Join Rick Hughes as he delves into the principles of living a Christian life filled with divine perspective and humility. In this episode of The Flatline, explore the concept of ‘Mind Your Own Business’ and the importance of focusing on one’s own spiritual growth. Rick introduces the 10 problem-solving devices essential for maintaining a relaxed mental attitude and spiritual well-being, providing listeners with tools to lead a fulfilling life focused on personal growth and divine understanding.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. Just be a short time of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education with absolutely no manipulation because we don’t con people here. We’re not trying to get money. We’re not trying to solicit membership. We definitely don’t have anything to sell you. We have a lot of information to give you. A lot of our information we’ve written, put in books. They’re all free. We don’t charge for anything. I hope you’ll take time to order some of the material after you hear our radio show, The Flatline. We have a new book called Crash Course in Christianity. Just reprinted that. Tremendous book. It’s free for you to request that. We have a book called Christian Problem Solving. We have tremendous transcripts of the past radio shows from 2020 and 2019. Every show we ever did has been put into a transcript and available for you to read on a daily basis. So any of that material is free for you asking. All you have to do is contact us. at rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, and we’ll send that right on out to you. Today, thank you for listening. Thank you for being with me. It’s a tremendous amount of mail that I get, and I love to hear from people all the way from Maine to California. What I hear a lot of times is people saying, I’m learning something, I’m growing. I’ve never understood things like this before. And that’s my objective is to give you divine viewpoint, to give you the word of God, to help you understand the mechanics to what it means to live the Christian life, the protocol plan of God. Remember the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. That simply means we have to learn to think like he thought. And how did he think? Well, he had an attitude of humility because the Bible says he humbled himself and he made himself of no reputation and took upon himself the form of a man, a servant. And that’s what we have to do. We have to have an attitude of humility. That’s why the Bible says, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us, a standard of thinking from his word. That’s Romans 12, three in a modified, expanded translation of that verse. Today, there’s some information I’d like to give to you. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s called mind your own business. You ever heard that term before? Mind your own business. That’s an old country song, Mind Your Own Business, originally recorded by Hank Williams and re-recorded by many country western stars and years since that time. But the tagline is, mind your own business and you won’t be minding mine. Mind your own business and you won’t be minding mine. Now, perhaps you’ve had people stick their nose into your business. Perhaps you stuck your nose into someone else’s business. 1 Thessalonians 4, 11, the A part of that verse says this. You should study to be quiet and to do your own business. Tend to your own business. That’s the motto of the Christian. Keep your mouth shut and mind your own business. And that was written to the Macedonian Christians who understood what the Christian life was. They had the right motivation, study, and the right priority. Mind your own business. If you can keep those two things in line, You’ll go a long way in the plan of God. If you’ll study the word of God, as the Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. If you’ll study, and if you do what the Bible says, grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And if you will obey this passage, mind your own business, and you will understand the privacy of the priesthood, the priority and their motivation in life is necessary for the believer to to glorify God to the maximum in his life. When we talk about the flat line, we’re talking about those 10 unique problem-solving devices that form the main line of resistance in your soul. You’ve heard me talk about them over and over again. Rebound, which is the confession of known sin. The filling of the Holy Spirit, which is the power to live the Christian life and not letting the sin nature control you. Faith rest drill, which is overcoming difficult situations by using and standing on faith. Grace orientation, which is orienting to the grace of God from salvation to heaven. Biblical orientation, which is learning and applying God’s word into your life on a daily basis. developing a personal sense of destiny, which means you know why God put you here, you know what God wants you to do, you know what your spiritual gift is, personal love for God, which is the greatest motivational virtue any of us could ever have. As 1 John 5, 3 says, if you love me, you will obey me. Impersonal love for all mankind, and we’ll talk about that a little bit today, and that’s the ability to love the person who sticks their nose into your business. And sharing the happiness of God, which is living the wonderful life Christ talked to the disciples about in John 15, 11. I’ve told you these things so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full. And then obviously, occupation with Christ. For me to live is Christ, to die is prophet, Paul said. Christ in me, the hope of glory. And that’s what we want to do. We want to represent Jesus Christ to our friends and our neighbors and to the world by being filled with the Holy Spirit, growing in grace and replicating his lifestyle. So perhaps one of the greatest unconfessed sins among Christians like myself and yourself It’s when we stick our nose into someone else’s business. It can be called gossip, it can be called judging, it can be called slander. I assume you know the difference between gossip and slander. Gossip is basically when you repeat something that might be true and slander is when you repeat the lie. And judging, well obviously that’s when you pronounce sentence. These are all three terrible sins of the tongue. that malign other people simply for the purpose of manipulating how someone thinks. We’re not authorized to manipulate anyone, and we’re never authorized as a believer in Lord Jesus Christ to gossip, to judge, or slander anybody. And the Bible has a great deal to say about these types of sins. Maybe you’ve even been the victim of the neighborhood gossip, the workplace judging or jealous slander on your part. I’ve noticed in my neighborhood sometimes when neighbors move in, they want to talk about other neighbors. They want to talk about this one doesn’t do that and that one doesn’t do this. And if I was him, I’d do this. If I was she, I’d do that. People have a hard time leaving people alone, keeping your nose out of other people’s business. There’s always somebody wants to tell you how to live your life. Always someone got a better way to do it than you. The Bible has a lot to say about that. And in Proverbs 6, 16 through 19, there are seven particular sins. that the Bible says God hates. Now, of course, the word hate is a big word. I’m going to tell you what it is. Don’t get scared. It’s called anthropomorphism, an anthropomorphism, A-N-T-H-R-O-P-O-R-P-H-I-S-M, anthropomorphism. That’s the attributing human traits or human emotions to non-human entities. Obviously, God doesn’t get mad and God doesn’t hate anybody. The Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Hate is an emotional sin. You’re told not to commit hatred in your life. So God does not get mad and he doesn’t use human emotions like we do. This is simply a way of saying that the justice of God highly disapproves of sins like these. There are six of them, wait, seven, the Bible says, that are an abomination to him. Here they are, Proverbs 6, 16, and 17. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, and a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among the brethren. So there you have it, murder, hands that shed innocent blood. Of these seven, only one’s an overt sin, and it’s murder. That’s the only overt sin. Three of them are sins of the tongue, and three of them are mental attitude sins. Sometimes people don’t recognize that sin comes like that. It can be what you think, what you say, or what you do. That’s how sin operates. What you do is an overt sin. What you think is a mental attitude sin, and what you say is a sin of the tongue. So murder is the first thing that God says he detests. The sixth thing God hates, an abomination to him, and murder is one of those right there. And then arrogance, which is a proud look. That’s the mental attitude sin of arrogance. That’s the unrealistic self-image. You know, an arrogant person doesn’t see himself as he is. He sees himself as he thinks he is. And if he has that sort of unrealistic self-image, he expects to be treated in a way he’s not worthy of being treated. The arrogant person has a proud look. I would never do that. That’s not me. I’m better than you. I would never do anything like that. And they want to loft themselves up above everyone and act like they’re better than everybody else. Lying is another one of these sins of the tongue. The Bible says stay away from lying. A schemer is another sin. That’s a mental attitude sin. The heart that devises wicked imagination, the Bible says. He’s a schemer, a murderer, an arrogant person, a liar, a schemer. And then the Bible says feet that are swift in running to evil. That’s a troublemaker. That’s a mental attitude sin. And the Bible goes on to talk about a false witness who speaks lies. That’s the sin of the tongue, and that’s perjury. And then the one who sows discord among the brethren. And, of course, that’s the sin of the tongue. That’s the poison spreader. One of these seven is overt, and the other six are sins of the tongue and mental attitude sins. So take a really close look at them and see if you fit in there anywhere. Have you lied? Have you been arrogant? Have you been scheming? Have you had some sort of wicked plan? Have you committed perjury? Have you spread discourse among believers, discourse among the brethren? I hope not. Many years ago, I was taught the concept of when a believer should keep his mouth shut. And I would like to remind you of that. I did it on this radio show some, maybe 10 years ago. When should a believer keep his mouth shut? Let me remind you of that because it’ll help you here not to get your nose into someone else’s business. The first time you should always keep your mouth shut is when you’re angry. Proverbs 14, 17 says, a short-tempered person acts stupidly and a person who plots evil is hated. So anytime you’re angry, anytime your temper is exploding, you should always, always, always keep your mouth shut. Ecclesiastes 7, 9, don’t be quick to get angry because anger is typical of a fool. That simply means that the fool cannot control his emotions. That’s one of the first things about being a material believer you have to learn how to do is control your emotions. You can’t live the Christian life based on emotions. You live the Christian life based on what you think. Remember I told you, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. It didn’t say let these emotions be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. This is where we stray today in the church. We want to get too emotional. We want to worship God with emotion. And it’s okay to appreciate God with emotion. There’s nothing wrong with emotion. It’s not a sin. That’s not how we grow up. We grow up by learning to think, learning to rebound, learning to stay filled with the Spirit, learning how to use the faithless drill, learning how to orient to God’s grace and orient to the Word of God. There is a protocol plan that we must follow because the right thing has to be done in the right way. You can’t make up the rules of the Christian life as you go along like a lot of people do. A lot of people love to sing. A lot of people love to clap. A lot of people love to get happy. And sometimes in worship services, that’s what takes place. But you don’t learn anything doing that. There’s nothing wrong with praising God, but that’s not how you grow. You’ve got to study to show yourself approved unto God. And that doesn’t mean you do it alone at home by yourself. It means you sit under a well-qualified pastor who’s prepared, who knows the original languages of the Greek, Hebrew, and maybe the Aramaic, and who can teach you what it actually means. You’d be surprised how much you can learn when someone can break it down and teach it to you. The Bible is not a novel. I talk to people all the time, say, I read it through this year, I read it through last year, I’ve read the Bible through 10 times. Well, whoopie-doo, that doesn’t mean anything. What means something is if you have had it taught to you. My own pastor, for example, taught the book of Ephesians, and you say, well, that was great. Would he do that January Bible study and do the book of Ephesians? No, it took him 1,200 hours to teach through the book of Ephesians. My pastor taught the life of Christ, and that took over 1,000 hours to teach the life of Christ. That’s 1,000 Bible classes an hour at a time. You can’t learn the Word of God in a week. You’re not going to get it. You’re not going to grow to spiritual maturity or once in one week a year having a Bible study. So you have to grow. You have to learn God’s word. You have to become a mature believer. That’s how you learn these things. So we have to stay away from this sort of seven sins that God hates. You have to learn to keep your mouth shut when you’re tempted to get angry. The second time you should always keep your mouth shut is prayer. when you’re tempted to tell a lie. God doesn’t allow you to lie. That’s a terrible sin. The third is when you’re tempted to twist the truth. Don’t do that. Don’t turn things into your favor. The fourth time you should keep your mouth shut is when you get the urge, and I get the urge every now and then, I bet you do too, to straighten out the fool. Try to straighten out the fool, someone that’s an idiot. You don’t have to go very far to run into an idiot nowadays. You can get it at the local coffee store. You can get it at the grocery store. You can get it at the gas station. Or you can run into him on the interstate. There are a lot of idiots running around. But God didn’t send me to straighten anybody out, nor did he send you. Our objective is to straighten our own lives out and to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ and demonstrate his love and mercy. So we are not ever sent to straighten fools out. Proverbs 9, 8. Do not warn a mocker or he will hate you. Warn a wise person and he will love you. Give advice to a wise person and he will become even wiser. The fifth time you should always keep your mouth shut. Always. It’s when you’re tempted to speak because you don’t know all the facts yet. And people do this all the time. If I was in charge, this is what I would do. If I was there, I would do it like this. Proverbs 10, 14. Those who are wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a stubborn fool invites ruin. So many times you don’t have all the facts. You don’t have all the information. And you pronounce sentence or judgment on a person because… What you think happened didn’t really happen. And that’s where you have to be quiet. Keep a laconic attitude. Keep your mouth shut. The sixth time is when you’re tempted to say more than you should say. Whenever you’re tempted to say more than you should say, you should never say it. In Proverbs 10, 19, the Bible says, sin is unavoidable when there’s much talk. but whoever seals his lips is wise. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around somebody like this, but someone who controls the conversation and won’t shut up. Maybe you’ve seen people like that. I’ve been to dinner with people like that. They start talking from the time they sit down till they leave and they never quit talking. Just recently, I was having lunch with some friends in a restaurant and And a complete stranger overheard something he was saying, and he butted in and absolutely took over our conversation. We could not get another word in edgewise because he wouldn’t shut up. And I felt like saying, Mr., can I take you over to the side and have a little word with you? But I didn’t. We just politely excused ourselves and went our way. But we have to understand these concepts. It’s unavoidable when there’s much talk, but whoever seals his lips is wise. The seventh time you should keep your mouth shut is when you’re tempted to pervert the truth. Proverbs 10 31, the mouth of a righteous person increases wisdom, but a devious, devious tongue will be cut off. The devious tongue is the person who manipulates people, the person who perverts the truth as we talked about earlier in this passage. The person who is always troublemaking, running the mischief, poison spreader, sowing discourse among the brethren. It’s critical that you must not run your mouth and pervert the truth. The truth, first of all, is that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. He always has loved you. And if you want to have a relationship with God, it starts through a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s why he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man can come to the Father but by me. So everything starts at the cross. It starts with you receiving Christ as your savior, which is the single most important decision you will ever make in your life. And if you are dumb enough to put it off and gamble with your eternity, you’re absolutely making a critical mistake. Why would you gamble with your future? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust in him today. Unless you’ve been listening to somebody that says they’re smarter than God. Someone says, well, I don’t care what the Bible says. I know better than that. And that is a fool, I promise you. Stay away from those people. Don’t listen to those people. The eighth reason when you should keep your mouth shut is when you’re tempted to malign your neighbor. And this is the point about mind your own business. Be sure you keep your mouth shut if you’re tempted to malign your neighbor. So you don’t like the way they let their dogs out. So you don’t like the way they cut their grass. So you don’t like the way they put something here or they did something there or they parked their car here or they run up and down the street here. And so you call another neighbor and say, let me tell you, I’m just sick of that. Let me tell you what I just, you know, and then off you go, maligning, criticizing, running down your neighbor. If you’re tempted to malign your neighbor, be sure to keep your mouth shut. I know you probably have a neighbor or two you don’t like, and the Bible says in Proverbs 11, 9, with his talk, a godless person can ruin his neighbor. but righteous people are rescued by knowledge. There it is, again, you cannot run your neighbor down. In Proverbs 13, three, the one who guards his words guards his life, but whoever is talkative will come to ruin. One of the worst sins you can commit is to malign your neighbor. The ninth time you should keep your mouth shut is if you have a quick temper. Proverbs 14, 17, a short-tempered person acts stupidly, and the person who plots evil will be hated. And tenthly, not the last, but not the least, you’re tempted to say anything hurtful, be quiet, don’t say it. Proverbs 15, 4, a soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue will break the spirit. You get mad at somebody, you call them a fool. You get mad at somebody and you call them an idiot. You get mad at somebody and you call them a dirty name. You are violating this concept. A soothing tongue is the tree of life, forgiving. That’s how God did you, he forgave you. So you should have a flat line in your soul, a main line of resistance in your soul that will give you the ability to live this relaxed mental attitude, using the faith rest drill, which is problem-solving device number three, and using impersonal love, which is problem-solving device number eight. If you don’t understand that, get a hold of me. I’ll send you the book, Christian Problem Solving, and it lists all 10 problem-solving devices. You can study it and look at it. My pastor taught me this a long time ago, and I have his permission to reteach it but it’s the secret to the Christian life. It’s the modus operandi of the Christian, learning these 10 problem-solving devices that give you a flat line in your soul, and that’s the ability to live a wonderful life. So sticking your nose into someone else’s business is how you get under divine discipline, according to the Bible. In Matthew 7, one through seven, judge not so that you will not be judged. For with whatever judgment you judge, you’re going to be judged. And with the measure you measure, it’ll be measured back to you again. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck out of your eye? And look, a plank is in your own eye. You’re a hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye and then you’ll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Here’s the concept. It’s called triple compound discipline. When you judge another person, another believer, you are committing a sin and it must be confessed as a sin or else the discipline will come swiftly. And it will come like this. The measure that you measure will be measured back to you again. Did you hear what I said? For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. So whatever measure you measured, it’ll be measured back to you again. And then you will be disciplined for your own personal sin from judging. And then you will have self-induced misery. That’s called the triple compound discipline. The reason people do this, because they have an arrogant, unrealistic self-image. They think they’re right, they’re smart, they’re better. People should listen to them. They know how to tell you to live your life. Wrong. It takes humility to obey this mandate. Remove the speck from your own eye. That’s humility. That’s the ability to look at yourself honestly and say, you know, I’m pretty lousy myself. What am I doing talking about someone else? Look at me, look at my failures. The divine way of thanking taught in the Bible in regard to family and neighbors is in Ephesians 4, 30 through 32. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you’re sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, all wrath, all anger, all clamor, all evil speaking be put away from you along with your malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake forgave you. In the Greek New Testament, these are present active imperatives. This is not a request. This is a mandate from God. He is telling you, you must not have bitterness, which is a root mental attitude sin. You must not have wrath, which is the Greek word thumos or thunderous. That’s hot anger, red-faced anger. You must not have anger, the Bible says, which is the Greek word orge, O-R-G-E, which is agitation or violent emotional impulses. You must not have clamor, the Bible says, And that’s an onomatopoeia, onomatopoeia. It’s the word krauge, K-R-A-U-G-E, and it’s a word that imitates the raven’s cry, akin to the krauge, the raven of the crawls, makes a crawl noise. And when you are clamoring, you’re running around the neighborhood telling everybody else what an idiot your neighbor is, or what an idiot your boss is, or what an idiot that person you work with is, and you’re not minding your own business. And the Bible says, quit evil speaking, blasphemia, the Greek word, blasphemia. And that’s speech that’s designed to injure. That’s deflamatory, malice. The Bible says, stay away from malice. Kakia, K-A-K-I-A. And that’s ill will, desire to injure someone. And then it wraps it up by saying, and be kind to one another. Tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, forgave you. Again, present, active, imperative in the Greek. Kind, tenderhearted, forgiving. Three key attitudes that will overcome bitter jealousy and envy in your life. Kind is , which means pleasant, gracious, benevolent. Tenderhearted is compassionate, and forgiving is to show favor and to be gracious. This is what God expects out of you, kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving. The three attitudes that overcome bitter jealousy and envy in your life. And the only way you can have this sort of attitude is to have that main line of resistance in your soul, the flat line, what this show’s about. This is how we live the Christian life. This is critical for you to understand. I hope I’m making sense, and I hope you’ve listened. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me anytime. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
