In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes explores the crucial journey of spiritual growth as a new year approaches. As we prepare for 2024, Rick offers insights into the power of making smart decisions, nurturing spiritual momentum, and the significance of invisible impact. Drawing from profound biblical teachings, he emphasizes the necessity of planting divine wisdom in our children’s hearts and the vital role of mature spiritual guidance in navigating life’s tests.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick around. It’ll be about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and no solicitations, no manipulation. We’re not going to try to con you out of any money. We’re not going to try to sell you something, not going to ask you to give anything. We would like to ask you to listen. Listen as I try to verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. And if I’m able to do that, if I can, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you’d like to do that. That’s my prayer. That’s why we have this radio show. but we’re looking for those of you that are hungry to grow spiritually. We’re looking for those of you that can deliver this nation, those of you that can become mature believers and God can count on you to have an invisible impact in good old U.S. of A. So thank you for listening, and let me remind you that we have transcripts of all of our shows from 2019, 2020, and 2021. These are written transcripts of each and every show. We’ll be more than happy to send those books to you free of charge, and you can read through them uh each each book will have a whole year in the show 52 shows every year and uh we are now running i guess i don’t know heck we’re up around 958 shows that we’ve been on the radio now 958 sundays that’s a long time and i might say that god has provided everything we need without us having to beg people for money I know if God’s in it, he pays for it. And many of you have contributed, and we thank you for your contributions. Many people have even said we’ll support a radio show in my city for a year, and that’s great. We thank you for that, too. We couldn’t do what we do if God didn’t use you to do what you do. So thank you for listening. Let’s get into what we want to talk about today, all right? By the way, I hope you ordered that new book, God’s Grace in Aging. It’s out now, and it’s a phenomenal book. We’ve already had over 900 orders for that book. And if you’re over 50 years old, you probably need to read it. It deals with how God will treat you and what God expects out of you and what God provides for you as you’re around the corner headed towards the home base. Okay? Now, as the new year approaches, many of us are going to make plans to better our lives next year. You know, it’s 2024 coming up, and I don’t know what your plans are, what kind of New Year’s Eve pledge that you make that you’re going to do better next year. But people make those plans all the time. You know, I’m going to do better next year. I’m going to change my way of life next year. I’m going to do this next to that. By making good decisions, we’re going to better our lives, make good decisions. Well, in the spiritual realm, many of those who listen to our broadcasts have indeed started developing some spiritual momentum this past year. I’m proud to say that. I’ve gotten hundreds of letters from people that said this show has helped turn their life around, and they’ve started to gain spiritual momentum. I think about several close, dear, wonderful friends. I’ve seen their lives totally change, especially today. A wonderful friend in Tennessee and some friends in Texas and friends up north. It’s been wonderful to see how God has taken them in their hunger for the Word of God and seen things change. Well, what’s happened? They got under a well-qualified pastor. They started taking in the Word of God on a daily basis. And their momentum started building spiritually as they grow. Unfortunately, the best intentions do not always work out. And sometimes we wind up crashing and burning. I mean, for example, have you ever joined a gym in January with the intention of getting in shape, and then a few weeks later you find yourself losing interest and failing to follow through on your commitment to go to that gym and work out and get back in shape? You know, life is about making decisions, and it’s true physically as well as spiritually. Bad decisions limit future options. And all good decisions expand our options. So we start making those decisions as a young child. And basically based on what our parents teach us, what our parents put in our soul. The Bible is pretty clear about this for parents. If you’re a parent, the mandate for parents to implant divine viewpoint, that’s God’s thinking, into the soul’s mentality of your child is seen clearly in the Bible in Proverbs 22, 6. Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he’s old, he will not depart from it. Listen to what Moses wrote in the book of Deuteronomy 6, chapter six, verses five through nine. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house When you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you should bind them as a sign on your hand as they shall be on the frontlets of your forehead. So what Moses is saying here, God is saying through the prophet Moses is that he has to teach your children to respect my word. where it says, write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates, verse nine. These verses clearly, clearly, clearly indicate the importance of parents teaching God’s word to your children, beginning at a very early age, giving them some spiritual wisdom so they will know their choices in life. My very close friend and pastor, Bobby Thame, recently taught a series in the book of Ecclesiastes, and in the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter 11, He himself developed the concepts of prime time in the life of a child, prime time. That’s when they are most susceptible to the wisdom of God. Listen to Ecclesiastes 11.10. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart and put away evil from your flesh, for childhood and youth are all vanity. There are a lot of things that a child can do and build scar tissue in their life if they’re not prepared. And so the job of the parent is to act as a protector of the soul of their child and put things in their soul that will protect them so they do not scar up their life in the future. Here’s a few of my pastor’s thoughts on prime time and youth. He said, and these are his words, the mind of the young is void and empty, a dearth of knowledge that must be filled. He said it’s the hardest time of life to do that constructively, and he’s right. He went on to say that even if one remains immature, indulgent or aimless or worse throughout the prime period of his life, the foolishness of those years does not have to affect the rest of their life. That’s assuming they get saved and assuming they get the word of God and learn the word of God and develop some wisdom in their soul. So Pastor Thiem made it clear to his congregation and to me as well that in the spiritual realm, the prime time may not have anything to do with your age. The prime time for you and the prime time for me is when we seek and find the wisdom of God’s Word in our life. And that wisdom will allow you to have a steady path of growth in your spiritual life by you learning and you applying God’s Word and hopefully, hopefully under a well-qualified, prepared pastor. So your prime time could be right now. And maybe my show has motivated you to begin advancing spiritually, so that you are now beginning to grasp the plan of God, and you are now beginning to use the resources that he has provided for you and your life. Solomon summed it all up in Ecclesiastes 12, 13, and 14, where he said these words. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, that’s respect God. Keep his mandates, that’s obey God. For this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. Now, once you start gaining momentum in your spiritual life, hopefully you have. Some people say we listen to your radio show every Sunday. We have getting onto your podcast and listening to the podcast. And you can do that by going to Apple iPod or Spotify or Anchor. Any of the podcast platforms, you can go there and listen to The Flatline. If you search for it, it’s there, and you can hear it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, anywhere, anytime, any day in a podcast. But if you’re starting to grow, you’re starting to listen, you’re starting to learn, and you’re looking for a pastor, you’re going to find you’ll be tested. It’s called Momentum Testing. This testing you will go through will give you the opportunity to apply the things you’ve been learning so you can also do what? Expect distractions. Distractions that will be pushed in front of you by a.k.a. the devil himself. And these distractions are always designed to slow down your advance to spiritual maturity. You know, slowing you down. Take it easy. You don’t need to grow so fast. They might even appear to be legitimate duties. could be imposed on you by your church. You had to come down and work here and do that and do this. I mean, let that sink in. Sometimes the church can distract you from your spiritual momentum by getting you involved in social community action things. So sometimes it’s social appeals, even family duties, but make no mistake about it. What I’m telling you is this. These distractions are coming and they will cause you to lose ground, and they will cause you to stall out, and if you are not deliberate about your spiritual intake on a daily basis, you will crash and burn spiritually. I don’t mean you’re going to go to hell, I’m not saying that, but I’m saying you will never be able to reach spiritual maturity, which is what God intended for you to do. There’s one key thing here you must remember. God gave you volition in your soul. volition, V-O-L-I-T-I-O-N, your volition, your chooser, your decider. And that’s the key for you to pass momentum testing. Notice 1 John 5, 2 and 3. See if you can spot volition in this verse. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his mandates. For this is the love of God that we keep his mandates and his mandates are not grievous. Keep his mandates. You have to do it. No one else can do it for you. What kind of mandate should you keep? Well, here’s one. Study to show yourselves approved unto God. A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Here’s another one. Grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Those are two commandments right there. Here’s another one. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. So there they are, all these mandates, and they revolve around your volition. Do you have the spiritual audacity to continue to study the God’s word daily and develop this new momentum in your life as you go into the new year, or will you crash and burn? Your volition, again, is the key. But the motivation for your volition, the motivation, what motivates you to do this is your personal love for God. Listen again to 1 John 5, 3. This is the love of God. This is how you demonstrate it. This is how you show him that we keep his mandates and they’re not hard. Personal love for God is the motivation for you to be obedient. And your motivation will be tested by the enemy because no believer can fulfill the plan of God. No believer can glorify God apart from going through momentum testing. Just bank on it. Your sin nature is going to test your volition. Your sin nature is the inside source of temptation. Nobody ever sins apart from human consent. That’s obvious. But your volition is your authority in your soul. Your volition to make a decision. Positive volition will say, yes, I will do that. Negative volition will say, no, I’m not going to do that. So if your volition says yes to the temptation that Satan throws your way and momentum testing, Then the momentum testing in the old sin nature controls your soul rather than the Holy Spirit. You hear that? If your volition says yes to the temptation, then the momentum testing you go through will allow your old sin nature to control your soul rather than letting the Holy Spirit control your soul. Galatians 5 teaches this very inner struggle. We war against the flesh. The flesh wars against the spirit. They’re contrary one to the other. You have a battle every day. And that battle is to keep you from growing spiritually and keep you from ever representing or representing Jesus Christ in your life. So if your volition says yes to the temptation, then the momentum testing the old sin nature takes over. That old sin nature is always there until you get a new body in heaven. But human volition is the source of all sin. Human volition is the source of all sin. Regardless of how the temptation came about, that’s where it starts. You’ll also be tested by the lure of the world. Notice the mandate in 1 John 2.15. Stop loving the cosmic system and don’t love anything in the cosmic system. Because if anyone keeps loving the cosmic system, that’s the world, then the love for the Father, having personal love for God, is not in them. Why? Because they love the world more than they love God. The Bible goes on to say, because all that is in the world, the cosmic system, which is the lust of the flesh, that’s old sin nature testing, the lust of the eyes, that’s the motivational evil, and the arrogant pattern of life, is not from the Father, but is from the cosmic system. So notice what happens here. When a believer falls out of love with God and falls in love with the world, then he breaks this mandate. Stop loving the world. Love God. Sometimes your momentum can be tested by a disaster. We’ve all been through these. It can be pain. It can be sickness, physical or mental pain and anguish, crime. Maybe you’re a victim of crime. Someone breaks into your home, breaks into your house, steals your car, steals your truck. You may go through stuff like this. Does that affect your momentum? Do you quit growing? Do you quit studying? Do you get all mad and all burnt up out of shape and torqued up out of shape? You want to go out and find them and you forget your number one priority is to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ every day. So you may go through pain, mental pain, mental anguish. You may go under a crime. You may go through persecution. You may go through privation, meaning you may be hungry or thirsty or have exposure or go through fatigue. You may lose your family member or husband or wife or spouse. You may lose your property. You could lose your money. It could go under disease and under some sort of handicap, but what will it do to your spiritual momentum? Will it knock you off course? Will it stop you from growing? Will it stop you from taking in the Word of God every day? See, through all these tests, you must decide to stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Through all these tests, you must let your volition say, no, I’m not going to be distracted. No, I’m not going to quit studying. No, I’m going to open the Bible and I’m going to feed on the word of God every day under a good pastor who’s teaching you the scriptures. Through all these tests, you have to decide to apply the doctrine you’ve been learning. And you have to have the relaxed mental attitude to stay cool by using what we call the faith rest drill, problem solving device number three. If you don’t use that, then you’re going to get full of self-pity and you’re going to get full of anger. and you’re going to spin out and you’re going to lose your momentum and eventually you will fade back into the world, still saved, still going to heaven, but having no influence and no impact in your generation. In fact, you know, it’s possible you could become one of the, what the Bible calls a lukewarm believer, a lukewarm believer. Our Lord mentions that in Revelation 3, 14 through 19. You want to hear about it? Listen to this verse. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write this. These things saith the amen, the faithful, the true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know your works that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish you were cold or hot. Since you’re not, you’re just lukewarm. Neither cold nor hot. So I will spew you out of my mouth. Because you say, I’m rich and I’m increased with goods and I have need of nothing. And you don’t even know that you are wretched and you are miserable and you are poor and you are blind and you are naked. I counsel you, the Lord said, to buy from me gold, tried and fire, that you may be truly rich. and white raiment that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear and anoint your eyes with eye salve that you may see because as many as I love I rebuke and I chasten but be zealous therefore and change your mind and repent. In this letter to the church at Laodicea, our Lord warned them of their lack of commitment. By the way, this was a very wealthy city that had been destroyed by an earthquake 40 years earlier, but they rebuilt it. Our Lord identified in this passage his sovereignty. I am the amen. That means so be it. He identified himself as the faithful true one. By the way, that’s two qualities you and I should have, fidelity and truthfulness. And he gives a stern rebuke to this particular church for being lukewarm. No, I mean, I like my coffee very hot, don’t you? I like my tea ice cold, don’t you? Most folks like their food hot, not lukewarm, thus the microwave, good old microwave. But being lukewarm spiritually is evidence of being content with something else that fills your interest. The church at Laodicea was unaware of how wretched their spiritual life really was. They didn’t recognize their condition. They had unrealistic self-image. And notice the Lord said they were miserable, poor, blind, and naked. And they were urged to put salve on their eyes so they could see what their spiritual condition actually looked like to our Lord. What is the salve on your eyes? It’s the scripture. As the Holy Spirit takes the word of God and opens your eyes, you will see yourself as you really are, not as what you think you are. Maybe you’re blind and wretched and naked, spiritually speaking. Can you maintain your momentum this coming year? Will you continue to advance spiritually? Will you get under that good pastor and start learning the word of God on a consistent basis? Because this spiritual condition that I’m talking about is fairly typical of the nod to God crowd. Those folks who are unaware of their spiritual condition I mean, many, many believers have temporary positive volition. Maybe they get positive for a while. You know, I think about my own salvation and some people that were involved in it. And they drifted off and no longer do you see them anymore. But at the time, they were hot to trot. They had a lot of positive volition. Now today, I keep up with them sometimes. The social media, they don’t even mention God, don’t even talk about God anymore. But they were instrumental in me coming to Christ. Temporary positive volition will cool off very quickly and eventually crash and burn. That can happen to you. You can lose all your spiritual momentum. And you can settle for a religious ritual that really has no reality to it. So the question is, do you have that hunger for God’s word? Is it there? I challenge you to maintain your newfound spiritual momentum. and not settle for baby food offered at so many services. Baby food, that’s right. No in-depth studying. As a matter of fact, pastors that attempt to go to in-depth studying oftentimes wind up with smaller congregations. People don’t want it. I can tell you two or three churches that fired their pastor because they taught too much and they didn’t tend to the flock enough. That’s what somebody wants most of these churches. They want somebody to come hold their hand. Some preacher does come when they get sick in the hospital. The preacher comes, see him and pray with him and say, don’t worry about it, sister. My brother died with it, but you’ll be okay. Hang in there. What you need is a pastor that won’t dote over you, but will teach you God’s word. That’s why they have deacons to do those sort of duties. That’s what the New Testament said. You’ve got to grow. You’ve got to increase in the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And you don’t need a babysitter. You need an instructor, a teacher of the word of God. And you have to have the volition to sit down and listen every day. The writer of Hebrews put it this way in Hebrews 5, 11 through 14, when he said these words. He said, I got a lot of things to say to you, but they’re very hard for me to say them. Very hard for me to utter them. Why is that? He said, because you’re dull of hearing. You don’t hear what I’m saying. I can identify with that. I’ve been in many churches speaking and I know I’ve taught things I’ve never heard. And I walk out the door and some little person, old lady, little old guy would say, that was a really good message, preacher. And I know right away they didn’t hear a thing I said. I know I’ve taught them things they’ve never heard before, but they don’t respond to it. Because it’s over their head? No, because they’re just not interested. This passage in Hebrews goes on to say, For the time you ought to be a teacher, you have need again that someone come back and teach you the very first basic principles of the oracles of God, and you are become one as that needs milk and not strong meat. It’s my question to you. How long have you been a Christian? How long have you been saved? Do you know the Word of God? Do you even know the books of the Bible? Can you find your way around the Bible? Do you know where certain verses are? If you’ve been listening to the Flatline, can I say this? Do you know what those 10 problem-solving devices are? Are you under the authority of a well-qualified pastor teaching you the Bible consistently? Or do you even want that? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get that? I can remember many years ago, friends of mine moving to where a pastor was there, moving to his location so they could be in his church, so they could listen to him teach the word of God. They just picked up and moved and went there. I’m not saying you have to do that. Now, thankful goodness, through social media, we can go live stream and get a lot of good information, a lot of good pastors. But are you willing to do that? Are you willing to take the time to do that? Or is it more important for you to go shopping, see your grandkids, take a trip, you know, have a little fun? You don’t really have time to sit down, open your Bible, get a notebook, get a cup of coffee and take notes and learn God’s word and apply it. So this writer said of Hebrews, you ought to be a teacher and you need one to teach you again. You’re just like a baby that has to have milk. For everyone that uses milk, he says, is unskillful in the word of righteousness. He is a baby. He goes on to say what strong meat, strong meat that’s in-depth Bible doctrine belongs to them that are full age, mature believers. Even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. I can identify with this. All of my life I’ve struggled to be consistent. All of my life I’ve had distractions from time to time and there have been times when I didn’t study like I should and then I’d pick it back up and then I’d lay it down again Be distracted. A lot of times you’re distracted. But are you willing to pay the price? Or will you fall back to feed on baby food? Will you fall back to say, well, I’m going to buy that little devotional book the preacher’s selling, and I’ll read that every day, and that’ll be enough. No, it’s not. Did you start growing this year? Have you grown closer to your Lord? Then now is the time for you to maintain your momentum and find that well-qualified pastor who can feed your soul and take you all the way to spiritual maturity before you, in fact, crash and burn. What do I mean by that? And you go right back to like you used to be, saved, going to heaven, but no impact. No impact. I think about Gideon and all the men he’d chosen. God said, send them home. Many of them are not ready to fight. And Gideon only needed to keep about 300. That was all he needed. But God took him and changed the course of history. God’s looking for well-qualified believers like you who have some doctrine in their soul. Don’t crash and burn this year. Keep your momentum going. Stay filled with the Holy Spirit. Stick in the Word of God. Learn these problem-solving devices. Get under the authority of a well-qualified pastor, and I promise you, you will be tested to see if you’ll stick with it. All right, until next year that’s coming up, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and I’d like to thank you for listening to The Flatline. Thank you for your prayer support. Thank you for financial support. And next week we’ll be back, same time, same place. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054. Or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
