Join Rick Hughes as he explores what it means to be a spiritual MVP. Discover the crucial components of developing spiritual momentum, virtue, and poise to withstand life’s pressures. Drawing from biblical teachings, Rick highlights the significance of divine wisdom, urging listeners to establish a deep relationship with God that transcends religious practice, fostering a truly impactful spiritual life.
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 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I hope you will stay with me. It won’t be long, only about 30 minutes. We call it 30 minutes of inspiration, motivation, and no manipulation. That’s right, we don’t con you. We’re not trying to ask you for money. We’re not going to try to sell you a book. We just want to give you information. Hopefully, that information will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And then you have to make a decision. Do you want to orient and adjust to the plan or just move on down the road? It’s up to you. I wish I could see who’s listening. I wish I could see if you’re in your car, in your home, on your way to church, or wherever you are this morning. But I’m very grateful that you give me a few minutes of your time. I promise I won’t waste your time. I’ll give you accurate information that will give you direction in your life if you’re interested. But I want to ask you a very serious question this morning. And by the way, you can always get to us on our website before we get started. That’s rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. Or you can call us at 800-831-0718. You can order any of our books that are free of charge. If you go to our website, you’ll see them. We also have… Many of our books are read to you verbally by Jack Steele, our radio announcer. He’ll read the book to you. You can just click on it and it’ll play. So take advantage of that information if you’d like to learn more about the plan of God for your life. So now let me ask you this serious question this morning. It’s a pretty serious question, so hang on to your hat. If you died today, and I pray you don’t, but if you died today, would you go to heaven? If you died today, would you go to heaven? You know, a lot of people think it’s not even possible to know that, but is it possible to really know for sure? How could you be absolutely confident about going to heaven if in fact you did die today? In 1 John 5, 13, the Bible says clearly these words. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know, K-N-O-W, that you may know that you have eternal life. and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. It did not say you hope. It didn’t say you try. It said you will know if you believe in the name of the Son of God. That’s believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That’s exactly what Paul told the Roman jailer when he was loosed out of the jail. That’s exactly what Jesus said. If you believe in me whom he has sent. So notice the conditions for having eternal life. Believe is the verb. Believe in the name of the Son of God. I just quoted it. These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. That word believe is the Greek verb pistouo. Pistouo. That’s the Greek word. Translates English believe. Spelled P-I-S-T-E-U-O. Pistouo. And it’s the verb counterpart of the noun pistis, P-I-S-T-I-S, which is the word faith. So we got believe, pistou, and faith, pistis. It means to be convinced of something. It’s the word used to express the central conviction of the Christian faith, according to the dictionary written by Muntz of the New Testament words, M-O-U-N-T-Z, Muntz Dictionary. Great book. If you don’t have it, you ought to get it. Full of New Testament words, and you can look them up and see what they mean. That’s where I get a lot of these definitions from. So our Lord Jesus Christ himself said this in John 6, 40. This is the will of him, that’s the will of God, the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him, there we go again, pistou, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Paul wrote these words in 1 Thessalonians 4, 14. If we believe, there it is, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, death, burial, and resurrection, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus and those that are already in heaven at the rapture of the church will come back to set up the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. So every individual on this planet, every individual on the earth, will eventually have to make a decision in regards to the true identity of Jesus. You know, all of us come to God consciousness at some time in our life. Usually at a young child, sometimes they call it the age of accountability, but it’s a God consciousness decision. The Bible teaches that God has revealed himself to every person regardless of who they are through their conscience. Even though this act of God’s love is available to everyone, Some people still reject the knowledge of God and substitute their own desires and their own wishes. Romans talks about it in Romans 1, 24 through 25. Listen to the rejection of God in their conscience and forming their own God. Here it is. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lust of their hearts. to dishonor their bodies among themselves who exchange the truth of God for the lie and worship to serve the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. So everybody knows that God exists. Everybody comes to that availability, that thought. There is a God. The question is, who is he? Individuals such as these that I read about just there in Romans 1.24 are negative at God consciousness and would wind up being negative if they heard the gospel. If they’re negative at God consciousness and they say, okay, that rock is God or that tree is God or that can is God. And if they hear the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ is God, they’re going to reject it because they went negative at God consciousness. If you’re negative at God consciousness, more than likely you’re going to be negative when you hear the gospel. So their decision to reject God would lead to a decision to reject Christ. God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their heart. If you have to read the rest of that passage, know what it’s talking about. But it’s talking about a dishonorable lifestyle of homosexuality. So their decision to reject God would lead to a decision to reject Christ, and even though they may build temples or shrines in an attempt to please the God of their imagination, they will never see heaven. Listen again to Romans 1.20. For since the creation of this world, now here’s how people know there is a God. For since the creation of this world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. You hear that? No excuses. Even from the creation of the world, God can clearly be seen, understood, he exists. But listen to verse 21, because although they knew God, They did not glorify him as God, nor were they thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like a corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. This is what the human is capable of doing, rejecting God and creating his own God. And therefore, God gives them up to the desires of their heart. If you have made the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your savior, I promise you, you are guaranteed eternal life. In John 1, 12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in his name. That’s our word again, so that you may know if you have believed in him. Some believe you can lose your salvation. You know that. You’ve heard people talk about that. I used to be saved, but I’m not saved anymore. I committed some bad sin. I rejected that stuff. I don’t believe that stuff anymore. A lot of people accept God, consciousness, accept Christ when they’re young and maybe 10, 11, 12 years old and they get to college and they get convinced there’s no God and they turn on God. Listen to 2 Timothy 2.13. If we are faithless… He, that’s God, remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. What does that mean? Once you’re brought into the royal family of God through faith alone in Christ alone, you’re not gonna be kicked out. You may walk away and you may say, God’s not my father anymore. I don’t believe that stuff anymore. But you are a member of the royal family of God and he’s not going to disown you. If we are faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot deny himself. In John 10, 28, Jesus said, I give unto them eternal life and they will never perish. Neither shall anyone ever snatch them out of my hand. We see, once you’re in God’s family, he will never disown you because you committed some egregious sin. Remember, it’s not the sin that condemns anyone to hell. Why? Because Christ paid for all of our sins on the cross. 1 Peter 2.24, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live to righteousness by whose stripes you are healed. In 2 Corinthians 5.21, again verifying the fact that he paid for all sin, this verse says in second corinthians 5 21 for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might could become the righteousness of god in him and then in first john 2 2 and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also for the whole world So on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sin of the world. My sin and your sin, we should have been the ones crucified, but we did not get crucified. We were given an opportunity to have eternal life through his sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection. So remember this, if there’s nothing you can do to earn God’s forgiveness, then it’s very obvious there’s nothing you can do to keep his forgiveness. You got it free, you keep it free, he’s not gonna take it back. Now you can destroy your testimony and ruin your impact for the Lord Jesus Christ while you’re in the devil’s world. In fact, you could have already made a mess of your new life, but thank goodness God has kept you around for the time being. If it hadn’t been for my pastor’s faithfulness in teaching me the word of God, I probably never would have had a ministry. I would have self-destructed a long time ago. But the first and most wonderful doctrine I learned from my pastor was how to rebound or how to recover from my sin. We call it problem-solving device number one on the flatline of your soul. Rebound is 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and purify us from all of our wrongdoing. That’s the key to remaining filled with the Holy Spirit. So we have a choice today. We can decide to learn and live God’s plan for our life, or we can continue to rock and roll down the my way highway making a mess out of our life. It’s your choice. But I am assuring you that God is looking for a few MVPs, most valuable players, those that love him. You know, you got the MVP of the football game, the MVP of the basketball tournament, the MVP of this or that. God is looking for some MVPs. Did you know that? He wants you to be the MVP of his plan. Listen to Ezekiel 2230. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it. But I found none, zero, not one. This is a bad testimony for a nation, not one righteous person in that whole nation. Can God count on you to be the MVP? If he checked you out, would you fit the bill? Do you know what an MVP even is? Because the individual God is looking for must have some sort of spiritual momentum, including hearing and keeping his word on a consistent basis. That’s why Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1.13, hold fast the pattern of sound doctrine which you’ve heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you, keep it by means of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. So listen, you can sit in church and not pay attention. Daydream, drift, that’s a problem. Sometimes as a communicator of the word of God, I see people sleeping. I see people that shut their eyes, kind of nodding off. I want to tell you something. There’s nothing more insulting to God than to nod off while his word is being taught. In the Old Testament, according to Nehemiah, chapter eight, verses three through six, they stood up while the Bible was taught, while the law was read. And to the extent that you sit there and close your eyes and nod off and go to sleep when the word of God is being taught, you got a problem. Because this is the most precious thing you will ever have in your entire life. It’s the greatest treasure God could ever give you. It’s a word treasure. If you’re going to sleep through it, You’ve got to pay attention. You’ve got to be faithful. And if you do that, then you can establish some momentum in your life. But church is not something you audit, get no credit for coming, you just audit it. The Christian auditor attends church, but he doesn’t apply what he learns. So let’s look at an MVP. What is a MVP that God’s looking for? Well, M stands for momentum, as you heard me say. You got to have some momentum. Momentum is hearing and keeping the word of God on a consistent basis. That’s what it boils down to. Our Lord Jesus Christ told some one lady that interrupted him one time where she said happiness belongs to the breast that bore you in the womb. The womb that bore you in the breast on which you nursed And he rejected that. He said, no, no. He said, happiness belongs to the people that hear my Father’s word and keep it. And so momentum is the most serious thing that you could have as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the ability to consistently study God’s word on a daily basis, to consistently take it in under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, not reading some daily devotional book 10 minutes in the morning before you go to work that’s not it i’m talking about sitting down listening to some man who has the gift of pastor teacher teach you the bible word for word line upon line precept upon precept that’s what momentum is and then applying what you hear The Bible says you get it in your nous, N-O-U-S, which is our word for the mind, but it has to wind up in your heart, kardia, K-A-R-D-I-A. Both of those are in your head. One is where you receive it, and the other is where you store it and use it. The heart has a conscience, and it’s in the conscience that we circulate these scriptures that we learn, and when we need them, we can pull them out and use them and apply them in our life. We don’t have to run to the preacher and say, preacher, tell me what I’m supposed to do now. I don’t know what to do now. He’s like, well, you’ve been going to church here for 10 years and you haven’t been paying attention. You should know what to do. Momentum is essential. You can never be an MVP without consistently studying the Word of God. And it doesn’t have to be a ritual. It has to be a reality. It has to be a genuine hunger in your life to learn and grow and apply. Study, learn, grow, and apply. Someone that I know, a pastor I know used the term LAG, L-A-G. Learn, apply, and glorify. LAG, learn, apply, and glorify. That’s what momentum is. And in your life, unless you establish momentum, you’re never going to be an MVP for God. What does the V stand for? That’s the word virtue. The only way you’re going to be able to function in the devil’s world is to have fantastic virtue. In 2 Peter 1.5, but also for this very reason, give all diligence and add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge. Once again, the Greek word for virtue is arete, A-R-E-T-E, arete, arete. and it means integrity or morality or blameless if possible, What is the enemy of virtue? Well, it’s our own arrogance, our own self-justification, self-deception, self-absorption, our own arrogance. But virtue is the visible manifestation of the invisible thing in your life, your love for God. The function of impersonal love is a visible demonstration of a mature believer’s spiritual life. Problem-solving device number eight on the flatline of your soul’s mentality is impersonal love. And we’ll talk about that in our next lesson, but if you have loving God, you’ve got to love those that God created. So that’s the virtue we’re talking about. The honorable way to live, the moral way to live, the life of integrity, blameless, to have virtue, arete. And then finally, the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has to demonstrate some poise. What is that? That’s the ability to think under pressure. In other words, the ability to keep your coup when things get hot. You know, professional prize fighters look like they’re mad at each other, but they’re not. They’re thinking, they’re learning when can I punch, when can I counterpunch, they’re timing. There’s so much involved in a professional fight, and it’s not the temper. You get mad at the opponent, you’re gonna get beat, because you quit thinking and you start swinging wildly. The believer has to think, think, think under pressure. That’s why the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. We have to learn to think. What are we supposed to think? Well, we have to think divine viewpoint. That’s the scripture. That’s the word of God. Why should we think it? Well, because the Bible says the word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow is a critic. of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. That’s your decisions and your decisions, what you’re thinking about and how you do it. Your thoughts and intents of the heart, and that’s what the Word of God does. It’s a critic of that. And so without some momentum, you’ll never have any poise spiritually in your life. You’ll never be able to think under pressure. You’ll never be able to keep your cool when things get hot. But a person that has some poise has dignified self-confidence. He has the ability or she has the ability to remain focused, steadfast in pressure situations. And this is only because of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Did you know that? Because of the filling of the Holy Spirit in your life. When you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you have the ability to remain focused. When the word of God is circulating in your memory, you have that confidence in God’s plan. Moses demonstrated poise at the Red Sea episode. You remember the Pharaoh was headed to get them, gonna kill them all, had them backed up against the Red Sea. The people were beginning to panic and Moses said, stand still and watch what God’s about to do. He had tremendous poise, he didn’t panic. He operated by faith, and that’s the opposite of panic. David had the same sort of poise when he faced Goliath in the Bible. The spiritual strength of poise eliminates the override of emotions. You know why? Because emotions only focus on the problem and not the solution. Here’s something you should remember. Human solutions are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. Human solutions are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. So how do you maintain your poise? Well, it’s simple. It’s problem-solving device number three called the faith rest drill. Standing on the promises of God. That’s the key to having a relaxed mental attitude. You’ve got to have that poise in order to apply the word of God under intense adversity. And I believe that that poise comes from insight and understanding, which is manifested in the Bible as wisdom in God’s plan. in proverbs 2 verse 6 for the lord gives wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding insight knowledge understanding that’s what wisdom is it’s the ability to see beyond circumstances it’s the ability to see what other people don’t see i call it spiritual x-ray vision But when you have spiritual wisdom, then you can see how God’s working, how God’s operating. But it’s always gonna be up to you. It’s always gonna be a test of your volition. It’s always gonna be whether or not you’re willing to trust God. Poise means you are relaxed. You have a cool mental attitude. You’re not panicking like a dog tail wagging 90 miles an hour every time you come home from work and the dog’s waiting on you and the tail’s going crazy. Your mind can do that. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You can’t focus. You can’t concentrate because of the fear, panic ploy setting in. And there’s no poise when that hits your life like that. So If you’re going to be an MVP for God, you’ve got to establish momentum, which is consistent study of the Word of God on a consistent basis under a well-qualified pastor. You’ve got to develop virtue, which is great integrity from the Word of God in your soul. And you’ve got to have poise, which is the ability to think under pressure. If you can do that, then you’re the kind of person God’s looking for. You’re the kind of person that God’s looking to stand in the gap. Now, this is what we need in America. I’m very happy we have a new president. I’m very happy that direction of this country appears to be changing. But do not kid yourself. It’s not any person that’s going to make a difference. It’s you. As goes your spiritual life, so goes the direction of this country. And if you think it’s all up to the president and his cabinet and all up to the people he appointed, you’re dead mistaken. It’s up to you. God is looking at you. Remember that passage, if my people that are called by my name, 2 Chronicles 7, 14, will humble themselves and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. then I’ll hear their prayer, heal their land. You’re the solution, not the president, you. As goes your spiritual life, so goes the destiny of America. It’s my prayer that as a believer, you will grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that you will become the man or the woman that God destined you to be, and that you will be able to stand in the gap and make up the hedge between God’s discipline and this nation. We just need a few MVPs. I’d like to know that I can count on you. Will you contact me and let me know? Send me a note. Give me a call and say, hey, I heard your message. You can count on me. I’m going to be the MVP. If you’d like a transcript of it, let us know. We’ll get it to you. And if you need any of our books, go to our website, rickhughesministries.org, and order especially Christian Problem Solving, which deals with the flat line of your soul and explains what each one of them is. I hope you’ve been listening, and I hope you’re paying attention, and I hope this message will challenge you to be the spiritual MVP that God is looking for. So until next week, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flat Line.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
