Join host Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he explores the integration of faith and life choices with a focus on the concept of the FLOT Line, a defensive mechanism akin to a military strategy. Through scriptural insights, Rick aims to guide listeners towards understanding and aligning with God’s unique plan for their lives, free of manipulation and filled with spiritual wisdom. This episode delves into the essential teachings of God’s word, underscoring the journey of Christian living that is devoid of worry and stress, and rich in fulfillment and purpose.
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. Thank you for being with us for the next few minutes, 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, always with no manipulation because we’re not trying to con you into doing anything. Certainly not trying to sell you something. We’re not trying to ask you to join anything. We’re only trying to give you some accurate information, not useless speculation, accurate information where you can glorify and identify God’s plan for your life. And if you want to do that, if you want to orient and adjust to the plan, you have the right and the privacy and the privilege of doing that. The show, the FLOT line that you’re listening to stands for FLOT, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops. What we’re using is a military analogy to try to explain how by learning God’s word, you can build a main line of resistance in your soul. That’s the mentality of your soul so that you can stop the outside sources of adversity. Before they ever work their way into stress, become a stress in your soul because adversity is inevitable without a doubt. Stress is optional without a doubt. That’s why the Christian life is so unique because it’s a way to live without worry, without fear, without bitterness, without anger. It’s a great way to live if you understand and learn the Christian way of living. And that’s what we want to talk about today. But before I get into it, let me remind you of all of our availability of manuscripts, transcripts, books, all available free for you. We have the manuscripts or the transcripts from all the 2019 shows and all the 2020 shows. And we’ll be working on the 21 shows now. But these are available in printed form and book form. So you can read them devotionally as you study the Word of God if you’d like. And all you have to do is contact us through our website, rickhughesministries.org. I have been made aware that there’s another gentleman named Richard Hughes who has a ministry in the state of Georgia out of the city of Cordeo. We are not the same. If you want to find me, go to rickhughesministries.org. That’s us. And not only do we have those transcripts available from all the previous shows, but of the 19, 20, and working on 21, but we have our various books that we printed for you. They’re all available for you free of charge. We’re working on a couple of new books right now called Practicing Your Christianity and also putting together a new set of the Book of Promises. And we have a lot of bookmarks that you can stick in your Bible. These are all various bookmarks that teach some of the concepts that we deal with. And these shows are always made available to you in transcript after they’re played by mail. You can get it by mail if you contact me and you want to read it again, or you can get it on the podcast. We podcast all of our shows through media podcasting venues such as Apple iPod or Spotify, things like this. We also have available DVDs of some services that I’ve taught in various churches if you’d like to see those. So that’s all available, all free, if you’re interested in getting that. Help yourself, okay? Now, let’s get into what we want to talk about today. Today we want to talk about this. There’s a major question I got to ask you. Here is the question. Are you willing to turn over the control of your life to another person? Are you willing to turn over the control of your life to another person? The decisions that you make in your life every day are going to impact you. And how you make those decisions are very critical because they have a tremendous result in the future. Do you remember the great famous Yankee catcher Yogi Berra? Baseball player. He grew up on the hill in St. Louis. This is what he said. I recorded this one time. Quoting Yogi, he said, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else. Now think about that. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else. This yogiism, he was famous for these sort of things and you can look them up on the internet and wonderful things that he said. They’re hilarious, but nobody really knows if he actually planned to say them or they just came out that way. But if you’ll consider a fork in the road and consider you’re standing there figuring whether to go to the left or whether to go to the right, if you’ll think about what yogi said, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re going to wind up somewhere else. The most important question that I could ever ask you in regards to where you’re going is where will you spend eternity? Please don’t make the mistake of thinking when you die that that’s it. It’s all over, all done, not so. It’s just the beginning. Death for anyone is just really the beginning. You see, your body is designed by God to wear out in spite of how hard you try to stay young and try to stay in shape. But what does not die is your soul, and that includes your mentality and your consciousness. I don’t know when we die what sort of interim body we get until the resurrection, but if you die today, you’re going to have an interim body until the resurrection when you get a resurrected body, and that’s 1 Thessalonians 4. Now it says the dead in Christ arise first, and then we which are alive and remain together shall be called up together with him in the clouds, and that’s the exit resurrection. So until that time, you’re going to have an interim body. And in that interim body, you’re going to have your mentality, you’re going to be able to remember, recall, think about, And you’re not going to have the old body. The old body is going to the ground, going back to dust. You’ve got a new body. The Lord Jesus Christ guaranteed this for you by means of the resurrection. So relax. It’s not over. It’s just beginning. But if you reject God’s primary purpose and will for your life, I repeat, if you reject God’s primary purpose and will for your life, then undoubtedly you will wind up in the lake of fire. Listen to 2 Peter 3, 8 through 10. But, my beloved, do not forget this one thing. With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Let me get that last sentence in again. Not willing. It is not God’s will for you to go to the lake of fire. Not willing that any should perish, but but that all, every creature, every person should come to repentance. Now remember the word repentance are three Greek words. This word, metanoeo, means to change your mind, to believe. You’ve been an unbeliever, you become a believer, you repent, you change your mind. This is not feeling sorry for the sins you did and promising God you’re never gonna sin again if he’ll just save you. That’s not salvation. Salvation is believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and the finished work of him on the cross, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. You putting your faith in that, and you can express that to God in prayer, telling him, I believe Jesus Christ died for me, and I’m willing to accept him as my savior. That prayer is a phenomenal life-changing event because the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. In Revelation 20, 15, anyone not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire. When you’re born, your name is put in the Lamb’s Book of Life. If you die without Christ, your name is erased and you’ve died the first death. The second death is said to be the lake of fire. So it is not God’s will for you to experience the lake of fire, but if you reject the forgiveness he offers you, then obviously you will leave him no choice. So it’s up to you. You must make that decision. Here’s what God did for you. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God so loved who? Just one race of people? No. God loved the world. Every individual in this planet is loved by God and his son, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, died on the cross for every individual on this planet so that no one would have to go to the lake of fire. Now, many Christians don’t realize the plan of God for their life, what God has for them. They don’t even understand what God has made available to them while they’re on earth in these physical bodies. You need to remember this. Jeremiah 29, 11. I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope, and plans to give you a future. Most of the time, the destruction that we cause is self-induced, much of the time, by our own bad decisions, because bad decisions limit future options. So much of the frustration, much of the unhappiness, Things that we experience like that is because we do not learn God’s plan or we just simply flat out reject the plan and you go down what I call the my way highway. But if you wish to understand God’s will for you in time, you’re going to have to look into the scriptures and you’re going to have to do what they tell you to do. For example, in 2 Peter 3.18, a verse you’ve heard me quote hundreds of times on this radio show, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grow is a mandate. It’s the means you got to grow up. You have to learn about God’s grace and get some knowledge. The plan is there, but you’ve got to learn what the plan is. I mean, when you had to learn how to drive, didn’t you? You get in the car, drive down the road, but you had to learn how to drive. so you could get where you’re going well you have to learn the christian life what it means to live the christian life how you live the christian life is a process of learning it in second timothy 2 15 study to show yourself approved unto god a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth my pastor used to quote that every day he taught the bible he would quote that verse This shows you that we have to be approved unto God and rightly divide the truth. Not to be ashamed when we show up at the judgment seat of Christ and figure out we did it the wrong way. All of these verses that I just read to you make us learn and it’s apparent to us that we must learn what his plan is for each one of us. And that’s why I constantly encourage you to establish a flatline in your soul. In the mentality of your soul, I encourage you to learn God’s problem-solving devices. There are 10 of them that we can identify for you. Rebound is the first one. That’s how you deal with sin. The filling of the Holy Spirit is the second one. That’s how you deal with your old sin nature. The faith rest drill is the third one. That’s how you deal with unexpected things that happen. Grace orientation, biblical orientation, a personal sense of destiny, virtue love, which is personal love for God and personal love for others. Sharing the happiness of God, which is what the Lord Jesus Christ said in John 15, 11, I’ve told you these things so that my joy might be in you and occupation with Christ. No longer me, but Christ in me, Paul said. Those 10 problem-solving devices are the curriculum for the Christian life, and we have to learn them. God gave you that curriculum. It’s Bible doctrine, and he gives you an instructor called a pastor teacher. I want to remind you of this. The pastor teacher is the one who’s supposed to have the gift of studying and teaching the Bible to you. He’s supposed to teach you the curriculum, the course of how to live that supernatural life called the Christian life. The supernatural life requires supernatural assets. And there are supernatural assets God’s given you too that I can identify. Hebrews 4.12, for the word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So the word of God is alive and powerful. It’s a supernatural asset. The fact that you have a Bible, the fact that you have the scriptures, the fact that they can discern for you your thoughts and the intentions. See, this is what it’s all about. God gives you the ability to discern what’s right. God gives you the ability to discern what’s wrong. But you have to have some knowledge and insight and understanding to figure that sort of stuff out. So that’s one of the supernatural assets, the Bible. In Galatians 5, 17, the other supernatural asset for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other and they try to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So God gave you the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ told the disciples, the Holy Spirit, I’m going to send him to you. I’m going to leave. I’m going to go back to my father, but I’m going to send the Holy Spirit. He’ll be with you, lead you, and guide you into truth. And it’s the same for you. If you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit came to live in you, Ephesians 1.13. It’s a supernatural asset. When you combine the word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit, you have the balance of residency in your soul. Imagine a seesaw, the Bible on one end of the seesaw, the Holy Spirit on the other end of the seesaw, and they both get on there and it balances perfect. That’s what God has for you. So the first thing, the very first thing that you and I have to learn, the first thing we have to understand is is that we cannot, absolutely no way possible, to live God’s plan in the energy of our flesh. Some people are good people, nice people. Some people are ugly, filthy, gross people. But human good is not good. That doesn’t impress God. The fact that you don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t cuss, you know, the fact that you’re really morally nice, that’s the nice. It’s good, but that’s not impressing God. The Bible says all of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes, Isaiah 64, 6. So you are not going to get into heaven because you’ve been a good person. Human good is not the plan of God for your life. It’s divine good. It’s the good manufactured by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit, guided by Bible doctrine, what the Word of God says. So you have these two assets, the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, and they help you overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. In Ephesians 1.13, in him whom also when you heard the word of truth, that’s the gospel, and you believed in him, that’s salvation, you were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. God’s communicator to us through his word is the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, you will never hear what God has to say to you. That’s why you are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5, 18, do not get drunk with wine. That’s debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. How am I filled with the Holy Spirit? Every time you rebound, every time you confess your known sin to God, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. When you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit, 1 Thessalonians 5, 19. When you sin, you grieve the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4.30. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit by God in whom you’re sealed until the day of redemption. Those two verses tell us that you can turn down the speakers in your soul so that you don’t hear what God’s telling you through the Bible. The only way you can hear what God’s telling you is through the filling of the Holy Spirit. That’s why it’s critical that you understand problem-solving device number one, how to recover from sin and failure. Assuming you understand this and assuming you use 1 John 1, 9 consistently, then you would be on your way to fulfilling God’s plan for your life and time. But remember this, that the Holy Spirit filling you is the empowering to live the plan, but it’s not the actual journey. Consider having a tank full of gas and parking your car in the garage and never burning the gas if you don’t use it. You must understand that. The filling of the Holy Spirit empowers you But the word of God takes you on the journey. So you have to learn the three steps to realizing what God’s will for you is during your time on this earth. The first one we call the directive will of God. The directive will of God. And this is for the believer that’s in fellowship. He doesn’t have any unconfessed sin in his life. You say, wait, wait, wait, how can I keep up with all my sins? Remember what the verse says in 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When you go to God and name a known sin, even the ones you don’t remember are cleansed from you. So when you’re in fellowship, fill with the Holy Spirit. you’re empowered to live the Christian life. And that is the directive will of God. He wants you to be in fellowship. He wants you to learn his word. He wants you to consistently apply the word of God into your life. That’s called biblical inculcation, which is perception, metabolization, and application. Perception, you hear it. Metabolization, you use it. And application, you apply it. metabolizing the word of God is like eating a meal. I mean, you got a great steak in front of you, but it’s not going to give you any energy unless you eat it. That’s what it means to metabolize the word of God. Going to church is fine and wonderful, and you can perceive what God wants you to have, but it has to be metabolized, and that’s only done by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit. And then there’s your volition involved, which is the application. Once you hear it, once you metabolize it, then you apply it. That’s the directive will of God for your life. But there is also something called the permissive will of God. And this is for believers who get into carnality, who sin and don’t rebound, who get out of fellowship. They’re saved, they’re going to heaven, but they have not had any fellowship with God. They’ve quenched the Holy Spirit, they grieve the Holy Spirit, and they are substituting their own desires, their own human volition, over divine sovereignty. They’re doing what they want to do and ignoring what God wants them to do. In other words, they’re using their volition to be contrary to the will of God. The believer in this is in the permissive will of God. And God’s allowing him to do that, allowing him to eventually destroy himself through arrogance. He may justify why he’s right and the Bible’s wrong. He may get absorbed with what he wants to do and he may destroy himself eventually because he ignored what the Bible told him. You have the ability to destroy yourself by ignoring what the word of God says. And the permissive will of God will let you do that. The permissive will of God functions when you are going contrary to the will of God, what he wants you to do. What does he want you to do? He wants you to be saved. What does he want you to do? He wants you to stay filled with the Holy Spirit. What does he want you to do? He wants you to learn his plan and apply that plan to your life. But the permissive will of God will allow you to chuck all of that and go down the my way highway. and you’ll live a life of misery. You’ll live a life of personal suffering because you’re gonna make bad decisions consistently, and you’re going to be sorry someday that you blew it. You only got one shot at it. Why blow it if you only got one shot at it? Get it right. And there’s also the third one is the overruling will of God. So we have the directive will of God, the permissive will of God, and then the overruling will of God. This is what we call a wall of fire. If you’re in fellowship or even in carnality sometime, the overruling will of God is designed to accomplish God’s purpose in spite of your failure. For example, the Apostle Paul, Paul lived under the overruling will of God. The moment he started for Jerusalem, he was supposed to go west to Spain. The overruling will of God was accomplished by severe discipline and punishment in his life. But God, the Holy Spirit, made it absolutely clear what the will of God was for his life. Go west, go to the Gentiles, go to Spain. And Paul completely ignored that and did just the opposite. Now, you can do the same thing. There are three checkpoints for you and me. I have to use this every day, and you must use it also. There are three checkpoints in the will of God. It’s necessary for us to use these because we If we are carnal, if we have unconfessed sin in our life, we will rationalize what we want to do. We won’t use the checklist. We will rationalize it. I want to do this. I want to do that. And you’ll do it anyhow. Or you may call it the will of God, which is nothing more than the lust pattern of your sin nature, which when you combine that with emotions, you’re gonna do what you wanna do. People say, well, I prayed about it, right? Well, you weren’t in fellowship when you prayed, so the prayer never got any higher than the ceiling. The will of God can be suppressed by your emotional decisions or your irrationality when you rationalize why this is what you should be doing. I’ve done this and you’ve done it too. I remember one time purchasing something that I should not have purchased. And I was like, I could hear the Lord’s voice in my conscience, not literally, but I could think about that. You dummy, you never should have done that. And I paid the price for it. Took me a long time to get rid of that goofy thing that I purchased because I didn’t listen. So there is what we call the geographical will of God. And this is very important. I know people who’ve changed their whole life because of this. Where does God want me to be? I can tell you where he wants you to be. He wants you to be sitting under the teaching of a wonderful qualified pastor teacher. And I know people that have moved from one location to another so they could sit under a well-qualified pastor and get face-to-face Bible teaching. So the geographical will of God is God has a specific place he wants you to be, where he wants you to live. He also has what we call the viewpoint will of God. What does he want me to think? And that’s where I shared those verses with you about study and grow and learn and apply. And then there’s the operational will of God. What does he want me to do? What has God prepared me to do? What kind of spiritual gift has God given me? So this divine guidance is the doctrine of you determining the will of God for your life. Most people want to run to somebody else and get some counseling. What do you think I should do, brother? What should I do, brother? If you’re not learning the Word of God daily, all the counseling in the world will not help you determine God’s will for your life. Divine guidance and the execution of the will of God is a private matter between you and between God. Listen to the Bible, Proverbs 3, 5 through 7. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Do not lean to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord. Turn away from evil. There it is, very carefully laid out for you. Listen to Matthew 7.13. Go in through the narrow door. The door is wide, and the road is easy that leads to hell. So be prepared to be tested if you intend to find God’s will for your life. because distractions are everywhere and you cannot afford to waste years being impulsive like you have been. If you’ll stay filled with the Holy Spirit, if you’ll be diligent to study, learn, and apply God’s word and wait, then you can fulfill Ephesians 5, 15 through 17. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, don’t be foolish. but understand what the will of God is. And that’s what we’ve been discussing this morning. What is the will of God for your life? One more thing, it is the will of God for you to have eternal life through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. My prayer is if you’ve never accepted Christ as your savior, you will do it today. that you will humbly bow your head and ask God to cleanse you from your sin and tell him that you are believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are willing to receive him as your Savior. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s the most significant decision you’ll ever make, and it definitely is a life-changing experience. Well, I haven’t played with your emotions. I hope you’ve been listening. I hope you’ve been learning. I hope you’ll apply. 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.
