Join host Rick Hughes for a compelling episode of The FLOT Line as he explores the concept of becoming a mature believer and understanding the dynamics of a lifestyle of trust. Delve into the essentials of the faith rest drill, a key problem-solving device that can transform how you handle adversity and stress. Listen in as Rick shares invaluable insights into applying biblical principles to live a life that brings maximum glorification to God. In this thought-provoking episode, Rick addresses the common pitfalls of organized religion and sensationalism, encouraging listeners to embrace the protocol plan of God by ensuring
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 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, stick with me. It’ll be a short time, only about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, and all done without any type of manipulation and no solicitations. So we’re not here to con you out of any money. We’re simply here to give you information, information that might help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life, and if that happens, then you have the opportunity to orient and adjust to the plan. It is up to you. But you’re listening to the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, and that stands for the Forward Line of Troops, F-L-O-T, Forward Line of Troops. What we’re teaching on this radio show is there are 10 unique problem-solving devices outlined by my very own pastor years and years ago as he taught it to me. When you learn these 10 problem-solving devices, they act like a main line of resistance in your soul, and they will stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever convert to the inside source of stress. That’s why you hear us say adversity is inevitable, but stress is optional. So keep that in mind as we move into the year 2024. Many of us never thought we’d even live to see this day, but here we are, 2024. And it’s going to be a great year for sure, a lot of great opportunities. But we want to talk to you today about some things that are on my mind, things that I think about all the time. Organized religion has a lot of buzzwords and a lot of phony baloney type stuff. A lot of organized religion has gone in for sensationalism. If you ever get on the Internet and ever see any social media stuff, it’s all everywhere. It’s almost ad nauseum looking at it. People don’t seem to understand what the plan of God means and what it even represents, and very few people understand it. that the plan of God has a protocol plan to it. It means the right thing has to be done in the right way. Because if it’s not done in the right way, then it’s wrong. A right thing done in a wrong way is always wrong. But a right thing done in the right way is obviously right. And so this show is about helping you to understand what is the right way to exercise the protocol plan of God, to learn it and use it and apply it in your life so that you give God maximum glorification and you in turn represent Jesus Christ to your generation, to your neighbor, to your family, to your friends. You may have heard the term a mature believer. You hear me talk about it all the time, but very seldom will you hear it talked about in a church, being a mature believer. We don’t use that term very often in organized religion, but it refers to a person who’s grown spiritually to where they can handle certain things, to where they give God maximum glorification in their life, And I’d like to talk to you about that today. What is the lifestyle of the mature believer? What exactly is the lifestyle of the mature believer? This mature believer is a part of what I call the pivot. I talked to you about that last week. I encourage you to grow spiritually so you can be a part of the pivot. And that’s the invisible impact of the Christian warrior that delivers the nation in time of adversity. God doesn’t need millions. He just needs a few hundred well-qualified believers that can represent Jesus Christ to their generation. But if you wanna become a mature believer, there’s something you’re gonna have to develop. You’re going to have to develop this on your own and you’re gonna have to learn how to use it and understand it. It’s called a lifestyle of trust. I’m talking to you today about a lifestyle of trust. Anyone wishing to become a mature believer must live a lifestyle of trust. Where do I get that from? Well, I start with Psalm 31, verse one and two. Here the Psalmist wrote these words, I will put my trust in you, O Lord, don’t ever let me be ashamed. Deliver me and be my rock and lead me and guide me. And then he wrote in Psalm 31, 15, my destiny is in your hands and I will put my trust in you. Again, he said it, I will put my trust in you. The lifestyle of the mature believer demands that you put your trust in God’s plan for your life. These verses demonstrate the attitude of the mature believer, and he has to use something that we call the faith rest drill. That’s problem-solving device number three on the 10 problem-solving devices found in the flat line of your soul. Number one is rebound, how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Number two is the filling of the Holy Spirit. And number three is a faith rest drill. And you must learn how to execute that faith rest drill if you’re going to deploy the promises of God in your soul. That means if you’re going to keep the outside pressures of adversity from becoming the inside pressure of stress. So why exactly, why should I put my trust in the Lord? Isn’t there someplace better to put my trust? I don’t know, do you have something better? Let me give you some reasons why you ought to put your trust in the Lord. Why? Number one reason, because he redeemed you out of the slave market of sin. In Psalm 31 verse five, the Psalmist wrote these words, into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. And you and I as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are redeemed out of the slave market of sin. His sacrificial death on the cross purchased our salvation. That’s why the Bible clearly states, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God through him. And Paul the apostle made it clear when he said, I have made known to you by which also you’re saved, that Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. That resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is your guarantee that the grave will not hold you either. You will have a resurrection body. So you’ve been redeemed. That’s one reason you should put your trust in the Lord. Unless you’ve got something better to trust, Because if God did the greatest thing for you in saving you, does it not make sense to you, can it not understand this, that he could provide amazing things for you while you’re living in time? I mean, if he did the greatest thing for you in saving you, what about while you’re living now? Well, in fact, he has provided written proof of his undying care and his undying love for you in time right now, today. Listen, Psalm 37, 25. I have been young and now I’m old. And yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor have I seen his descendants begging bread. There’s a promise that God will not forsake you. He will take care of you. And so if you put your trust in his plan and learn his plan and live his plan, understand these 10 problem solving devices and apply them into your life, you can claim along with a Psalmist, I’ve been young and now I’m old and many of us are getting older. and I have never seen the righteous forsaking. You see, God knows the adversity that you face. In Psalm 31, verse seven, I will be glad and rejoice in your love because you saw my afflictions and you knew the anguish in my soul. There’s nothing you’re going through that God is not aware of. He knows exactly what you’re going through and he loves you and cares for you and has provided answers for you. I hope you’ll get our book on God’s grace and aging. We just published that book and it is out now and it’s available. If you’ll get a hold of it and read it, this will make a lot of sense to you. So you saw my affliction and you knew the anguish in my soul. He didn’t abandon you. He hasn’t abandoned me. He knows exactly what you and I are going through. Some of us right now, right now we have things that people don’t even know about because we don’t tell people our business. We don’t tell people what we’re facing. It’s nobody’s business. It’s just between God and you, right? He knows, 31-7, he knows you saw my affliction and you knew the anguish of my soul. He knows exactly what you’re going through. And when you go to your friends and start opening your mouth and complaining about how rough you got it, you’re failing to trust the Lord and you’re slipping into self pity. He knows what you’re facing. He redeemed you and he knows what you’re thinking and he knows what adversity you’re going through and he knows if you are afraid to trust him, can you trust him? Do you trust God to handle your adversity? That’s how you glorify God. God knows. You glorify God by what we think as well as what we do. So he knows if I’m trusting him in my adversity and he knows if I’m panicking in my adversity. He knows if I’m stressing myself out by worrying and being afraid. And again, he promised he would never even forsake you, Psalm 31.8. So can you have a lifestyle of trust? Can you actually trust God to handle your adversities? Yes, you can. He redeemed you. He knows the adversity you face. He knows what you’re thinking in that adversity and he will never forsake you in those times that you go through adversity. Psalm 31, eight says he will give you secure footing in the adversity or meaning he will stabilize you. He will help you to be balanced. What does that mean? It means that God will anchor you when a storm gets really bad so that you are not going to be blown away by your emotions. If you let your emotions take over, you’re gonna just go into a puddle. So if you stand on the word of God, you will be anchored. If you use a faithless drill, you have nothing to worry about. Stand still, Moses said. Watch what God’s about to do. The lifestyle of trust requires you to have faith. But now, how can you strengthen your faith? You know, I hear you now, I don’t have a lot of faith, Rick. How would you strengthen your faith? Is it stronger, determined by an emotion that you’re going through? How do you get more faith? Well, trust grabs the promises of God and stands on them. And there are thousands of promises and provisions in the scripture. My first question is, how many do you actually know? On our book in Promises and Principles, we list many of them for you. And those promises are like cash in the bank. One thing for sure, faith requires you to trust what God says and relax because it’s not up to you, it’s up to him. But how can you relax if you don’t know the promises? So trust requires something on your part. It’s a word called courage. It may require you to take a risk, which means you have to conquer your doubts and conquer your fears with the scriptures. How could you do that? Well, here’s a great promise for you to claim. You need to go to your Bible and underline this and read it weekly. Isaiah 54, 17. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, says the Lord. As a member of the royal family of God, don’t ever put a premium on security. See, that’s exactly what happened when the Jewish slaves were led out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron and headed for the promised land, the land that God promised to give them, and they balked at that. They got afraid. They wanted security. Listen to Exodus 15, 22 through 24. Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they were three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people complained against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? This is a sure indication that you are not living a lifestyle of trust. If you’re complaining, God may take you to the very brink of the edge to see, are you going to complain? Do you have enough faith to trust me? And when it looks like it’s not going to be there, when it looks like the money’s not going to be there, when it looks like the answer that you’re looking for, it’s not going to be there. Can you go to the very edge and still trust God and not complain? In Numbers 13, you will find the account of the 12 spies who were sent into the land of Canaan and the response of 10 who came out and did not trust what God said. In Numbers 13, 25, they returned from spying out the land after 40 days and they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out. And they said the land through which we have gone as spies is a land which devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in the land are men of great stature. All right, what kind of problem we have here? Well, we have emotions overriding the thought, overriding what they’re thinking. They’re getting emotional. And the results were fear, panic, ploy. Listen to number 14, one through three. So all the congregation that heard these words, the 10 spies that came out and complained, the people wept that night, cried that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said to them, listen to what they said, now this is crazy. If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in the wilderness, why did God bring us to this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? I mean, how stupid can you be? But this is exactly what irrational fear produces. Irrational fear produces emotional control. And in emotional control, you’re not thinking, you’re sure not trusting to God. In the result of no trusting in God’s provision, that’s what irrational fear is. God had already told them this is their land. He had already told them he would provide it for them. He had already told them he would protect them. But they cried all night long and full of self-pity. And they actually accused God. of deliberately setting them up to die. Did you hear that? Why did the Lord bring us to this land to get us killed by the sword? That our wives and our children, our children, see that’s the cry, the children would become victims. They actually accused God of deliberately setting them up to die and they wanted to, they wish they had stayed in slavery under protection of Egypt. This is saying we wanted security over freedom. How bad is that? What about you? Which is most important to you? Security or freedom? In the faith rest drill, notice this same group being delivered from the Pharaoh’s wrath at the Red Sea. I mean, this is the same group of people. It happened before these other events I read to you. In Exodus 14, Moses said to the people, don’t be afraid. Stand still. Watch what God’s about to do. Watch what he would accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians you see today, you’ll never see again. And they went across the Red Sea. And when the Egyptian and Pharaoh tried to chase them, the Red Sea caved in and drowned them all. Fear knocked. Faith answered. And faith said, nobody’s home. Go away. Fear knocked, faith answered, and said, nobody’s home, go away. So if you’re gonna live a lifestyle of trust, you must learn how to execute the faith rest drill. You can’t live a lifestyle of trust if you can’t execute the faith rest drill. I mean, number one, you may be required to go it alone, just as Joshua and Caleb were required to do. Nobody else would go with them. But you must be obedient and you must not be afraid. Listen to Deuteronomy 31 6. Be strong. Be courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you and he will never leave you nor will he forsake you. That is your promise. Be strong, be courageous in whatever you’re facing right now in your lifestyle of trust. Don’t be afraid or terrified because of what you’re facing because the Lord will go with you. He will not leave you. He will not turn his back on you. He will not forsake you. You might experience sorrow in the course of following God, but I promise you your life will be defined by joy because the greatest joy you can ever know, the greatest joy I have ever known is to be in the exact center of the will of God for my life and you, the same for you. To be in the center of God’s will for both of us. Thus, under his divine provision and under his divine protection. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. And all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. So don’t try to figure out the answer. Don’t try to figure out how you can manipulate your way out of it. Just stand firm. Wait on the Lord. Trust in the Lord. Use the faith rest drill I’m about to explain to you. And he will direct your path. Acknowledge him. It’s a simple prayer. Father, I’m in a jam. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to handle this. Father, please show me the answer. I can give you illustrations out of my own life, but I don’t know that that’ll help you. But I can remember one particular time where my wife and I were living and we had a house rented at the time. And the owner of the house said, you got two weeks and you got to move out. I want to move back in the house. So you got two weeks to move out. Oh my gosh, two weeks and get out. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know where to go. We’d never dawned on us that God had something better. And the Lord moved us to a better place than we had to begin with. And we didn’t trust him to start with. I’ll admit you to that. I panicked. But in the end, as I confessed my sin and the new Lord must have a plan for me, he gave me a much better home than I was living in to start with. And it’s a good thing I got out of there. So that was his will for my life. And this may happen to you. You might not understand why certain things happen, but usually it’s because God intends to bless you, not curse you. If you are not under discipline, if you’re not failing to rebound, if you’re staying filled with the Holy Spirit, now you could be under discipline. You could be under intense discipline and it may be God trying to get your attention. So trust in the Lord with all your heart, whatever you’re facing right now. And don’t lean on your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. Now then what about this faith rest drill? How do I execute the faith rest drill? Problem solving device number three. The beginning of the faith rest drill is to believe God when he makes a promise to you. In your spiritual childhood we reach out with our faith and we claim these promises. But the faithless drill that I’m talking about has a far greater implication than just mixing the promises of God with your faith. You have to learn how to have faith mechanics. You have to learn how to have faith functions and faith execution. And faith mechanics means you mix your faith with one of those 7,000 promises of God. So if you had a piece of paper and a notebook, how many could you write down that you actually know How many could you write down? You actually know. I’ve given you a couple today already in this message. Isaiah 54, 17 is a good one to start with. Get a notebook. Write down some promises. Order our book on Promises and Principles and look at these promises we’ve outlined for you in the Bible. It’s free. And these will help you as you go through these times where you can learn to use the faith rest drill. So, faith mechanics. What is that? That’s the application of biblical rationale, which a rationale is a reason or the intention of something to your experience. So you have something happen. Maybe you had a wreck in your car. My wife called up and said, honey, I had a wreck. And okay, when you get upset, get it mad, get upset about it. And we know the Lord must have a reason. So we go to the faith mechanics and we claim God is what he’s omnipotent. Did he know about an eternity past? Yes. God is omnipresent. Is he with my wife right now? Yes. Is he omniscient? Did he know this was going to happen? Could he have stopped it? Yes. Why did he allow it to happen for a reason? His reason to teach us, to teach the other person, to teach somebody something, but we don’t get mad and we don’t get upset. We don’t jump up and down. We don’t cry about it. We had a fender bender and it’s the Lord’s plan. Relax. and live the faith rest drill. Apply the faith mechanics. Go to the doctor, you get a bad report, you panic, what do you do? You use the biblical rationales that God is in control. He will never abandon you, he will never forsake you. I go with you, claim those promises and relax and let the Holy Spirit take control. That’s the faith function. Faith function is when you actually stay filled with the Holy Spirit And you actually are relaxed as you trust the Lord to protect and provide for you and to provide for you in your situation. That’s what it means to use a promise within your shield of faith. Pick up the shield of faith, Paul said in Ephesians 6. How can you use the shield of faith? Well, you better make sure you’re filled with the Holy Spirit first. You have to use rebound first. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all wrongdoing. So if you have unconfessed sin in your life, you’re not going to be filled with the Holy Spirit and you’re not going to be able to execute the faith rest drill. So if you’re filled with the Holy Spirit by using rebound, next thing you can do is recall a promise from those that you’ve memorized and store it in your soul if you’ve done that. And if the situation and time allows, select one from your list of favorites. Or maybe from one of my books that we’re talking about, this book on promises and principles. And then claim that promise by expressing your thoughts to God the Father in prayer. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with actually reciting the promise to God and thanking him for giving you the divine provision. This is where God’s promise of the ministry of the Holy Spirit takes effect. Because if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, but no one confessed sin in your life and he will help you recall the relevant biblical principles you’ve learned and now you can have divine viewpoint options to consider. So then finally mix your faith in God with his word and relax, enjoy life, enjoy what God’s given you. Therefore Hebrews 4.1, let us fear lest a promise being unclaimed of entering into his rest. Let us fear not entering into his rest, lest we come short of it, Hebrews 4.1. So the faith rest drill coordinates and correlates by claiming the promises of God and applying the biblical rationales along with God’s happiness. So when pressure hits your life, adversity attacks you, you have the basic contentment and tranquility from which you use a faithless drill under the power of the Holy Spirit. Grace orientation, biblical orientation, more problem-solving devices. So mixing the promises of God with faith, that’s designed to stabilize your mentality under pressure, to make the confusion go away, to make the stress go away. Claiming the promises is a way that even a new believer, a young believer, a person that hasn’t grown to be a mature believer yet, can function under the faith rest drill. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5, 7. We walk by faith, that’s the faith rest drill, and not by sight, that’s human viewpoint. So if you’re gonna use the faith rest drill, you will have what I call a lifestyle of trust, and that’s what we’re looking for. One more time, faith applies the appropriate biblical rationale. Faith reaches a firm biblical conclusion, and faith takes control of the situation, and you are relaxed. You’re filled with the Holy Spirit, you have peace in your heart, You don’t have anything to fear, anything to be afraid of. And you can thank God for his wonderful protection and his wonderful provisions using the faith rest drill. Isn’t that great? Isn’t that amazing? But until then, I’d like to thank you for listening to the Flatline today.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
