In this enlightening episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves into the profound nature of God’s greatest gift: eternal life. With a deep dive into the teachings of the New Testament, Rick illustrates the significance of grace and salvation. Listeners are guided through the steps of accepting this gift, highlighting the unchanging love of God and the simplicity and depth of faith required to embrace this eternal blessing.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around. It won’t be long, just about 30 minutes. Motivation, inspiration, education, and as we say, no manipulation. That’s right, no con games, not trying to raise money. We don’t want to sell you something. We just want to give you some information that will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. If I can do that, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you’d like to. That does not mean that you will, but if you want to, you can. You have freedom of choice. Remember, God gave you two ends, one to sit with, one to think with. And success in your life will depend on which one you use. Heads you win, tails you lose. So remember that. The Flatline comes to you every Sunday, compliments of the grace of God. And we study the 10 unique problem-solving devices that make up the Flatline in your soul, the forward line of troops. 10 unique problem-solving devices taught by my pastor many years ago to me. And with his permission, we relay that information to you. So hang in there with me and learn about the Flatline and learn what God’s done for you in your life, what’s available for you, the assets you have. So before we get started this morning, I want to let you know we’ve signed our new contracts and we now press on into the year 2025. As you know, we have quit broadcasting in areas where there’s a little response, but we still continue to air the show in all 50 states as well as in the Philippines. And we also continue to podcast the show on various podcast platforms. And we provide a complete playlist of all shows on our website. You can hear any show on the website. In the coming months, we’ll be looking for new areas to play their show in, new cities, new states, so that we can keep growing and keep having a maximum impact across our nation. The Flatline Radio Show is our gift to you, compliments of God’s amazing grace provisions. There is a special gift, I say a special gift, God has placed under your tree today. And it would be so sad if you failed to open your gift. In Romans 6.23, the Bible says this, for the wages of sin is death. But the gift, there it is, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Did you hear that? The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Under your tree today is a special gift from God, the gift of eternal life. In Ephesians 2.8, the Bible says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. There it is again. The wonderful gift that God has given to you is eternal life through compliments of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. In the New Testament Greek, the word gift is charisma, charisma. which is from the root word karis, and it’s the Greek equivalent of the word grace. Grace, G-R-A-C-E, in the English, and the Greek is karis, C-H-A-R-I-S. And the word gift is karisma. So God’s amazing gift to all members of the human race is given freely simply because he loves us. Isn’t that wonderful? In 2 Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slack concerning his promises, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So he gives it freely, wanting each one of us to have that gift. When we see that word, and listen as I read it to you again, he’s longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. There’s the word I want to key in on, repentance. When we see that word repentance, we tend to think there’s something we’ve got to do before we can get the gift of eternal life. But that’s not what the word repentance means. That word in the Greek language of the New Testament means to change your mind, not change the way you act. It simply means you have been an unbeliever, as the Bible calls you, and now you become a believer. Paul said it best in Acts 16, 30 and 31. And he brought them out and he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Listen carefully now. And they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. That’s the word repent. You’ve been an unbeliever, you now become a believer. In this incidence, Paul and Silas had been in prison for preaching the gospel. And while they were praying, while they were singing, the other prisoners were listening when an earthquake occurred. And it caused all the doors to open and all the chains that bound them to fall off. The Roman jailer knew what would happen to him if his prisoners escaped, so he considered suicide, taking his own life. And he was totally amazed when Paul said, do yourself no harm. We are all here. Is it possible that you are currently chained and imprisoned to some particular sin in your life? I want you to know that God’s gracious gift to you this morning can break those chains and set you free. Isaiah’s message proclaims this in Isaiah 61, verses 1 and 2. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. and the opening of the prisons to those who are bound. So again, are you chained to a particular sin in your life? The gospel will open the prison of that chain and free you. The forgiveness for our sin and the promise of eternal life was motivated by one simple act. It’s best expressed by our Lord in John 3, 16. God so loved the world. He loved you. He loved me. In spite of who we are, in spite of what we’ve done, he loves us. And it says he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. It’s wonderful to know that. Maybe no one else loves you, but I assure you that God does. You may be in a situation right now where you’re incarcerated and you think no one loves you, no one cares about you, and that may be true in your facility, but I assure you, God knows who you are, he knows where you are, and he loves you, he loves you dearly, so much so that he sent his only begotten son to die for you. In spite of the mistakes that we’ve committed, In spite of the sins we committed, God loves us and has a gift for us today. And this particular gift, the gift of eternal life, is greater than any gift we could ever receive from any individual. James 1.17 says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadows of turning. So yes, under your tree this morning is a gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior. And you have a personal invitation from God to receive your gift today. In John 1.12, the Bible says, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. To those who repent, nope, didn’t say that. To those who believe in his name. There it is, you’ve been an unbeliever, you become a believer. Can you believe salvation is that simple? You don’t have to repent of your sins and promise God you’re never going to sin again and you’re going to turn away from your sins and you’re so sorry that you did it. I mean, you can say those things, but that’s not what saves you. What saves you is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He did it already. Do you believe he’s the anointed son of God? Do you believe he died for you? Are you willing to express your faith and tell God the father that? If you’ve never received the gift of eternal life, could I ask you to let me help you open your present? How can I do that? I can lead you in a prayer as you ask God to save you. Would you like for me to do that for you? You can pray it along with me right now, just silently or out loud, whatever you want to do. But if you’d like to ask God to save you today, if you’ve never done that before, if you’re not saved, you’ve never received your gift, then pray these words with me today. Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus is your anointed son and that he died on the cross to pay for my sins. I ask you to save me and give me eternal life. Thank you for hearing my prayer. That’s a simple prayer you just prayed, a simple act of faith. You told God the Father that you believe Jesus Christ is his anointed son and that he paid for your sins. Now, you might think it didn’t work since you didn’t feel anything. Nothing happened. You said, I didn’t feel anything. That’s the way I was when I accepted Christ. I didn’t feel anything. I simply prayed a prayer with a friend that got on my knees in a home I’d never been to before and And I said, I don’t feel anything. He said, it doesn’t have to do with feelings. It has to do with fact and faith. Listen to Romans 10, 13. For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Did you just do that? Did you just call on God to save you? Then this is exactly what the verse says. Whoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to doubt it. The gift of eternal life was given to you, compliments of the grace of God and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. What a wonderful gift that is. And no one’s gonna ever take it away from you, I promise you. So would God lie to you? Did you just ask him to save you in that prayer? Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus is your son. He died on the cross to pay for my sins. I ask you to save me. Would God lie to you about that when the Bible says whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved? No, he wouldn’t lie to you. In 1 John 5, 13, these things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. so that, or in order that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. There’s the word believe again. Believe, believe, believe. And then he goes on to say in verse 14 of 1 John 5, this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, is it God’s will for me and you to be saved? Absolutely. So if we pray according to his will, he hears us. And we know that he hears us. Whatever we ask, we know we have those petitions that we desired of him. Those verses guarantee you and me as well that God heard your prayer, heard my prayer. Many years ago when I prayed that prayer, God heard my prayer and he just heard your prayer. regardless of what we did, regardless of how we felt, regardless of physically what takes place. You didn’t see any angels. You didn’t hear any harps. But you, by faith, asked God to save you. And you told God you were willing to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen to what our Lord Jesus Christ said for you. Here’s his gift to you. Listen carefully. Now that you’re his child, Hebrews 13, 5, I will never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you. So he’s not going to bail out on you when you fail. I mean, I failed so many times I can’t keep up with him, and yet he’s never forsaken me. He’s never left me. He’s never abandoned me. And the same for you. When you ask him to save you, when you committed to God the Father that you believe that Jesus Christ is his anointed son, he gave you eternal life. He gave you that gift. And the Bible goes on to say in John 10, 28 through 30, I give unto them eternal life, that’s the gift, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father which gave them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. So there’s your guarantee. No one’s going to come take your gift away from you. He will not leave you. He’s not going to bail on you, and no one can snatch it away from you. I read it to you. Listen again. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. No one’s going to take it away. Not even Satan himself can take it away. You see, by a simple act of faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ through his death, his burial, and thank God for his resurrection. We now have been born again and started a new life. In 2 Corinthians 5, 17, the Bible clearly says if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things passed away. Behold, all things have become new. So you have a new life today. You were born again. Born again spiritually, not physically. You’re the same person physically. You look just alike physically physically. But internally, you have been born again. Your soul has been born again. Your spirit has been born again. You have a spiritual birthday. See, you have a body. Yes, you have a soul, mentality, volition, emotion, consciousness. But you now have a, you had a dead human spirit. You were dead to God. You were spiritually dead. When you’re born again, you’re made spiritually alive. You are now alive spiritually. You’re a new person. You’re a spiritual being. And God’s gift to you does not stop at that. Your salvation today is not the end of the gift, but rather those gifts that he has for you will continue daily for the rest of your life, I promise you. In Matthew 7, 11, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, and you do, How much more will your Father who’s in heaven give good things to those who ask you? And so that’s not the end of the gifts. The gifts are just beginning once you come into the family of God by faith alone in Christ alone. You now have the ability to approach God’s throne in prayer. And you now have the ability to request things for yourself and even intercede for others who have needs. In 1 John 5, 14, this is the confidence we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Well, you did ask him to save you and that was his will and he heard you. And so now you can pray and go right to the throne of God. You don’t have to go through a priest. You are a priest. You are a believer priest. You have God the Holy Spirit living inside of you. What a wonderful thing that is. But let me caution you about something. This gift of prayer that God has bestowed upon you, the ability to go straight to his throne requires you to follow some instructions. You know, all gifts, usually at Christmas, you have to put them together and they come with instructions. Well, there are some instructions about the gift of prayer. Here are the instructions. Psalm 66, 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. And that means that you cannot pray with sin in your life. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, that prayer will not be answered. So you must learn how to deal with your sins, which we teach on the Flatline as Rebound. Problem-solving device number one. When we sin, if we go to God and admit our sin, 1 John 1, 9, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all wrongdoing. You’re going to sin. I didn’t think I’d ever sin again after I became a Christian, and it took about one day, and I did. And I learned how to do this. 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that’s what the Christian has to do when we fail. So if you want God to answer your prayer, if you want God to pay attention to your prayer, then you can’t go to God with sin in your life because he won’t hear it. You have to come to God through the filling of the Holy Spirit. And that’s another gift that he’s given to you. He’s given you the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus. He’s given you the gift of prayer, but it requires you to follow instructions. And he’s given you the gift of the indwelling of God, the Holy Spirit, who now lives in you. In John 14, 26, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, who 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. The Holy Spirit lives in you. This also requires you to follow some instructions. If you want this work, if you want the Holy Spirit to work in your life, there are instructions to do that. In Ephesians 5, 18, be filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s the instructions. So if the Holy Spirit indwells you, he doesn’t necessarily fill you. So it’s possible this morning, as a Christian, you are indwelled by God, the Holy Spirit, yes. But it’s possible you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. And what keeps you from being filled with the Holy Spirit? The sins you commit quench the Holy Spirit and grieve the Holy Spirit and have to be confessed. And you say, well, I can’t keep up with every sin I’ve ever done. I know that. Neither can I. Again, the verse says, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all, all, all unrighteousness, even the ones you don’t remember. So if you’re going to have fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit. And this is how you get filled with the Holy Spirit. You are indwelled by the Holy Spirit at salvation and You’re sealed by the Holy Spirit in salvation. No one can take you out of your Father’s hand. And you’re filled by the Holy Spirit. But when you sin, you quench the Spirit. You grieve the Spirit. And you have to reclaim the filling of the Spirit by dealing with that sin, confessing that sin to God. It’s like you say, okay, Holy Spirit, move out of the way. I’m going to let my sin nature run the show for a while. Your sin nature is always going to be there. It’s always going to be a part of your life until you die, until you get out of this earthly body and get a new body, a resurrection body. It won’t have a sin nature. Thank goodness for that. But the battle is always going to be there. Paul said it best when he said, I don’t understand myself at all because I keep doing the things I don’t want to do in Romans 7.15. Yes, that’s the sin nature. And so the gift of the Holy Spirit requires us to be filled with the Holy Spirit so we can access his power. And the benefits of being filled with the Holy Spirit are the gift of prayer is great. Operational. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you can pray till you are blue in the face and there’s not gonna be any response. There’s not gonna be any answer because you quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit. And Romans 7 says the Holy Spirit intercedes with us. And if he’s not interceding for you, then God the Father is not hearing that. So you have the gift of prayer. What a wonderful gift. The gift of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit with instructions. Be filled with the Holy Spirit with prayer and with instructions. Don’t do it with sin in your life. Another wonderful gift from God that he’s given to us is a canon of scripture called the Bible. God gave us a Bible, recorded instructions on how to navigate our way through the devil’s world. We have a Bible, and that Bible gives us instructions how to navigate our way through the devil’s world. In 2 Timothy 3.15, and that from childhood you’ve known the holy scriptures. which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. So that’s Paul writing to Timothy, telling him that, what’s he telling him? The Holy Scriptures will help you navigate through life. And this is for you too. I don’t know if you have a Bible, but you need a Bible because it is God’s gift to you. It is recorded Word of God to you. The canon of Scripture is yours. And all your instructions are there, how to navigate your way through the devil’s world. In Hebrews 4.12, it goes on to say, The Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of the soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. What does it say? The word of God is what? Living and powerful. The Bible says the word of God will not pass away. It will live forever. So your Bible is the word of God to you. This is how you hear God speaking to you. This is how you navigate yourself through the devil’s world by reading and studying the scriptures and learning the scriptures. So understand that. The Bible is not a novel. It’s a textbook. And I warn you to beware of those people who distort the Bible for their own advantage. Because they’re out there by the thousands. I’ve never been so nauseated in my life looking at social media and seeing people try to communicate the word of God and it’s not even, they don’t do it accurately. They come up with the goofiest, craziest, weirdest stuff you’ve ever seen in your life. The Bible is not a novel. I’m glad you read it through. But it’s a textbook. It’s not designed for you to teach yourself. It’s designed to be taught to you by someone who has a gift, a pastor teacher. In Revelation 22, 18, for I testify to everyone who hears these words of the prophecy of this book. John said, if anyone adds to any of these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part out of the book of life. from the holy city and from the things which are written in the book. So you better be careful. Don’t distort the word of God. See, that’s the greatest challenge I face and the greatest challenge any preacher faces is to get it accurate, to get it correct, not misrepresent God. That is terrible to misrepresent God. That’s why the Bible says to the preacher, study to show yourself approved unto God. I work with it needeth not to be ashamed, but rightly dividing the scriptures. If you can rightly divide it, you can wrongly divide it. It’s all grace, it’s all the free gift of God under the tree this morning, the gift of eternal life. But you don’t have to repent to get it, you have to believe to get it. You have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I read you the scripture verses, God so loved the world So that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You don’t find that repent stuff around those times when the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to Nicodemus. You got to repent of all your sins, Nicodemus. That’s not true. You may change your mind about your sins. Hopefully you will. Once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s a new way to live. There’s the filling of the Holy Spirit. You don’t have to let the sin nature contaminate you and contain you and condemn you any longer. You now have a new way to live, and that’s through the power of the Word of God that helps you navigate through the devil’s world. That’s through the gift of prayer that God has given you so that you can go directly to His throne and talk to Him directly yourself. You don’t have to let someone talk to Him for you. And through the gift of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures, and prayer, three wonderful gifts that God’s given to you. And they’re yours, yours to use. So it’s a wonderful time this time of year, Christmas. We all enjoy getting gifts and we enjoy giving gifts. But the greatest gift of all is the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus, our Lord. I read it to you one more time. For the wages of sin is death, Romans 6, 23. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In Ephesians 2.8, for by grace are you saved through faith. It’s a gift of God, not of works, as someone would boast about it. So have you opened your present? Have you received your gift? If not, I hope you will. I led you in prayer this morning. If you prayed with me and you asked God to save you, get in touch with me. Go to my website, rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, and let me know. Send me a note. Write me a letter. Tell me, I prayed with you because I want to send you a book that will help you. It’s called A Crash Course in Christianity, and it will explain exactly what happened to you. I thank you for listening to me this morning. I hope you will open that gift that I told you about. And I hope you will receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. 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.
