In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes delves into the core aspects of living a true spiritual life. From understanding the significance of the soul to embracing the promise-solving devices, we explore what it means to be a mature believer in the modern world. Rick emphasizes the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s filling to navigate the challenges life throws at you while differentiating between religious rituals and genuine spirituality.
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, please stick around. It’ll be a short time, only about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. but every bit of it without any manipulation. That’s right, we don’t con people here. We’re not trying to con you out of money. We’re not trying to sell you anything, not asking for anything. We simply want you to listen. Listen as I try to verify and identify God’s plan for your life, and if I can do that, as we always say, you can orient and adjust to the plan if you want to do so. Thank you for giving me a few moments of your time. Let me remind you of a couple of things before we get started. Our new book, God’s Grace in Aging, has been a tremendous success. We’ve already mailed out thousands of them. But we now have it available on an audio book form on our website. If you go to rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, you will find under the book section the audio book, God’s Grace in Aging, read by our announcer, Jack Steele. I hope you’ll take advantage of that. And if you haven’t want the printed copy, just write to us. Let us know through the website. And as well as our other books we have available, such as Life’s Toughest Years written for teenagers. And these things that we did earlier this year, last year. And also we have those transcripts available from past radio shows. It’s available in printed form for you from 2019 to 2021. All the radio shows we did are printed. in a transcript form. You can order those and we’ll send them to you and you can read them in your spare time. Okay. I’ve been getting calls all week and thank you for calling. It’s wonderful to talk to you. Let me remind you I’m not a counselor. I’m just simply an evangelist. So I’m not here to try to tell you how to handle your problems and please if you want to try to straighten me out don’t waste your time. Occasionally I’ll get someone call me and want to tell me where I’m wrong and off they go. So we don’t spend much time talking to those sort of people but if you have a order you’d like to order something you’d like to request some information you can always call us at 800-831-0718 okay you ready we’re going to talk about something this morning that i think will interest you i want to talk about your spiritual life your spiritual life now if i ask somebody how they’re doing today i say how you feeling today they may go on to tell me about their physical aches and pains or maybe how they’re hurting financially, or maybe what they expect the weather to do. But I have another question to ask you sincerely. Here’s my question. How is your spiritual life going? How is your spiritual life going? Not physical, spiritual. And the answer may be, well, what do you mean my spiritual life? Unfortunately, many Christians never hear anything like that. They never hear anything about having a, quote, spiritual life. So this morning, I’d like to focus on your spiritual life because your spiritual life does not refer to your church attendance or the records of your tithing consistency. It is referring to what’s happening in your soul and in your spirit. What I’m talking about is are you growing spiritually And are you becoming a mature believer that replicates the thinking of Christ? Are you becoming Christ-like in your thinking? Because that’s what Philippians 2, 5 says. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And Romans 12, 2 says stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. Think in terms of humility as God has given to us a standard of thinking from his word. So that’s the spiritual life. What you think is your spiritual life. So if we’re gonna talk about the invisible, immortal part, the part that God observes, the part that actually goes to heaven to receive the resurrection body, your soul and your spirit, we’re gonna talk about those right here. The invisible, immortal part of you. Again, I’ll tell it again, the part God observes and the part that actually does go to heaven when you get your resurrection body because your soul never ages. Now where did this thing come from, our soul and our spirit? In Genesis 2, 7, the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, the Apostle Paul wrote, And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless into the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you hear that? Your whole spirit and your soul and your body be preserved blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in John 4, 24, the Bible says God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. So without a living human spirit, you cannot have any fellowship with God. It’s impossible for you to have fellowship with God. That’s why you have to be born again. You’re born spiritually dead because of Adam’s original sin imputed to you at your birth. The Bible says, for by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, spiritual death, and now all have died and fallen under the wrath of God. So you’re born spiritually dead and as Nicodemus learned from the Lord Jesus Christ himself, you need to be born again. You need to be born again. So let’s start with understanding this. God gives us a spiritual life so we can operate as he intended us to operate while we’re in the devil’s world. So let’s start with understanding that God created Adam and Eve with a body, a soul, and a spirit. Now remember this, that through copulation, two parents can create biological life, yes, but only God can give the human spirit. Now note this, that when Adam and Eve sinned, they broke fellowship with God and entered into spiritual death. And it was for this reason that both of them received divine discipline and both of them were cast out of the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3, 23, therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden and made him till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep them away from the tree of life. But here’s the amazing thing, in an act of forgiveness, our loving heavenly father took an innocent animal and sacrificed it and provided clothing for both of them. In Genesis 3.21, unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothe them. Here’s a principle you have to remember that sin requires judgment by God. But in his mercy, he provided redemption by the means of the shedding of blood of an innocent animal. Hebrews 9.22 says this, and almost all things are by the law purged with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no remission. This act was a picture of what Jesus Christ would do for us on the cross. Listen to Revelation 1.5, And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first and begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. That’s referring to his sacrifice on the cross, his spiritual death, assuming our place, taking our place. And he who knew no sin, the Bible says, would make sin for us. So now you and I can have a relationship with God the Father because of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on that cross. Listen again, Ephesians 1, 7, in whom we have redemption. Here it comes, listen, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. So he had to shed his blood or his spiritual death on the cross for you and me when he identified with our sins so that we might be forgiven. Now with a completed body, soul, and spirit, made alive by our spiritual birth, we now have the opportunity to live the most amazing life, and it is called your spiritual life. When you’re born again, you have the opportunity to live a spiritual life. But has anybody ever told you the difference between your spiritual life and your physical life? Because the spiritual life requires two things to function. It requires the filling of the Holy Spirit, and it requires the power of the Word of God. That’s the balance you need in your spiritual life. Just like your physical life requires energy, so does your spiritual life. So we as believers must learn how to execute the spiritual life, or else we wind up doing all the right things, but we do them in the wrong way. So let’s get this straight. Every one of us has been indwelled by God the Holy Spirit. We can’t live the spiritual life apart from God the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 1.13, in whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of the Lord, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. His ministry is to empower us so that we can overcome the lust of the flesh. Listen to Galatians 5. This I tell you, walk in the Spirit, that’s the Holy Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of your flesh. For the flesh wars against the Spirit, and the spirit warred against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would like to do. So that’s the battle we have going on with inside us. And the spiritual life that I’m talking about demands that you and I operate under the filling of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 5.18, do not be drunk with wine where there is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, your spiritual life won’t work. It won’t even get close to working. So every one of us has the opportunity to learn the promises and the provisions of God found in scripture. As a matter of fact, we are instructed to study and learn the scriptures because this is what the Holy Spirit uses to direct us in our daily walk. John 14, 26, but the comforter, which is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, this is Jesus speaking, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance. whatsoever I’ve said unto you. Thus you and me, we are both living the spiritual life and it requires the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the instructions found in the Bible or else we just simply wind up trying to act like good Christians in our physical bodies by observing social taboos and church ritual without any reality to it. For example, regarding the ministry of the Holy Spirit to you, your prayers are ineffective without being filled with the Holy Spirit. Did you know that? In Romans 8, 26, likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. So remember this next time you get to thinking about it. You’re made up of a body, you have a soul, and you have a spirit. Now your soul houses your mentality, which includes the ability to recall certain events, as well as your volition, which is your freedom to choose your own course of action. So when you learn biblical principles and provisions, you store them in the mentality of your soul so the Holy Spirit can then remind you of them when the time comes. And also remember this, that your soul is immortal and it will never die. Thus, once you transfer to heaven, the information you learned while you were on earth is gonna go with you. Did you know that? In 1 Peter 1.25, the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word by which the gospel is preached unto you. Everything you learn here, you’re going to take to heaven with you and you’re going to learn so much more. But our invisible, immortal soul receives motivation from the Holy Spirit which indwells us. and thus affects the actions of our flesh, our body, the part of us that we live with every day. But without understanding the spiritual life that I’m talking about, most Christians just wing it. They just wing it. They think they’re impressing God by being good works. But your spiritual life is the real you. And when God wants to check you out, he’s not gonna look at your body. He’s not gonna look at your clothes. He’s not looking at your image and your style. He will look at your spiritual life, not your public life. Is it possible for Christians to be unaware of their spiritual life condition? Is that possible for a Christian to be unaware of his spiritual life condition? And the answer is yes. Because if Satan’s able to trick you into going through some religious action, that means absolutely nothing to God. If he can trick you going through some religious ritual without any reality, it means nothing to God. You want to hear about some believers that were tricked? Revelation 3, 17. Because you said to yourself, I’m rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. That was the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. This is the message he gave to the church in Laodicea. They thought they were in good shape, but they were actually unaware of what they really were. So the writer of Hebrews says, had to remind the believers, the writer of Hebrews had to remind the believers whom he addressed that they were not living mature spiritual lives, but instead they had failed to advance to spiritual maturity. And that’s my question to you. Have you been advancing to spiritual maturity? If not, listen to what the writer of Hebrews wrote here. Of whom we had many things to say and hard to be uttered because you’re dull of hearing. For when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that someone teach you again, which be the very first principles of the oracles of God and have become such as need milk and not strong meat. For everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, he’s still a baby. But strong meat belongs to them that are full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. What does that mean? Mature believer can handle strong teaching. He can handle in-depth teaching. I have spoken in many churches where people just looked at me and they’re like, they’re in a daze. I know I’m telling them things they’ve never heard before. When I begin to talk about the spiritual life and the filling of the Holy Spirit, how to rebound and get in fellowship with God before you take communion, how to rebound and get in fellowship with God before a worship service, most preachers don’t ever warn you about that. They never tell you, before we study the Bible this morning, let’s have a time of silent prayer. You deal with your sin, make sure you’re in fellowship, make sure you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. They don’t even tell you that. And I’ve spoken in many places where I’ve brought these things up and people just looked at me with a daze on their face. What’s he talking about? They don’t understand that. It’s hard to find somebody that wants to learn. It’s hard to find somebody that’s hungry for the word. I had a call this morning from an individual that said, where can I find a qualified pastor that I can study under? I live in a certain city and I can’t find anybody. Well, this is for God to show you. I told him where he could get it on the internet, where you can tap into one of my friend’s messages, a great pastor that I’m aware of in Houston, Texas, and you can listen to his messages until God shows you a local congregation. If, in fact, there is one locally that’s teaching his word. But it’s not unusual to find that there’s not even a local congregation where the word of God is discerned properly. So writer of Hebrews said, I’d like to teach you some more in-depth information, but you’re just a baby and you’ll choke on it, you need a bottle. That’s a sad, sad, sad state of affair. That’s a spiritual life that’s never gone anywhere. I hope that’s not you. Your spiritual life must be built on the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the content of scripture you got stored in your soul. But most believers don’t recognize how Satan seeks to limit their spiritual life. They don’t even recognize that. They don’t even realize that. So let’s talk about that. Because a spiritually mature believer like I’m encouraging you to be is indeed a threat to Satan and his demonic forces. That’s why we have this mandate found in 2 Peter 3, 18. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The word grow is not a request. That’s a commandment from God through Peter. Grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You cannot live the spiritual life without understanding the grace of God and without understanding the knowledge of the word of God you need because Proverbs says when you’re hungry for knowledge and when you get understanding, you’ll have insight and discernment. That’s what the spiritual life is about, giving you insight and discernment into what’s going on in the devil’s world. You must grow up as a Christian. You must take God’s word and learn it and use it. Jesus implored to take my yoke and learn of me. Learn of me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Unfortunately, most people never get that. They’re satisfied with going to church and singing in the choir, going to Sunday school, reading their Sunday school book and and then putting God off to the next Sunday. You know, hello God, goodbye God, see you next week God. We call that the nod to God crowd. That’s not the spiritual life. That’s why you always hear me encouraging you to get under the teaching of a well-qualified pastor so you can grow to spiritual maturity and replicate the life of Jesus Christ. You can represent Christ to your friends, to your family, to your church. Would you like to check out your spiritual life? Would you like to know how you’re doing? Have you ever thought about that? I can show you how to check your spiritual life, how to know if you’re maturing, how to know if you’re growing, but let me ask you this question first. Do you know those 10 problem-solving devices that this show is predicated upon? Do you understand how to rebound, 1 John 1, 9? Do you understand how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5, 18? Do you understand the faith-rest drill? Have you oriented to God’s grace and salvation and God’s grace in the Christian way of living? Do you have doctrinal orientation? Have you got a personal sense of destiny? Do you understand impersonal love and personal love, the virtue love package that God has for all mankind? Do you understand what Jesus said when he said, I’ve told you these things so that my joy might be in you and you can share the happiness of God with him? Do you understand what it means to be occupied with Christ? That essentially is the spiritual life right there. Those 10 problem-solving devices wrap the spiritual life up. So let’s take a test. Let’s check your spiritual growth. Let’s see where you stand, spiritually speaking. How are we gonna do that? We’re gonna go to Galatians 5, 22 through 23. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance against such there is no law these are all traits indicative of a mature believer a believer that is filled with the holy spirit a believer that has a mature spiritual life you don’t get this just by rebounding Let me explain something to you. There’s a difference between being spiritual and being mature. As a friend of mine told me, I like when you say you can be no more spiritual than Billy Graham and he cannot be any more spiritual than you. If you’re filled with the Holy Spirit and Dr. Billy Graham is filled with the Holy Spirit, he’s in heaven now, but think about this, then he’s spiritual and you’re spiritual. Because spiritual is being filled with the Holy Spirit. But being a spiritually mature believer involves something else. That involves the content of Scripture that you have put into your soul and you operate on. So not only is it the filling of the Holy Spirit, that’s when you’re spiritual, but to be spiritually mature, it deals with the content of Scripture operating under God’s promises and provisions as he told you. So let’s look at this. The fruit of the Spirit is love. What does that refer to? Personal love for God. and impersonal love for other members of the human race. The fruit of the Spirit is love. 1 John 5, 3, this is the love of God that we keep his mandates and his mandates are not grievous. If I ask you, do you love God? You would probably tell me yes, but the second part said, if you love him, you’ll obey him and his mandates are not hard. Personal love for God is your motivational virtue. It’s what motivates you to obey God if you love him. But then there’s impersonal love for other members of the human race. In 1 John 4, 20, if a man says, I love God, and yet he hates his brother, he’s a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how could he possibly love God whom he has not seen? So they have to have impersonal love, we do. That’s the virtue love package we’re talking about. You can love even the unloving by doing the same thing God did with you. God so loved the world. You and I were jerks, and God loved us anyhow. It was based on his character, not ours. And you can love individuals based on your character, not theirs. Therefore, you can stay relaxed. You can keep a relaxed mental attitude. You can help them if they need help. You don’t get all upset at them. No one’s perfect, and you’ve learned that. So when we talk about the fruit of the Spirit is love, we’re talking about personal love for God, 1 John 5, 3, and then personal love for others, 1 John 4, 20. And then it says this, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy. Joy. Love and joy. Joy. Sharing the happiness of Christ is a wonderful thing. That’s the joy we’re talking about. Listen to it as I read it to you in John 15, 11. These things I’ve spoken to you that my joy might remain in you and your joy might be full. When you take God’s word and learn it and apply it into your life, you have joy because you know you’re in the middle of God’s plan and that’s a wonderful place to be. There’s no greater joy in your life than knowing that you’re doing exactly what God left you here to do. And then the Bible goes on to say, love, joy, peace. Peace, what does that mean? It means having contentment and capacity for life. In Philippians 4.11, not that I speak in respect of want, for I’ve learned in whatever state I’m in to be content. If you’re not content, you’re not a mature believer. That’s what peace means, to be content. And then it goes on to say long suffering. What does that mean? It means being patient with circumstances that you face in your life. In Philippians 4.12, I know both how to be obeyed and I know how to abound. In everywhere and in all things, I’m instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. So Paul said it doesn’t make any difference what I got, what I don’t have. I’m patient with my circumstances. I’m happy whether I got a lot or whether I got a little. That has nothing to do with it. What it has to do with, your joy is related to occupation with the person of Christ, not to your circumstances. If you’re looking for people or circumstances to give you happiness, you’re looking in the wrong place. Then he goes on to talk about gentleness. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. Gentleness, what does that mean? It means to be kind or gracious like our Lord Jesus Christ was. It’s krestotes is the Greek word, krestotes, being Christ-like. And then we have the word goodness. What does that mean? It means for you to rack up divine good, not human good production, but divine good. That’s you being filled with the Holy Spirit, you living the Christian life under the filling of the Holy Spirit, and you producing divine good where it can glorify God and give you rewards in eternity. And then he talks about faith, living the faithless drill, living the faithless life, operating on the promise-solving devices found in the word of God. Do you do that? Do you understand that? And meekness, what does that mean? Does that mean being a wimp? No. A disposition of meekness or humility is not arrogance, that’s all it means. Not being arrogant. And temperance or self-control. That means you don’t let your old sin nature operate on steroids. So you want to know if you’re becoming a mature believer? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you have virtue love? Do you have the joy that Christ spoke about? Do you have the peace that the Apostle Paul talked about, being content? Do you have the ability to be instructed to be full or to be hungry? It doesn’t make any difference. That’s the long-suffering. Do you have the gentleness or the lifestyle of Christ? Do you have the goodness, the production of divine good? Do you operate under the faithless drill? Are you controlling your sin nature, not letting it control you? That’s what that verse means when it says what? Temperance, controlling yourself, self-control. There’s a lot there. That’s one way you can check yourself out and see. Well, I hope this makes sense. I can’t get it all in 30 minutes, but I hope I’ve made it clear at least. And so next week, if you’ll come back, we’ll continue and press on. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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.
