Join host Rick Hughes as he delves into the profound concept of logistical grace in this enlightening episode. Discover how divine planning and provisions play a crucial role in sustaining our lives and the lives of our families. Rick explores how these blessings, available to both believers and non-believers, provide us the opportunity to come to know God and live according to His plan.
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 good morning and welcome to the flatline i’m your host rick hughes and for the next few minutes please stay with me it won’t be long 30 minutes of motivation some inspiration a whole lot of education
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And as we say always, no manipulation because we’re not trying to con you for money. We’re not trying to sell you a product. We’re not going to ask you to join anything. We would just like to ask you to listen as I try to verify and identify the Word of God for your life, the plan of God for your life. And if that’s possible, you can orient and adjust to the plan should you choose to do so. My job is to be on this radio station every Sunday morning at this same time. This is show 1005 that we’re moving into today, and I’d like to thank you for listening and thank you for giving me a few moments of your time. Before we begin our show today and what we’re going to study, I want to remind you that a few weeks ago we announced that we would be dropping some radio stations in the coming year. Your response has been overwhelming. My goodness. So many have written and so many have asked. We do not drop their local station since they listen faithfully every Sunday morning. I’ve had calls and emails from the East Coast to the West Coast, even as far away as Alaska. And we have listened and we are asking for the Lord’s guidance in these decisions we have to make. Some thought maybe we were hurting financially, thus that’s why we’re eliminating radio stations due to high cost, but that’s not the case. Our God has faithfully supplied every need of ours during the 20 plus years this show has been on the air. There’s never been a time that we hurt financially, even though we don’t sell anything and we don’t ask for money. What we’re trying to determine is where we’re not hearing from listeners. So if we have aired in a particular city for a year or more, two years, and only one or two individuals have responded or asked for books or other material, then we assume there’s simply not a demand to continue in that city. We do continue to look for new cities and add them monthly to our radio broadcast. So keep up your prayers for us as we cut and add some stations in the future. Remember, All these shows are podcast daily on various podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, and others. And if you know how to podcast, then you can get them on your phone or your listening device, your pad, iPad, anytime you want to, 24 hours a day all over the world. Okay? Now let’s move into today’s message so we can get diving in and continue what we’re doing, a study on the family. We’re doing an in-depth study on the family, one of God’s divine institutions. Every Sunday, I’ve taken a letter from the word family and spoken in depth about that topic. Elf was for fathers. A was for authority orientation. M was our study on mothers. I was a study on intercessory prayer, and today we will use the letter L, L, F-A-M-I-L. L means we’re going to take a look at logistical grace provisions. logistical grace provisions. Now today, we’re gonna study this, and hopefully you’ll understand it. I hope I can make it clear. So as we look at logistical grace provisions, let me remind you, logistical grace is defined as a divine planning divine support system, divine provision system, divine blessings so you and I can execute the protocol plan of God and fulfill God’s will for our life, God’s purpose for our life, and God’s plan for our life. He provides logistical grace for us so we can have the support and the provisions and the blessings that we need. Logistical grace is actually, not grace, but logistics is a military term, and it means this is how they sustain the troops in the field you know the beans and bullets that are needed the gas that is needed every form of military activity every maneuver in the field has to be supported by proper logistics for the christian family you and i that logistics that we’re going to talk about today is god’s guaranteed provision for your life and especially for the life of your children Believers and unbelievers alike have certain logistical blessings, and it starts with life support. I mean, take a deep breath this morning, breathe it in, and you might enjoy the smell. That’s the air you breathe, and that’s logistics. That’s logistical grace, life support. God gives you air to breathe. And if you had a sip of water like I just did before I began this show, you have water to drink. That’s logistics. And when I walked into the recording studio this morning, I didn’t float up to the ceiling. That’s gravity. It keeps me from floating off into space. And this is a logistic provision as well. And these things, air, water, gravity, all these sort of things, are for all members of the human race, everybody. You are alive today only for one reason, because of the logistical grace of God keeping you alive. not because of anything you’ve done. These are divine provisions bestowed upon everyone in order that each person could have the opportunity to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior. I remind you that our God loves you and he’s not willing that any should perish. The Bible says in 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And that’s why you have logistics, and God is giving you time to make a decision to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I received a phone call from a wonderful individual yesterday telling me that he had done just that from listening to our radio show. He had trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is now a member of the royal family of God, and I’m so grateful for that. If you’ve never done that, it’s your essential decision you must make in your life, the number one decision you must make in your life. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s a simple decision. Is he or is he not the son of God? Did he do what he said he would do or did he not? Did he resurrect from the dead? Did he walk out of the grave alive? Yes, it’s proof of that. And are you going to believe that? Are you going to put your faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? I hope you will. That’s why God’s keeping you alive, giving you time to make that decision in your life. Now, if you’re a Christian parent, as my wife and I are, our job is to let our children know how God sustains their life every day. in order that they have the opportunity to enjoy eternal life. And that would all, of course, be compliments of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, where he paid for all of our sins. In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for he, that’s God, made him who knew no sin, that’s Christ, to be sin for us, that’s me and you, so that in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. There’s no way that we can equal God’s righteousness. We’re not ever going to be good enough. The Bible says there are none that are righteous. No, not one. So the only way we can ever have any fellowship with God is to assume the righteousness of Christ, and that’s given to us when he went to the cross, died in our place, when we believe in him and receive him, and I quote that verse again, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. That’s why you can have fellowship with God. That’s why our prayers can be answered. That’s why God accepts us because we are on equal terms with him now. We have the righteousness of Christ given to us through our faith in him. In 1 Peter 2, 24, he himself bore our sin on the cross, on his own body, on that tree, that we, having died to sin, might live to righteousness. by whose stripes we’re healed. So not only are we given the righteousness of Christ, but we’re able to manufacture capacity righteousness in our life as we live the plan of God every day. Once we receive Christ as Savior, Well, we’re then provided our daily needs by his logistical grace in order that we can eventually fulfill his plan for our lives. Listen to Matthew 6, 25 through 34. Rather long passage, but you will see the logistical grace of God here in this passage. Therefore, Matthew 6, 25, I say to you, do not worry. Worrying is a sin. You might not realize that, but worrying is a sin and needs to be confessed as a sin. That’s why you have a flat line in your soul so the outside sources of adversity don’t become the inside source of stress and cause you to worry. Don’t worry about your life. If you’re a Christian, there it is. Don’t worry. Don’t worry about who’s elected president, who’s elected vice president, who’s elected senator, who’s elected congressman, who’s elected mayor, who’s elected governor. Don’t worry. Don’t worry what you will eat. Don’t worry about what you will drink. Don’t worry about your body and what you will put on it. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather in a barn, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. That’s God’s logistical grace for the birds. Are you not much more valuable than a bird? Which of you by worrying can add one day or one inch to your statue? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. Here’s logistical grace for the flowers. How they grow, they neither toil nor spin. And yet the Lord Jesus Christ said, I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God can clothe the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Why do you not have faith? Because you don’t understand the grace provision called logistical grace provisions for you. Therefore, 31, do not worry about anything, saying, what am I going to eat? What am I going to drink? What am I going to wear? For all of these things the Gentiles seek, that’s unbelievers, for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. You seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all of these things will be added to you. Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry. These verses are about priority in your life. And when the Bible says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, That’s the priority of any Christian family if they’re ever going to reach spiritual maturity. They got to have priority. We all must have priority. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things will be provided for you. When mom and dad don’t place a priority on their spiritual life, but instead they make priority their children’s entertainment, their children’s sports team, their children’s doing whatever their children need to do on Sunday or whatever day of the week it is, it’s no wonder that the children see no need to seek God’s will as adults in their life because their parents never got them there. Their parents never took time to take them to church. They were too busy keeping them involved in sports. Mom and dad trained them in sports competition, but never took them to sit down, never took time to sit down, pray with them, never took time to sit down, study with them, never took them to church, never took them to Sunday school, always on the go, always trying to make sure they’re happy. Listen, you don’t take time to study God’s word with them or even teach them how to pray. It’s no wonder that future grandchildren or your future grandchildren are not going to be concerned with the things of God because mom and dad did not do what the Bible said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. When believers have the correct priority, then blessing over and beyond will flow from God. One such blessing that I want to bring to your attention is called blessing by association. These blessings are received in the spiritual realm as well as in the temporal realm and can even include dying blessing. All the logistical blessings that God provides come to us as a result of our adoption into the royal family of God. What a wonderful thing. These logistical blessings that I’ve been reading to you are provided for every church-age believer. That’s above and beyond the air you breathe, the food you eat, the water you drink. This is more than that. This is unbelievable logistical grace blessings provided for you if you put your priorities number one. And this explains why we are alive every moment of the day. The only reason God keeps us alive, you and me, is because of logistical grace. We don’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, and there’s no work we can accomplish to keep ourselves alive. It’s only by the grace of God that we take another breath. So Christians who fail to execute the Christian life, and there’s a lot of them, Believers who fail to execute the Christian life still have at least the 40 things they received at salvation. Maybe you’ve never heard that before. There are 40 unique assets you’re given the moment you believe in Jesus Christ. If you’d like to find out what they are, I would suggest you do this. I would suggest you contact Theme Ministries, T-H-I-E-M-E, Ministries in Houston, Texas. And their number is 713-621-3740. 713-621-3740. And ask for the book on the 40 things that God provides for you at salvation. They’ll send it free of charge. No problem. But one of those things which God provides is a wonderful thing. It’s called his righteousness. This means that God will support us, sustain us, regardless of how deserving or undeserving we are. In 2 Corinthians 9, 8, God is able to make all grace, all grace abound towards you, always having all sufficiency in all things, all grace, all sufficiency, all things, and then have an abundance for every good work. And in Philippians 4.19, and my God shall supply, there it is again, all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. That’s grace blessing. God is able to make all grace, there’s the word grace, abound towards you, 2 Corinthians 9.8, so that you will have all sufficiency in all things, an abundance for every good work. And again, Paul said, my God will supply everything you need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. So let me ask you a question. What happens when a believing son or a believing daughter turns away from what you taught them when they were children? Maybe they accepted Christ, maybe you taught them the word of God, and they turned away from it as they got older. They went off to college, they got recruited into the cosmic system, they moved up underneath your umbrella protection, your umbrella provision, and they’ve abandoned the biblical principles that you taught them when they were living at home. Now they’re becoming responsible for their own personal decisions, and they’ve gone down to what we call the my way highway. That’s where they will come under warning discipline and eventually maybe even intense discipline if they don’t recover. The Lord Jesus Christ gave a parable in Luke 15, 14 through 17 about the prodigal son. Here’s what he said about the prodigal son who went down the my way highway. When he had spent all his inheritance, there arose a severe famine in the land and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to the citizens of that country, and that guy gave him a job, sent him into the field to feed the pigs, and he would have gladly filled his stomach with the slop the pigs were eating because nobody gave him anything. And when he came to himself, notice that, when he came to himself, that means that his arrogance had been broken and genuine humility had seeped into his soul, and now he realizes what an idiot he was. When he came to himself, he said these words, how many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough to eat and even to spare, and I’m starving from hunger. This parable of the wayward son is proof that God’s discipline produces enforced humility where there is none. When there’s no genuine humility as a child of God, he will enforce discipline and give humility that they need. It’s called enforced humility. So had this young man not gone back home to his father, had he not come to his own senses, had he not awakened and realized what an idiot he had been, then he most certainly probably would have died in a foreign land. That’s grace blessing from God to get him back on track again. Now, logistical grace that God provides for you is so life can be sustained. Logistical grace provisions for sustaining life are never taken away when a child of God goes under divine discipline. So if you have children under divine discipline, God’s not gonna remove their logistical grace support system. He’s still gonna feed them, he’s still gonna let them breathe air, he’s still gonna give them water, still gonna keep gravity working. However, they may be under divine discipline. These things, on the contrary, might sustain their life And the reason that it does is it gives them time to recover from their sin if they will recognize it and then use 1 John 1, 9 or what we call rebound, which is problem-solving device number one. That’s what we do when we sin. We recover from our sin by using 1 John 1, 9. The Hebrews tells us that God will discipline us when we get out of line if we’re his children. In Hebrews 12, 6, the Bible says this, For those whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with a son. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten or whip? That discipline can come in three stages in your life. It can be warning discipline where that’s very easy, just maybe God will let you hear a message on the radio, maybe you’ll read something in a book, maybe you’ll see something on a billboard, maybe you’ll see some graphic in social media and God will speak as like a warning to you, stop, stop doing what you’re doing, stop it, stop it. And if you don’t listen, If you continue to wander down the my way highway and shake it off, you know, like there’s a sign up that says dead end ahead and you keep driving 100 miles an hour down the road where you’re going to come under the second stage called intense discipline. And this is where God has to take you out behind the woodshed and administer a little pain to your life. No pain, no gain. And he will do that and he probably has done it maybe in your life. I know he’s done it in mine to keep me straight. And then there’s the third stage called dying discipline. Dying discipline, that’s when God takes a believer home. That’s when their time on earth is called, They’re wasting God’s time, wasting their time and everybody else’s time, and the Lord takes them home. They’re in heaven with minus rewards, Proverbs 15 10. Harsh discipline is for him who forsakes the way, and he who hates correction will die. In other words, you don’t respond to the correction, you don’t listen to God, and you’re setting yourself up for an early death. And your children may be doing exactly that. Wandering down the my way highway, rejecting all the provisions that God has given, setting himself up for an early death because they think they’re smarter than God. In Proverbs, excuse me, in Psalm 34, verses 15 and 16 says this. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry. But in verse 16 of Psalm 34, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. So don’t forget that. You’re not hiding anything from God. He’s watching. He knows who’s in fellowship. He knows who’s living the Christian life. And he will listen to your prayers. You pray for your children, pray for your spouse, pray for your family. But those who do evil, who continue to reject his plan, they’re going to be cut off from the remembrance on the earth. So let me ask you a question as I close. This is a very serious question. I want you to consider this. Are you currently under divine discipline? Are you under warning discipline, intense discipline, and maybe even knocking on the door of dying discipline? What about you? I’m not asking you, have you committed a sin? That’s not what I’m asking you. But rather, have you failed to admit your sin and you continue to cover it up, hoping God is not aware of what you’re doing? We all sin, we all fail often on the daily basis, but we don’t all fail to recognize our sin and admit them to God. So as long as you continue to stubbornly deny and hide the sin that you’re doing, you will be suffering divine discipline in your life. David had to come to that point in Psalm 32, 5 in his life, where he said, I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, that’s David, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. That’s exactly what you may need to do if you’re out of fellowship, if you’re on that my way highway, if you’re living off of logistical grace revisions and that’s it, nothing else from God. You’ve been cut off from the blessings you deserve and you’re wandering down the my way highway. If God didn’t keep you alive, you’d be dead by now, and he’s keeping you alive so you can recover, so you can get back in fellowship where you belong. As a wayward child of God and a rebellious child of God, I’m going to say that again. As a wayward child of God and a rebellious child of your parents, I meant to say, then it’s time that you faced your own arrogant attitude and you come home where you belong. The problem with arrogance is lack of humility. If you don’t have genuine humility, you will always have an unrealistic self-image resulting in unrealistic expectations from other people and even from God. So if your son or if your daughter has rejected what you taught them as a child, it does not mean they’ve lost their salvation. That’s not what it means. But it definitely means they have arrogantly assumed they are smarter than God and smarter than you. And all that Bible stuff you expose them to is simply fairy tales. I remind them that life in the devil’s world is very tough and very exhausting. So keep praying for them and keep watching for them to return. In Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, we find these verses, which are key verses for me. I enjoy this. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths. So how do you get to your wayward children? Trust in the Lord, pray for them with all your heart, positive volition. Don’t try to argue with them or logically try to debate with them. Just trust in the Lord, pray for them in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will give you the insight of what you need to do. Well, I hope you’ve been listening. I hope you’re paying attention to that. Logistical Grace Provisions for the Family, F-A-M-I-L-Y. Next show will be on the letter Y, and we’ll have an interesting thing to study there. But remember, the family is one of the four divine institutions, and it’s critical for the survival of this nation. As go the family of America, so goes the future. And we have a bright future ahead of us, an opportunity now to see some things that maybe we haven’t seen in a long time. So my prayer is that you will seize this opportunity to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that you will advance your own personal life in the plan of God by getting serious about it, Quit focusing on politics and focus on your spiritual life, which is critical, much more critical than politics, because as goes your spiritual life, so goes the history of the nation. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’ll continue to pray for me as we press on into the year 2024, rounding the corner into 2025. It’s a wonderful time to be alive, wonderful opportunities God’s given us, and we depend on your prayers and your thoughts for us as we press on, okay? So thank you for listening. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
