Dive into an enlightening podcast episode with host Rick Hughes as he dismantles the common misconceptions surrounding holiness and religious asceticism. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking clarity on what it truly means to live a holy life according to biblical principles. Rick stresses the importance of differentiating between human-imposed standards of piety and the spiritual maturity achieved through consistent growth in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around. 30 minutes of simple motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And you know we do not use any manipulation. That means we don’t ask for money. We’re not trying to sell you something. We’re not trying to solicit membership. We’re just trying to offer you information, information that will help you verify and identify the Word of God in your life so you can understand God’s plan for your life. If you can understand that, you have the freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust. Remember I’ve told you before that God gives you two ends, one of those ends you sit with and one of them you think with. And success in your life is going to depend which one of those you use. For example, heads, you’ll win it. Tails, well, you’re going to lose. That’s why the Bible tells us to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. What I want to talk to you about today is critical, but before I do, let me remind you of our website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org. You can always call us at 800-831-0718, 800-831-0718. I’m not a counselor. I’m simply an evangelist teaching the Word of God. But we have material that you can order from the website or by calling directly, and that material is free. Several of our books called Christian Problem Solving, Crash Course in Christianity, also Practicing Your Christianity, Life’s Toughest Years, many different transcripts from the years 2018, 19, 20, and 21. In other words, every radio show we ever did is transcribed and put into a book that And you can read it as a devotional book, so it’s available also free of charge. So think about these things, and if we can help you in any way, don’t hesitate. Remember, the Flotline is made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices found in the Bible, found in the Word of God, taught to me by my very own pastor years ago. And they include such things as how to confess your sin called rebound, that’s the secret to being problem-solving device number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. And then problem-solving device number three, the faith rest drill, standing on the promises of God. Problem-solving device number four, grace orientation. Number five, biblical orientation. Number six, having a personal sense of destiny. Number seven, virtue love, that’s your personal love for God. Number eight, impersonal love for all other members of the human race. Number nine, sharing the happiness of God. And number 10, occupation with Christ. I just ran through them briefly like skipping a rock across a lake. But each one of those, I could teach you hours on each one of those. We’re not here to teach it right now. But if you’d like to know what these are and how you live them and exploit those opportunities, order the Christian Problem Solving book today. And they’ll all be listed right there for you. You can also go to our website and listen to the radio shows from the website, rickhughesministries.org. You can click on them and play them right there. Or you can do the podcast. We podcast on Apple iPod. We podcast on Spotify. We podcast on Anchor, Breaker, different podcast menus. Just simply go to the search in the podcast and type in The Flocked Line. Right now we’re close to 900,000 downloads of people that have downloaded the radio show and listened to the flight line through the podcast. And I know that millions are hearing it today in major cities across America. Because we broadcast in Dallas, Houston, we broadcast in San Antonio, we broadcast in Los Angeles, San Diego, All the major cities like Denver, Tucson, all the way across the country. And so people are listening all over the place. Great opportunity for people to hear the Word of God. Even in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, people are hearing the Word of God this morning. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for giving me a few moments of your time, and I’ll try not to take up much more. Let’s get into the subject. Here it is. Get ready. Buckle your seatbelt up. I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to think about it. Are you living a holy life? Are you living a holy life? Or in other words, what does it mean to be a holy person? What does it mean to be a holy person? Holiness is a word thrown around sometimes in organized religion, and people say, well, I want to be holy. But many people make the mistake of trying to be holy by gaining favor with God through extreme self-denial. even the lost person the person who’s not a believer in the lord jesus christ might believe that he or she can earn god’s favor or god’s approval by following a strict code of conduct or self-denial sometimes people will say well if the good things you do outweigh the bad things you do then you’ll get into heaven and that’s not true that’s not true at all unfortunately because jesus said i am the way the truth and the life and no man can come to the father but by me, and so whatever your good works are, they’re not gonna count for anything. So lost people may think they can be good enough to go to heaven, but it won’t happen. Only by faith alone in Christ alone can you inherit the free gift of eternal life. That’s because he paid the penalty for your sin. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, the Bible says. This sort of what we call holiness is often the lifestyle of organized religion. And our Lord faced these arrogant type individuals who actually believed that God was gonna bless them if they operated under some sort of strict code of asceticism. Asceticism, A-S-C-E-T-I-C-I-S-M, asceticism. And that means extreme legalism. In Mark 7, one through three, then came together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes, and they came from Jerusalem, And when they saw some of the disciples eating bread with defiled, that is to say their hands were not washed, they found fault with them. And the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they washed their hands off, do not eat, holding the tradition of the elders. So they thought it was a big sin to eat bread without washing your hands first. It might not be the most hygienic thing in the world. You should wash your hands before you eat, but it has nothing to do with being holy or being spiritual. Our Lord commented on these religious ascetics that he faced in his lifetime. Listen to what he said. Matthew 15, eight through nine. This people draws near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines commandments of men. Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. The commandments of men is what religion would have you believe. That’s the asceticism, religious holiness. This asceticism is a mean of you attaining a higher spiritual status or a divine recognition from God by a system of works that attempts to overcome your sinful desires. by means of giving up something, your personal sacrifice, or your extreme self-denial. Basically what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to stop your old sin nature from causing you to sin, right? And so you have a sin nature, I have a sin nature, you have a volition, I have a volition. Our volition will either say yes or no when the sin nature tempts us. So the Bible clearly says the flesh wars against the spirit, the spirit wars against the flesh, and they’re contrary one to the other. So when your sin nature pops up and throws a temptation at you and your volition says, yes, I’m gonna do it, then you sin. But you cannot overcome the desires of your sin nature by extreme self-denial, by saying, you know, I’m gonna give up peanuts now. If I don’t eat peanuts for the rest of my life, I’ll be holy. If I’m gonna give up drinking soda pop, I’m gonna give up smoking cigarettes, I’m gonna give up drinking, I’m gonna give up something for God. Well, that might be healthy, but that’s not holiness. In the New Testament, the Judaizers were a group of Jewish Christians who insisted, they insisted that Jewish brethren should follow the Mosaic law and the Gentile converts to Christianity must first of all be circumcised. Listen to Matthew, excuse me, listen to Acts 15 one. And some men came from Judea and started to teach believers that people can’t not be saved unless they are circumcised as Moses’ teaching required. Paul and Barnabas had a fierce dispute with these men and so Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were sent to Jerusalem to see the apostles and spiritual leaders about this claim. So this was a serious issue. They’re saying that these new converts to Christianity had to be circumcised, and that’s not true. So here’s what happened. The next day, Paul went with us to visit James, and all the spiritual leaders were present. After greeting them, Paul related everything God had done through his work with non-Jewish people, and while the spiritual leaders heard about everything, they praised God, and then they said to Paul, you see, brother, how many thousands… Jews are now believers and all of them are deeply committed to the mosaic teaching But they have not been told or they have been told that you teach Let me back that up, but they have been told that you teach all the Jews living among non-jewish people to abandon Moses They claim you tell them not to be circumcised and their children are to follow Jewish cadet some customs What should we do about this? And so they wanted to force Paul into going back and teaching circumcision. Even baptism, this was a problem. And Paul said, I thank God I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas. God didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. So this type of behavior, this Judaistic ascetic behavior, was trying to coerce new believers into being circumcised or even being baptized. This type of behavior is endorsed by Satan since no one can gain eternal favor by God by means of their holy lifestyle, clean living, that sort of stuff. Romans 3.10, as it is written, there are none righteous, no, not even one. I don’t care how holy you try to be, you cannot manufacture holiness. Isaiah 64, six says, we are all like an unclean thing. That means we have a sin nature and all of our righteousness are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes. So I don’t care how good you try to be, how nice you are, how much you give up. It does not impress God. There’s a protocol plan of God that God deals with, and if you don’t understand that, you’ll never have a relationship with God. You’ll never grow to spiritual maturity. That’s why we always encourage you to get under a well-qualified pastor that can teach it to you. You see, Paul had to deal with his legalism during his ministry. He even wrote to Timothy, the pastor of churches in Ephesus concerning satanic influence. The churches of the first century were increasing in number and various questions started to arise concerning church order, excuse me, and church discipline. Avoidance of wine, avoiding certain foods, as well as social relationships and matrimony, all for the sake of being holy. They became a heresy. It crept into the early church. And listen to what Paul told young Timothy. 1 Timothy 4, 1 through 4, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter time some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. And here comes the legalism, the asceticism. Listen now. forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it’s received with thanksgiving. What does it mean having their conscience seared? How does that happen? The word seared is an interesting Greek word in the New Testament called kasariadzo, kasariadzo. And it literally means to be branded, just like the early cowboys of the Wild West would brand their cattle in order to prove ownership. And it appears that Satan is able to mark forever the conscience of a believer by introducing some false doctrine being placed into the mentality of the soul. Once that false doctrine is instilled, the branded believer will adhere to the false ritual for the rest of their life. I’ll give you an example. Were you taught it’s a sin to eat meat on Friday? Were you? It’s not. Have you been taught that it’s a sin to smoke a cigarette or smoke a cigar? It’s not. Do you believe it’s a sin to drink a glass of wine or have a cold beer? It’s not. Have you been taught that it’s a sin to dance or wear makeup? It’s not. Once these concepts are instilled at a young age, it is almost impossible to get away from them. Certainly, there are sins that Christians should be aware of and be careful not to get involved in under the law of liberty and the law of supreme sacrifice. But what I just read to you, these are not going to make you holy because you give up something. This type of asceticism or giving up things or legalism leads to a tragic misunderstanding of the grace of God and his power that’s available to you. Your restraint and your virtue is derived from spiritual growth rooted under the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is problem-solving device number two, and renovating your thinking from Bible doctrine, problem-solving device number four. Romans 8, 13 says, if you live after the flesh, you’ll die. But if you, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, you’ll live. In other words, if you allow your flesh to control you, this will eventually lead unto the sin of the death. But if you’ll stay filled with the Holy Spirit, which is problem-solving device number two, and it comes through rebound, problem-solving device number one, if you will allow the Holy Spirit to control you, you will eventually, eventually grow and be a material believer, be a wonderful, productive, wonderful, productive life. In Romans 12 too, don’t be conformed to this world. Change the way you think. Here it comes. Listen. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Quit thinking the way you think. Why? So that you may prove what is good and what is acceptable and what is the perfect will of God. Since legalism and asceticism replace the dynamics of the spiritual life with some sort of self-imposed human experience, it’s all going to be rejected by God as useless. for the believer. So how do you actually live a holy life? What exactly is a holy life? 1 Peter 1.15 says, but as he which hath called you is holy, so be you holy in all manners of conversation. Well, positionally, when you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s called positional sanctification. And that means that you have the righteousness of Christ imputed to you. That’s why the Bible said, he that knew no sin was made sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God through him. Positionally, you are holy. in your position. If you were not, you couldn’t go to heaven. You are holy in your position. You are in Christ Jesus. But experientially, you might not be holy. Experientially, you might be carnal. You might be fleshly. You might not be filled with the Holy Spirit. You may have scar tissue and have your soul branded with a hot iron as the devil taught false doctrine to you. Experientially, you might not be holy. So how does that happen? by the filling of the Holy Spirit. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are living a holy life. And then ultimately, you will be holy. And what I mean by that, in your resurrection body, you will have no more old sin nature. It’ll all be gone. Holiness, the holy life, hagios is the Greek word. It’s an adjective referring to separation from sin and therefore you being consecrated to God. And that simply means that you control the desires of your flesh and you’re committed to growing in grace. And how exactly do you grow in grace? Oh, I know. You get a Bible and go sit under a tree and read it. Nope. Oh, I know. I know. I get a daily devotion and read it. Nope. You get under a well-qualified pastor who teaches you God’s word on a consistent daily basis. I will insist on this for you. You must get under a well-qualified pastor and listen to him teach you the Bible on a daily basis. That means get a notebook, get a pen, get a cup of coffee, sit down at the table and listen and learn and apply into your life what he teaches you. You know, let me give you the difference between spirituality and maturity. Spirituality simply means you are filled with the Holy Spirit. If you are, if there’s no unconfessed sin in your life, if you’ve used Rebound, you are spiritual. You’re not carnal, and that’s a holiness. That’s temporal holiness. That’s temporal filling of the Holy Spirit. And you can quench the Spirit. You can grieve the Spirit by committing personal sin, getting out of fellowship with God, getting under control of your sin nature until you rebound and get back in fellowship with God. But spirituality is simply you being filled with the Holy Spirit. So at this point in time, as you listen to me right now, whether you’re at home in a chair, whether you’re in a car, you are either spiritual or you’re carnal, one of the two. How would I know that? Is there unconfessed sin in your life? Mental attitude sin, sins of the tongue, overt sins. Is there sin in your life that you have not admitted to God? If so, you are carnal. And you may be headed to church. You may be fixed to do a right thing in a right, wrong way. Going to church is right, but being in the wrong way means you’re out of fellowship, you’re under control of your sin nature, and you’re carnal. Get in fellowship before you get in there and sit down, because if you don’t, then what the pastor has to say to you is not going to help you because you’re not going to be able to transfer that information from his mouth to your life because that’s what the Holy Spirit does for you. So spirituality is simply you being filled with the Holy Spirit. If you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re spiritual. If you’re not, you’re carnal. But spiritual maturity, that’s a different ballgame. That’s a whole different ballgame. Spiritual maturity is mandated in the scriptures. You’ve heard me use these verses over and over and over again. 2 Peter 3.18, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Grow, grow, grow. 2 Timothy 2.15, study to show thyself approved unto God. Study, study, study. Matthew 11, 29, Jesus’ words, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Learn, learn, learn. How do you do it? You sit under a pastor who teaches you the word of God and you learn it and apply it into your life. So in order to grow, I keep harping on it, and I’m going to harp on it for a long time. You must be under a well-qualified pastor. Where do I get that from? Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, listen carefully. And he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastor and teacher. That’s one word in the Greek New Testament, poimen kai didaskalos, pastor and teacher. Why did God give these gifts, these communication gifts? For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, Ephesians 4.12, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God and come into being perfect men under the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ. In other words, we replicate his thinking, we replicate his life. So that, so that, verse 14, we are no longer children talks to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men who are crafty men, cunning craftiness where they lie and wait to deceive you. But speaking the truth in love, verse 15, Ephesians 4, that’s great problem-solving device of virtue love. We may grow up, grow up into him in all things which is the head, even Christ Jesus. You must grow up. Now listen to the next verse. from whom the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part making increase of the body into the edifying of itself in virtue love. And I wish I had time to break that whole verse down and teach it word by word and line by line. But your spiritual growth and your advance to being a spiritually mature believer or the holiness that you want to be, is a gradual process which requires consistent utilization of the problem-solving devices, consistently being filled with the Holy Spirit, consistently taking in the Word of God on a daily basis with the ever-increasing application to your life. See, the ultimate objective is for you to provide irrefutable evidence to God’s manifold wisdom, grace, and love, and you will be tested. You will be tested. Satan will test you. That’s called evidence testing in the Bible. And we want you to be able to provide irrefutable evidence of God’s manifold wisdom and grace and love that you’ve learned because you studied and you grew and you are not being led about as a child. No longer are you tossed to and fro. You got the man who’s teaching it to you and now you’re learning it and now you’re applying it and now you’re replicating the life of Christ and this is what you should have been doing all along instead of trying to be holy by giving up some kind of something or another. Giving up cigarettes, giving up this, giving up that, making you holy. That’s not how you get holy. I just told you, I just spent the last 25 minutes telling you. This is what Paul said in Ephesians 3, 8 through 10. Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world has been hidden in God who created all things by Jesus Christ and you might not understand that but Jesus Christ our Lord created everything First John, excuse me, John chapter one, read it for yourself. By him was not, everything was made by him. Why did God do this? To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers and heavenly places might be known by the church, that’s you, By the church, the manifold wisdom of God. That’s exactly what your pastor is to teach you. Wisdom concepts. Practical application of biblical wisdom in your life. So that you understand positional sanctification, that’s your holiness. Experiential sanctification, that’s your spirituality. And ultimate sanctification, that is your eventual resurrection body minus the sin nature and certainly you will be holy in heaven. So you can be holy here too when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. But you’re not holy because you got baptized. You’re not holy because you got circumcised. You’re not holy because you gave up drinking RC colas. You’re holy because you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. Don’t make the mistake of trying to gain favor with God through some kind of extreme self-denial. And don’t fall into the trap of organized religion telling you that if you will do this, that God will like you better because you gave up something. A lot of times if you give up your income, they say God will like you better if you give up your income and fork it over to us. And that’s not true either. Has this made sense to you? Is it clicking in your brain? I hope so. I’ve been pretty straightforward, pretty rough, so a lot of people are going to get mad about this and say, oh, brother, you mistaught that. You didn’t teach that right. I mean, I get a lot of letters from a lot of people and a lot of calls from a lot of people, and they’re not all goody-goody calls. Some of them want to straighten me out. I don’t need that kind of call. I know what I’m teaching, and I know it’s true. And I know if you’re listening, and if you’re applying, and you’re learning, then you will stay filled with the Holy Spirit by using Rebound. You will use the Faith Thrust Drill, and you will get under that well-qualified pastor and start growing. If you don’t know where he is, contact me. We’ll tell you how to find him. Maybe he’s in your city, maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s somewhere else and you can access the information from another city. But somewhere there is a man God has for you. He’s the shepherd that will shepherd your soul. So pray about it. Ask the Lord to show you, to give you the courage and the ability to find that pastor who can lead you to spiritual maturity and the high ground in your life so you can replicate the life of Christ in what you say, think, and do. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
