In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes dives into the complexities of the soul, the mentality of our thoughts, and the spiritual rebirth that aligns us with God’s plan. Discover the importance of the second birth and learn how faith in Jesus Christ forms the foundation of a spiritual journey. Rick dismantles the age-old confusion around spiritual rebirth while providing a hopeful perspective on renewing your mentality to enhance your faith walk.
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 30 minutes, stick with me, stay there, don’t go anywhere. It’ll be about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. And of course, no manipulation, no con games, no asking for money, no soliciting support. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We just want to give you some information. Hopefully that information will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. And if you’re able to do that and you would like to orient and adjust to that plan, you have the freedom, you have the privacy to do so. But my job is to get it right. But let me remind you, I’m not a pastor. I’m just an evangelist. My job is to locate those of you that are hungry to grow. That’s what I’m looking for. All across America in these 113 shows that we play every Sunday morning, I’m looking for that one person in each city that has an undying hunger to grow in grace and the knowledge of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you’re that person, I want you to grow to maturity. I want you to be a part of the pivot I want you to be part of the person that delivers this nation from the coming disaster that we face by means of your spiritual life. I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to get under a well-qualified pastor and to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We provide some information free of charge. We have books that we’ve written, and our latest one has come out now. It’s called Christian Problem Solving, and what it does, it identifies all 10 problems of the promises on the FLOT line, all 10 problem-solving devices on the FLOT line of the soul. So each chapter will deal with one of those problem-solving devices. If you’ve never listened to the show before, FLOT is a military acronym for Forward Line of Troops. We’re talking about you building a main line of resistance in your soul with the Word of God using 10 unique problem-solving devices taught in the Bible, nothing new, nothing unique, age-old biblical doctrines, but just putting them in a way that you can understand them. That’s what a man told me one time. He said, you didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, but you put it in a way that I could understand it. And I hope that I put it in a way that you can understand it. So if you’d like to get that new book, Christian Problem Solving, go ahead and contact us through the website. rickhughesministries.org, or you can always write to us at P.O. Box 100 in the city of Cropwell, Alabama. It’s P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054. Some people say, where’s Cropwell? Very near the Talladega Racetrack in Talladega, Alabama. So sometimes we can hear the races as they race over there. Now, I’ve been talking to you for the last few weeks about your soul and understanding your soul and the mentality of your soul. Let’s remind you of something. We all have a body. If you’re believers, we have a body, which we’re not going to keep very long. It’s going to go back to dust. And we have a soul. God created that soul. He gave you mentality. He gave you volition. He gave you a conscience, and he gave you a self-consciousness. And then if you have been born again, that means the second birth, then you have a living human spirit that you can have fellowship with God with. Because the Bible says those that worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth. And you can’t have a relationship with God without a human spirit, and then you are born spiritually dead. This is what was an enigma. to the Jews when Jesus said you needed to be born again and he didn’t understand that. In John chapter three, Nicodemus was bewildered. What do you mean born again? And it’s a spiritual birth. No man can have a relationship with God without a human spirit and there is no human spirit until you’re born again. And that happens at the moment you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the trust in what he did on the cross for you. Yes, he was crucified, dead and buried and resurrected, no doubt about that. He is the anointed son of God, no doubt about that. So when you understand that and put your faith in that, that’s it, faith alone in Christ alone, then you are born again. It’s the second birthday. So we’ve said it many times, either you’re going to be born twice or you’re going to die twice. The first birthday is your physical birthday. Congratulations, it’s a boy. Have a cigar. The second birthday is your spiritual birthday, the day you’re born again. And the first death is the day you die. The Bible says, upon it the man wants to die, and after that the judgment. And the second death is whosoever’s name was not found written in the Lamb’s book of life was cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, Revelation chapter 20. So I hope you have made that decision to believe in Jesus Christ. If you have, And we’re talking to you about the mentality of your soul, the mentality of your soul. This is where everything takes place. This is where your thinking takes place. That’s why the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. So I classify your thoughts, and we’re talking about the battle for your thoughts today, the battle for your thoughts. And I’m classifying your thoughts as all of your motives, all of your intentions, and all of your desires. Your motives, your intentions, and your desires. In Psalms 139, verse 23, the Psalmist wrote a prayer, and that prayer was for God to inventory his thoughts, his motives, his intentions, and his desires. Listen to what he wrote. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. I wonder if you have the faith to pray that kind of prayer. Try me. Put my thoughts on trial. Examine my motives, my intentions, and my desires and see if there’s any wicked way in me. This prayer by the psalmist was asking God to inventory, as I said, his thinking. And our Father wants what’s on the outside to equal what’s on the inside. That’s the problem. A lot of people have something on the outside and the inside is not the same thing. That’s the double-minded person. In James 1.8, a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. The double-minded person, the Greek word dipsoukas, means this. It means a divided interest, dipsoukas, two souls is what the word means. It’s an interest of a two-souled individual. It’s simply implying this, someone who’s not fully committed to following God’s plan for his life. He’s pulled between the world and between God. And we know that our Father is looking for fidelity and devotion motivated by your personal love for God, that’s virtue love. So your life is gonna eventually come down to who you love the most. Do you hear me? It’s gonna come down to who you love the most. So here’s a question I wanna ask you. Do you go to church on Sunday morning? and demonstrate by your attendance an outward desire to serve God. But then inside your soul’s mentality, you are defiled by having a love affair with the world or following the lust of your flesh, being baited by Satan who knows your very weaknesses. See, your Heavenly Father knows your struggle, and he’s more than willing to cleanse you, first of all, if you will rebound. 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us. If you will rebound and then get serious about serving him. But if you continue to play these little mind games with God, you think he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. You’re trying to deceive God. You put on the outward shell, but inside you’re wrong. Then you’re going to be in for some serious discipline from your heavenly father. I promise you. So the battle that you face today is the same battle I face. It’s the same battle for all of us. It’s the struggle to control what we think. It’s the struggle to control our thoughts. Remember, the spiritual life is lived in the mentality of our soul, in the mentality of our soul. So it is to be understood that this is the area of contention for every believer. Satan will try to capture your thoughts. He will try to push you into self-pity, or perhaps lure you into some arrogant crusade to clean up his world. After all, he’s known as a master manipulator, and this is why we are cautioned to guard our thoughts. It was Satan who deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden, and Paul warned the believers in Corinth about his ability to deceive people. Listen to 2 Corinthians 11, 3. But I fear, least by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve through his subtlety, that your mind should also be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. So he knows that same Satan that deceived Eve in the garden is able to deceive believers today. He’s writing to believers. Did you understand? He’s not writing to unbelievers. He’s writing to believers like you and I. who can be deceived through the trickery of Satan. I hope you don’t think you’re immune to such deception. Because look what happened to David. And David was a man after God’s own heart. Look what Satan did to him. In 1 Corinthians 21 one, and Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel. He put it in David’s mind to number Israel. That was a terrible mistake. In 1 Chronicles 21, 7 and 8, God was displeased with this thing. Therefore he smote Israel. Discipline, 70,000 people died because David made a bad decision. And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly because I’ve done this thing, but now I ask you, do away with the iniquity of my sin, for I’ve done it very foolishly. I would say so. You make a stupid decision. It cost 70,000 people their lives. Bad decisions limit future options. David was indeed, no doubt about it, a man of integrity. Listen to 1 Chronicles 18, 14. So David reigned over all of Israel and executed judgment and justice among all his people. Even a man of integrity can be deceived by Satan, can be goaded into doing something he doesn’t need to do by Satan. So the sin that David committed was simply a lack of faith in God’s deliverance. He was going to continue on his military might and focus on the wrong thing. Do not let Satan tempt you into looking at the problems you face and not the solutions. You must look at the solution and not the problem. That’s the faithless drill. That’s standing on biblical orientation. That’s having a personal sense of destiny. Do you remember the disciples in the boat in Matthew 8 who thought they were going to drown? They thought Jesus took them out in the middle of the Galilean Sea to drown them. They had no faith. That’s what happens to you and I sometimes. We get deceived into thinking God abandoned us or God forgot about us, and maybe this is what’s happening with you today. Maybe because of all the stuff you’re going through, and I understand that I have my stuff as well, the Lord has not abandoned us. He will not throw you under the bus. You may walk away from God, but he will just love you from behind because he loves you as much today as he did yesterday. And I know you’ve made mistakes. I know you’ve done some stupid things. So have I, but he still loves us. Don’t let Satan tempt you into looking at the problems you face. Look at the solutions. Use those 10 problem-solving devices and glorify God. By the way, it was Satan who suggested to Ananias in Acts chapter five that he should hold back some of the finances he promised to give. In Acts five, one through three, but a certain man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira, she must have been a real beauty, Sapphira, his wife sold a possession, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price. In other words, he promised to give it all to the local church, but he didn’t. He lied. His wife also was privy to it, and she brought a certain part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. And Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land? Satan is very good at this. He’s very good at convincing you you gotta keep a little bit for yourself. You’re not gonna be able to make it. You’re gonna have to have some back, you’re gonna have some sort of something to catch you with. See, that’s what he’s thinking here. I don’t need to give it all to the church, even though I promised I was gonna give it all to the church. He didn’t have to promise that. He could’ve just promised he’s gonna get part of it. But he lied, and Satan tempted him to lie so that he would look better, so that he would be impressive. You know, it’s really impressive when certain people in certain churches are big givers. Oh, they’re just impressive. Look what they’ve given. Look how much they’ve done for the local church. But what’s on the inside has to match what’s on the outside. because our Father is looking at what you’re thinking, not at what you’re doing. Satan is not the only force that seeks to capture your thoughts. Are you listening? Satan is not the only force that seeks to capture your thoughts, your intentions, your motives, your desires. It’s the lure of the world also. The world is very strong. That lure is very strong, causing you to believe that your happiness is related to people or circumstances. In 1 John 2, 16, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. So where do you think your happiness is going to come from? Winning the lottery? You’ve got to be kidding me. You buy those lottery tickets, I’m going to win the lottery, and if I do, I’ll give God 10%. Keep your money. God doesn’t need it. You’re going to win the lottery and be happy? You’re kidding yourself. Or if I could just find the right person to marry. Marriage doesn’t solve problems, it compounds problems. Or if I could just get that new car, if I could just get that new whatever. Happiness is not related to the details in life. And the world offers that. The world tells you you can be happy if you get this, if you get that. True worldliness, being a worldly person, is not necessarily what you purchase or don’t purchase, it’s what you think or don’t think. It’s human viewpoint thinking. That’s the part. I think if I buy this car, I’ll be happy. I think if I buy this boat, I’ll be happy. I think if I find that person, I’ll be happy. That’s human viewpoint thinking. again the world contends for your thoughts just like satan specifically the frantic search for happiness that you will go through in the details of life and this is where people emphasize where people emphasis takes precedence over god’s emphasis people emphasis should never take precedence over god emphasis because people don’t have the ability to make you happy and the lord does The scriptures warn us not to seek happiness in the details of life. Romans 12, 2. And do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your thoughts, your mind, so that you can prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So you got two choices. You can follow the lure of the world or you can renew your thinking and get with the word of God. Another one of our biggest enemies is ourself or our flesh and we know it as the sin nature. And if you allow your sin nature to go unchecked, it will capture your emotions and it will remove any of those norms and standards you should have learned many years ago. You won’t be able to process what’s right and what’s wrong if you allow your flesh to take control. It’s possible, I say it’s possible, that you can actually sear, S-E-A-R, sear your conscience. 1 Timothy 4.2, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron. The Greek word seared, being seared, is the word kasoriadzo, kasoriadzo. And we get an English word from it, it means cauterize. And what it actually meant in the Greek was to burn with a branding iron. Once this phenomenon occurs, the emotions are past feelings of remorse or shame. You’ve seen a cow get branded on TV when they have a roundup and they lay the cow on the ground and put the brand on him, T-bar T, a T-bar J, or whatever they may put on that cow. You can do this to your conscience. You can sear your conscience. Brand yourself with that memory that’ll never go away. You have to learn how to use rebound and not go back and not feel guilty and move on with your life and realize you made a mistake. Get up, quit lying around feeling sorry for yourself and move on In 1 Timothy 4, 19, the ones who being past feelings, that’s a seared conscience, have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness. This is what’ll happen to you. If you allow your sin nature to control you and you obey the lust of your sin nature, you will sear your conscience and you will be past feelings. You won’t feel guilt, you won’t feel shame, you won’t feel anything. and you will betray your own soul and you will be miserable. You’ll be in a frantic search for happiness all your life. You’ll live miserable and not only that, you’ll die miserable. So the truth is, as goes your thoughts, so goes your spiritual life. And that’s why we’re told to purge our thoughts and to guard them. Purge them and guard your thoughts. In 2 Corinthians 10 verse five, listen carefully now about purging our thoughts and guarding them. Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself above the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought, every thought to the obedience of Christ. This is something you have to do. You have to cast down imaginations, things that are not true, and bring into captivity every thought. What does that mean? Well, obedience to Christ is occupation with Christ and bringing into that every thought means you love him, you will obey him. And he said, my mandates are not hard. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. He said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to learn the Word of God and place into captivity every thought that you have? In Romans 12, two and three, we’re warned again. Don’t be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Renewing of your mind. Listen to the last verse. Bring into captivity every thought. Renew your mind. What does that mean? That you may prove, the Bible says, What is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God? And then in verse three of Romans 12, I say through the grace of God given unto me that every man that is among you do not think of himself more highly than he ought to, that’s arrogance, but think soberly, that’s humility, accordingly as God has dealt to every man a measure of faith. All right, so we’ve identified three things that are trying to capture your thoughts. the devil, the world, and your flesh. They will all three manipulate you if you let them. But if you will stay filled with the Holy Spirit by using rebound, if you will grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by taking in the word of God consistently and using the faithless drill, then you can overcome the enemies that you face. So, how do I actually do these things that I told you about? What’s the mechanics? Well, in 2 Corinthians 10 five, we’re told to cast down imaginations and anything else that appears, God, has said in his word. And the word cast down is a present active participle of catareo, catareo. And it means to demolish or pull down. And obviously it requires a volitional decision that you have to make your own volition. You have to choose to do this if you intend to glorify God. Especially the concepts of evil found in organized religion that make a God out of self or of other individuals. So we’re told in that passage to bring into captivity. Bring into captivity means to bring under control, to subjugate, to capture every thought and place your intentions, your desires, your motives under the authority of Jesus Christ. And this requires obedience and fidelity. In Romans 12, two and three, we’re told by the Apostle Paul to transform the way we think. I read it to you so we can discover God’s good and perfect will. This requires total humility or total obedience to the plan of God. And that requires fidelity to believe it and trust it. This unique spiritual life that you live requires you to build a flat line in your soul so that you can operate under the protocol plan of God and not allow the world, not allow the flesh, not allow the devil to control your thinking with lies and promises that will only enslave you, not enlighten you. Proverbs 3.13, how blessed is the man, and this means happiness, how happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For her profit, that’s wisdom, is better than the profit of silver, and her gain, that’s wisdom, is better than the fine gold. She, that’s wisdom, is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her. When you have divine wisdom, biblical viewpoint, when you understand, you see things other people don’t see. You understand things other people don’t understand. It’s like we’ve talked about before, having spiritual x-ray vision. Wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and understanding is phenomenal. That’s the four horsemen of the Christian life. Blessed is the man who finds wisdom. So Philippians 4.8 tells us, what should we be thinking about? What should we be focusing on? Well, finally, brethren, Philippians 4.8, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, Whatever things are just, whatever things are what? Whatever things are just and honest and true and pure and whatever things are lovely and whatever things are of good report, if there’s any virtue, if there’s any praise, these are the things you think on. So you have to change the way you think to live this Christian life. And humility is required. A humility profile such as our Lord Jesus Christ had is required. And when we do this, it’s called taking on the mind of Christ or learning to think like he thought or having his mindset. Excuse me. In 1 Corinthians 2.16, the Bible tells us, who has known the mind of Christ that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. That’s the Bible. That’s the word of God. The scriptures contain the thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ, so obviously if you intend to glorify God with your life, you must, you must do as he wishes. You have a Bible, you have the Holy Spirit, you have an instructor shepherd called a pastor teacher whose whole mission in life is to study and teach you the word of God. If this is true, and it is, then you must understand the enemy will do all he can to stop you from learning, to stop you from applying what you might have learned. As long as the enemy can control your thoughts, he can control you. Are you ready to break the chains of evil? Are you ready to break the chains of lust and worldly desires? It starts with faith alone in Christ alone and submission to him as Lord over all. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all of your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all of your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. That’s what it means to control your thoughts. Don’t fall victim to having your thoughts captured by the enemy, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Don’t fall victim to self-pity. Take in the Word of God. Learn the Word of God. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor. Grow in grace and replicate the life of Christ through your very thinking. I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. I hope it’s a challenge to you. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes. We’ll be back next week, same time, same place. So until then, 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.
