get a soda and open a notebook, listen
and take notes. My pastor has been teaching the
Life of Christ
series for almost 1,000 hours.
You’re a little behind the curve aren’t you, but if you started listening to this 1,000 hours, we’re
talking about three years of teaching. Wow, there’s so much to learn and put into your life. My
overall objective and your overall objective is to glorify God at all times by making good
decisions every day in our lives based on what the Bible says. If I’m going to grow up, if I’m
going to be a mature believer, if I’m going to glorify God, then I need to use the environment that
I’m in to study. Some of you listening to me today may be incarcerated. If you are incarcerated,
you need to get this book,
A Divine Pardon.
There are thousands of them circulating in
institutions across America today. If you’re incarcerated you have a lot of time to study, a lot of
time to learn and apply what you learn. Let’s face the facts. You could sit there incarcerated, be
angry about it, and plot the revenge that you are going to do when you get out or you could admit
your sin and your failure and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Don’t dwell on past failures.
Paul said in Philippians 3:13,
“Forgetting those things that are behind,”
move ahead in the
spiritual life.
Use your situation to gain an advantage.
Remember Paul, David, Moses, all
committed murder and they were all exonerated. They all had tremendous ministries in their lives
but they were all sinners. Me too, I haven’t committed murder but I’m a sinner just like you.
Romans 3:23 says,
“All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.”
1 John 1:8 says,
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
There’s not one
584-A-Divine-Pardon-p5-transcript.pdf
perfect person among us. We all have a sin nature. Sometimes I get frustrated when I see people
that act like they don’t sin. They have that holy language, they look at you and roll their eyes
toward heaven and say, “Oh brother, it’s so good to see you brother.” I’m thinking, “This is a guy
fixing to stick it to me.” My job, your job is to grow, to advance, to learn God’s Word, not to get
sucked into ritual that has no reality to it. You have time to do it right now.
God always offers us
a second chance
. If He didn’t offer us a second chance, you and I would be a greasy spot right
now. The truth is, not only does He give us two chances, He’s given me and probably you three
or four chances, many more chances than we deserve. 1 Corinthians 15:22 says,
“In Christ all
are made alive.”
We are alive. We have a new spiritual life. We are a new spiritual species. We
are not just Americans. We are not just black or white or red or yellow. We are also Christians,
this is a new species. John 4:24 says, “If we are going to worship God, we have to worship Him
in Spirit and in truth.”
We have to be filled with God the Holy Spirit and we have to learn
God’s Word.
In Christ, all are made alive, every one of us, we are alive. Jesus said as He was
talking to the disciples, “when I go away
, I am going to ask for the Father to send the Comforter
to you, and He will be with you forever”
(John 14:16). This demonstrates His commitment to
those disciples. The question that He asks us is will we be committed to Him? Staying in
fellowship with God every moment, every day, using problem-solving device #1 which is
rebound, rebounding sin, is critical. It is critical if I want the Holy Spirit rather than my sin
nature to control me.
Fellowship with God by means of God the Holy Spirit is essential
because we can never become a mature believer if we don’t do this.
There is only one way to
accomplish the goal and it is not by sheer determination alone. It is only by your positive
volition, staying filled with the Holy Spirit. As a believer in Jesus Christ, as a member of the
royal family of God, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and you are told to be filled by the Holy
Spirit. The ministry of the Holy Spirit reveals the plan to you and He enables you to do it.
John
14:26,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
He guaranteed the
disciples that even though He was going to leave, they would have a Helper, an Assistant, a
Mentor, and we have Him too. Ephesians 4:30 says we are,
“Sealed by the Holy Spirit until the
day of redemption.”
Paul warned us in Galatians 5:16,
“Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill
the lust of the flesh.”
If you do not understand this, you will frustrate yourself because it’s not
possible to live the Christian life without the filling of the Holy Spirit. Morality is not the
Christian life. Even people that don’t believe in Jesus Christ can be moral. Let me state it one
more time for you. The filling of the Holy Spirit is attained every time you use rebound.
Every
time you go to God and confess your sin, you are filled with the Holy Spirit.
You are indwelt
by the Holy Spirit at salvation, but when you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit and you grieve the
Holy Spirit according to the Bible. When you confess your sin, rebound, then you are reinstated
to fellowship with God and this is where we can grow. This is the only way, we can’t do it any
other way. Either you learn this and you grow in grace or you don’t learn this and you continue to
live a life of works, thinking that God will be impressed with you because you don’t smoke or
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drink or chew or do some goofy thing that you think the Bible tells you not to do. You think you
are turning God on because you don’t do this. What will excite your Heavenly Father? He doesn’t
have emotions like you and I do, but I can assure you He will appreciate your effort to learn His
plan and put it to use in your life. There is a process, you have to learn it. You have to go through
the process. You have to put it to work in your life. When you do this, then you can put the sin
nature in the box and keep the cap on it. Even though it’s going to come out from time to time,
you can still confess the sin and get back in fellowship because your volition makes the decision.
Your volition chooses to sin and your volition chooses to confess the sin.
Either you are in
fellowship or out fellowship, there are no two ways about it. You are either in fellowship with
God walking in the light or you are out of fellowship with God walking in the darkness.
In Luke
11:28 Jesus says that,
“Happiness belongs to those who hear My Father’s
Word and keep it.”
All spiritual momentum, everything in your life if you’re going to grow spiritually, consists
of you hearing God’s Word and keeping God’s Word.
We cannot grow up spiritually without
listening to the teaching of the Word of God. Romans 10:17 tells us,
“Faith comes by hearing
and hearing by the Word of God.”
The more we hear, the greater the opportunity we have to
learn and the more we learn the greater the opportunity we have to grow if you’re listening to the
right person.
Now you might listen to the wrong person. You might listen to some con artist who
tells you that “In order to serve Je-sus,” that’s a way they say it, I often wondered when they got
on a first name basis with the King of kings and the Lord of lords? “In order to serve Je-sus you
need to buy my latest book and read about it. You need to give up something. You need to turn
over a new leaf.” This is not the spiritual life. God does not authorize anybody to hawk His
messages. We are not allowed to sell the Word of God. We got it free. Yet today Christians sell it.
Every time I turn around I see it for sale. Every gas station I stop in, I see it for sale. I am proud
of one thing, we don’t sell anything. Everything is free. If you want something from this ministry,
just write to us, don’t send a check. We’ll send it to you immediately, no charge whatsoever. I
learned the acronym
LAG
from a friend to teach the concept of
learn, apply, and glorify.
If you
want to glorify God you have to learn His Word, and apply it into your life, and do the right thing
in the right way. Being a mature believer is you doing the right thing in the right way. It’s you
learning the protocol plan of God. Simply put, you follow the right procedure, doing a right thing
in a right way. If you do a right thing in a wrong way, it’s still wrong. Is it right to pray? Yes. Is
there a right way to pray and a wrong way to pray? Yes. Are there times that my prayer will not
be answered? Yes. Why? Because you’re doing the right thing in the wrong way. For example,
Psalm 66:18 says,
“If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”
With
unconfessed sin in your life, you can pray up a storm, get up in front of the church and sound
holy and pray to God, but it’s not going to go any higher than the ceiling. Everybody in the
audience might think, “Oooh, what a spiritual giant that is. Did you hear the way he prayed?” If
you have unconfessed sin in your life, it does not impress God. It’s not going to God because the
Holy Spirit is quenched, He’s grieved, and you are not following the protocol plan of God. You
must learn to follow the protocol plan of God. A Christian out of fellowship with unconfessed sin
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in his life can still do all these right things and even look holy while he’s doing them, go to
church, attend Sunday school, give money, pray, he looks great but he’s not following the plan.
It’s ritual without reality and it is meaningless. I hope you’re listening today. I don’t know what
you’ve been through or what you’ve been going through but this show is designed to open the
blinds to let you see what’s really there. If you have some hunger and you’re interested in
growing in grace and in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you’re listening to
the right show. I hope you’ll stay in touch. I hope you’ll come back next Sunday. Until next
week, I am your host Rick Hughes saying thank you for listening to The FLOT Line.
