Join host Rick Hughes on The Flatline as he delves into the timeless truths of biblical wisdom and how it can transform the Christian life. Discover the 10 problem-solving devices that empower believers to navigate their spiritual journey effectively and become trophies of God’s grace. Through meaningful insights and personal anecdotes, Rick emphasizes the significance of mastering time and maintaining a personal relationship with the Almighty, transcending mere Sunday services to a profound daily walk with God.
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. Thank you for sticking around. It’ll be a few minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education, and absolutely nothing, no manipulations. I want to remind you that the Flatline is here to give you some biblical truths, introducing you to the Forward Line of Troops, F-L-O-T, Flatline, Forward Line of Troops. We’re using a military analogy to describe how the Christian can live his life by learning 10 unique problem-solving devices. taught to me by my very own pastor years and years ago. This is nothing new. This is no sensational breakthrough, nothing that’s something that’s a miracle breakthrough. This is simply age-old biblical truths. And these 10 problem-solving devices include rebound, which is the filling of the Holy Spirit, faith rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation, personal sense of destiny, all of these things we’ve taught. Matter of fact, we have a book on this if you’d like to get it Just write to us and ask for the 10 Problem Solving Device booklet, and we’ll be glad to send you the transcripts where we’ve taught all of this before. But without learning these 10 Problem Solving Devices, you’re never going to be able to effectively live the victorious Christian life, and you’re never going to be able to be a trophy for God’s grace in the end. As Paul said, I’m now ready to be offered. He was a trophy. God wants you to be a trophy. I want you to be a trophy, but you have to do the right thing in the right way. You know, God said he’s looking for people in Jeremiah that know him and understand him, and there are many people that know God, and there are many people that don’t understand the God they know. So it’s my prayer that by means of this radio show, I can give you some enlightenment, some encouragement, and some direction until you find your own well-qualified pastor that you can sit under, that you can grow under on a daily basis, not once a week or every Sunday morning, daily, every day. And there are people like that out there. That information is offered free, no charge ever from the people that we associate with. So I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. And I hope you’ll continue to stick with me. Pray for us as we minister to 112 cities across America. every Sunday morning. It’s a step of faith on our part, and we appreciate your prayer support. Okay? Now, we started a study last week on aging, on the perils of old age, and we want to continue that a little bit this week, dealing with the perspective of time, the perspective of time. And sometimes, we get into studies like this that are not sensational, they’re not political, We’re not talking about the end of the country. We’re not talking about what the Democrats are doing or what the Republicans are doing or what the devil’s doing. We’re talking about what you’re doing and what God is doing. I hope this is interesting to you. I hope you will learn from this and apply this into your life because our perspective of time is very finite. In other words, it has limits, it has bounds. I mean, you know time is sun up, sun down, moon up, moon down. But that’s not God’s time. It’s not God’s perspective. I don’t know if you think about this, but God invented time when he created the earth. He invented time. There are no clocks in heaven. God’s not on a timetable. And we’ve heard that one day is like a thousand years in heaven. But we essentially are governed by time. We only live for a short time, and then we enter eternity. So we have a temporal life, temporal life, temporary life governed by time. And then we have eternal life, which is timeless. So once you move into eternity, there is no more time, no more sun up and sun down, no more time. But God is logical. This is what you have to remember about God. He’s logical. He doesn’t operate chronologically like we do. He invented time for us so that we can have something to live by, for us. In Ecclesiastes 31.8, the writer of Ecclesiastes says, to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. You’ve probably heard this before, but I’ll run through it for you. There’s a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which was planted. I know a lot of farmers that understand that and agree with that. And I know a lot of morticians that understand the first part and a lot of doctors who deliver babies that understand that. So here, listen to this one. Here’s the military. A time to kill. A time to heal. A time to break down. A time to build up. A time to weep. A time to laugh. A time to mourn. A time to dance. There’s a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get, a time to lose, a time to keep, a time to cast away, a time to rend, and a time to sow, and a time to keep silent, and a time to speak. I wish more people understood that and what it means to be a laconic believer. So Ecclesiastes 31, one through eight deals with time, God’s invention of time for the temporal life that we live. How that applies to you and I is we must learn to master time. rather than letting time master us. We have to control time. If you don’t, then you’re not gonna have a relaxed life. You’re gonna live under the fear panic ploy most of your life. You’re gonna have anxiety and stress related to time because you’re gonna fear what might happen today or what might happen tomorrow. So there is a way to overcome that. It’s part of the problem-solving devices called the faith rest drill, standing on the promises of God. Over 7,000 promises in the Bible for you in time so that you can use them and not be afraid, not have anxiety, not worry. If you don’t have a list of those, we have a book called Biblical Promises that we can send to you free. And there’s a lot of promises in that book and you can read through it and claim, write them down, use them in your life every day. These are like money in the bank for you to keep your control, to keep control of your mental attitude. You know, when we get age conscious, that can be a very terrible prison for some people. You look at some people that are 60 and they look 90, You look at some people that are 90 and they look like they’re 60, but being age conscious can be a terrible prison because if you get consumed by growing old, if you get consumed by your aging, you begin to be maladjusted to the creator of time. And if you’re maladjusted, then you are frustrated and usually impatient. because it’s not happening according to your time. You know, like the old military thing, hurry up and wait. God doesn’t work on your time. When you pray and you want God to answer prayer tomorrow, the next day, today, maybe he doesn’t, maybe he has a different timeframe. So you cannot get consumed by aging. You cannot get maladjusted to the creator of time. You cannot get frustrated and impatient in your life. Those are all things you can overcome by having a flat line in your soul, by having a personal sense of destiny, by having personal love for God, by having grace orientation. These are all part of the problem-solving devices. My own pastor that I learned so much under wrote a prayer about time, and I’m going to read it to you. This man’s name was R.B. Thiem Jr., and this is what he said. We considered an honor and a privilege to spend time. This is a prayer he prayed, and I’m reading his prayer. We considered an honor and a privilege to spend time, in time, which you, God, personally have invented for our frame of reference. And we have the opportunity of receiving from you time. and then give it back to you as part of our worship. Therefore, in fulfillment of your word, we obey the mandates that command us to forsake not the assembling of ourselves together and to spend time learning the word of God, recognizing that you are the truth and the only way that we can adjust to you is by learning the truth. End of prayer. now here’s a point i want you to remember how many times have you sat in church and looked at your watch and said when is that man going to shut up when is he going to finish we got to go to lunch there’s a long line down at the restaurant don’t they understand the pork chops will be gone time we get there if the service is a little long do you get impatient and do you get angry at the minister who’s doing the speaking Here’s a question I have to ask you. Whose time is it anyways? Your time? You invented it? You own it? Or is it God’s time? So you are angry and impatient and frustrated because God is stealing some of your time by making you listen to the minister? You’re a loser when you think like that, I can assure you. Cannot afford to get impatient. Here’s what the Bible says in Psalm 90 verse 10. The days of our years are three score years and 10, that’s 70. And if by reason of strength they be four score years, that’s 80. And yet is there strength in labor and sorrow for it’s soon cut off and we fly away. So the Bible’s telling us here basically we’re guaranteed to live about 70 years, maybe 80. But what we do is we orient to celebrating birthdays, we do. until we realize the ones in front of us are less than the ones behind us. Because now these birthdays begin to remind us of our vulnerabilities, isn’t it? I mean, so at what point in time do you stop celebrating birthdays and begin to dread the birthdays? I was talking to a person the other day who’s having their 50th birthday and they didn’t want to talk about it. They didn’t want to celebrate it, didn’t want to bring it up. Don’t even mention it that I’m 50 years old. And I said, well, you’re half dead. You can think about it that way. So it’s time. God gives us time, time to enjoy him, time to orient to him, time to glorify him. His viewpoint is timeless. timeless, eternal, outside the boundaries of time and space. So shall yours be soon enough. You know, we think about time, we look at a star, and when you see that star tonight, go outside and find a really bright star, and you say, oh, I’m looking at this star right now. No, you’re not. You’re looking at what happened millions of years ago. The light it takes to get to you sometimes takes a million years. It didn’t happen just then. You’re looking at something in time. So here’s what you need to remember about time. My little saying about time is critical for you to write this down. Time does not shout. It just runs out sooner than you think. Time does not shout. It just runs out sooner than you think. Now, that’s not original to me. I remember hearing someone say that, and I don’t even remember who said it. But I remember what they said, time doesn’t shout, it just runs out sooner than you think. Now God gives us all sorts of grace provisions for us to operate in time. Did you know that? He gives the provisions for your aging body. In Isaiah 40 verse 29, listen very carefully. He gives strength to the weary, and increases the power of the weak. Strength to the weary and increasing the power of the weak. This is what happens in old age. You don’t have the energy that you had before. I was watching a show the other day and they were talking about some person had a high energy. But when you get to be 70 and 80, you don’t have that high energy anymore. Most people don’t. And you kind of get a little weak. You can’t bench press 500 like you used to. So God can give you a different sort of power. The power that God gives to you, the strength that God gives to you is the mental attitude dynamics that goes with the spiritual life. And this is a divine grace provision. Divine grace provision. That’s what God does for you. He gives you grace provision so that you can endure whatever is there. We have assets. We have availability. We have power and strength available to each of us. And the youth have no advantage over the aged. I can assure you of that. The power that God gives us may not be physical, but rather the dynamics of practical divine wisdom imparted in our soul. It gives us a historical impact in this client nation. We don’t have to be able to bench press 500 pounds or run five miles to have an invisible impact as a member of the pivot of a client nation like the USA. Job talks about this. Listen to Job 12.12. Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding? It’s supposed to. What that means is we have to be faithful to take advantage of whatever time God gives us. We can’t blow it. We can’t waste it. We can’t not use it. Therefore, Ephesians 5, 15 says, walk circumspectly, not as a fool or an idiot, but as wise, redeeming the time since the days are evil. to learn to take advantage of the time, walk circumspectly, redeem the time. You can buy time by becoming a spiritually mature believer. I’ve always shown you that verse. The more you study, the more you grow. The more you grow, the more you glorify God. You can buy time. You can redeem the time because the days are evil. Listen to Isaiah 46.4. Even to your old age and to your gray hair, I am he who will sustain you. I made you. I will carry you. I will sustain you. I will rescue you. Write that promise down. Put that in your book every day and read that every day next time you go to the doctor’s office, next time you take your pills. God will sustain us. It’s not the medicine. It’s not the doctor. It’s God who sustains us and God who rescues us from the impossible situations that we face, even in old age, because there’s no way to back it up. There’s no way to put it in reverse. There’s no way to say, whoa, wait a minute. I know I’m 70, but I want to back up to be 40 again. Sorry, it’s not going to happen. And so how do you handle it? Well, we anticipate aging. We accept it. We accept the adversity that comes our way as part of getting old as an opportunity to exploit the grace provisions that God gave us. Ephesians 1, 7, and 8 says, “…in whom we have redemption…” Through his blood, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches of his grace where bound, he hath abundantly given it to us in all wisdom and prudence. We have this grace provision. Riches of His grace. This is what’s wonderful about the Word of God. It makes you rich, and most people don’t understand this concept. Paul said we have this treasure in our earthly bodies. Treasure is the word, Greek word, thesaurus. The riches we’re talking about is a word treasure in your soul, the living Word of God. The word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing even to dividing asunder of the soul and the spirit and the joint and the marrow and is critic of thought and instance of the heart. The treasure is the living word of God in you. That is your grace provision for getting old and not looking at the bad part, but understanding the opportunity that’s in front of you. Because the Lord determines our length or our stay in this sin-infected environment. He’s in charge of that. Not you, not me. He’s in charge of it. Listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ told Peter. This was a shock to the apostle Peter. And it was guaranteeing that he wasn’t going to die young. So listen to what Jesus told him in John 21, 18. Truly I tell you, When you were younger, you dressed yourself. Mm-hmm. And you went where you wanted to go. Mm-hmm. But when you’re old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. Jesus, in verse 19 of John 21, said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, follow me. And Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. That’s John. This is the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper table. And the Lord had, he said, who’s going to betray you, Father? So when Peter saw him, he got a little upset. And this is what happened. Verse 21, Peter saw him and he said, Lord, what about him? What about John over there? Give him telling me I’m going to die. What about John? And Jesus answered, if I want him to remain alive until I come back, what business is that of yours? You follow me. In this context, our Lord just challenged Peter’s motivation to serve him. This is the fourth appearance of our Lord in his resurrection form. First time he appeared to Mary in John 20, 14. Then he appeared to the disciples in John 20, 19. Then he appeared to the disciples again in John 20, 26. And the fourth appearance were to the disciples who were fishing in John 21, 1 through 22. So here’s my principle that I think you’ll get a little chuckle out of. When you get discouraged, go fishing. When you get discouraged, go fishing. When your wife gets mad at you, buy a new rod and reel. How’s that? She may still be mad at you, but at least you got a new rod and reel. So when you get discouraged, go fishing. Where did I get that? Well, listen to John 21, two and three. Simon, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee, James and John, and two other disciples were together. And Peter said, I’m gonna go fishing. And they said, okay, we’re gonna go with you. And they went out and they got in the boat and they caught nothing. I want you to notice the omniscience of the Lord. Here’s all these future apostles all night long in a boat catching nothing. discouraged, not knowing what to do, not knowing where Jesus was. He had appeared and left, appeared and left, appeared and left, and they don’t know what’s going on. And notice the omniscience of the Lord when he yelled out from the bank and said, you boys are fishing on the wrong side of the boat. Now, this was a supernatural grace provision for them because, number one, they needed food. And number two, they had to sell the excess for finances, which they desperately needed since they had not been working. They’d been following Jesus. They’d been in hiding. These were fishermen. They had to make a living. They had to feed their families, and they needed some money. And so Peter tells how many fish they caught, and they didn’t eat all of that. They sold them and made some finances. But our Lord challenged Peter’s motivation in this particular passage. He said, Peter, do you really love me more than your buddies or more than your buddies love me? And the Lord is questioning Peter about his motivation to serve him. See, he’s going to be reinstated. He thought he was no longer a well-qualified disciple. He had denied the Lord. Jesus told him that was going to happen before the rooster would crow. He had denied him three times, and he did that, and it just devastated him that he did that because earlier he had declared he would lay down his life for Jesus in Matthew 13, 37. And so our Lord kept on asking him if he had personal love, virtue, motivation, personal love for God. Agapao is the Greek word. Do you agapao me? And Peter kept replying with phileo, the brotherly love, like Philadelphia. Yeah, I phileo you. That was the wrong thing. This virtue love motivation is the only thing that was going to sustain Peter during his earthly ministry into his later years. And it’s the only thing that will sustain you. It’s your personal love for God the Father. In 1 John 5, 3, it says, if you love me, you will obey me, and my mandates are not grievous. One of the questions I have to ask you is, do you truly love God more than you love yourself, more than you love your grandkids, more than you love your hobby? Do you love God? I see people all the time that claim to love God. A lot of people want God to finance their hobbies and finance their fun times. And I’ll give him all the glory. I think about some of the fishing tournaments that I watch sometimes. And praise the Lord, I caught a big one. And it means I’m going to get a check. They’re always happy about that. But do you truly love God? Do you put your priorities in front of your passions? Peter had to understand. He had to have a divine focus. He had to have maximum trust needed to endure the rigors of a life he’s going to spend serving God. He’s going to have to put self second. Remember, he said, the Lord said, you used to dress yourself, put your own socks on, put your own pants on, put your own shirt on when you wanted to and you went where you wanted to go, but later on, somebody else is going to have to dress you and lead you around. You just follow me. Anyone hearing this message today, you must be challenged in the same way because it’s only personal love for the Father that gives you the motivation to live one day at a time and all of it for His glory. Losing occupation with Christ, which is a great problem-solving device, when you lose occupation with Christ, you essentially leave your first love. The writer of Revelation John wrote about that in John 2, 4, where he said the Lord spoke to the church at Ephesus and said, you’ve left your first love. You’ve lost your motivation. You’ve lost your priorities. Your church should understand that mandate, and you should understand it too. Don’t get caught up in politics. Don’t let your passions overtake your priorities. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. There’s a great song about that, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Peter was told he was going to live well and live on to an old age. He was told that he would become infirm. He was told he would be vulnerable. but his mission was to continue until he died. It was never-ending mission until the ultimate opportunity to glorify God. Your ultimate opportunity to glorify God is the death of a mature believer, a trophy of God’s grace. You want to be a trophy of God’s grace when a time comes. It’s this type of living and this type of dying that inspires devotion and appreciation and trust in God’s loving care and concern by those who see it. So you and I have the same charge Peter had. Follow me. Follow me. Who are you following today? That’s the question I want to ask you. Who are you following today? If you’re going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, there’s a plan. There’s a purpose. There’s a time and there’s an ending. You must understand this. If you’re going to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you have to serve him effectively. There’s the protocol plan of God. The right thing must be done in the right way. Just because you run around and say, hey, praise the Lord, sweet Jesus, that doesn’t mean you’re following Jesus. Following the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Let me remind you of something first of all. He’s the bright and morning star. We want to say, hey Jesus, hey Jesus. It is the Lord Jesus Christ we’re talking about. The anointed Son of God. I don’t think we should ever approach him on a first-name basis. I believe we need to recognize who he is and what he is and humbly bow ourself before him and say, Heavenly Father, I’m willing to follow your anointed Son, my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are, then you’re going to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, just like Peter told you to do. You’re going to advance in the protocol plan of God, and you’re going to be a trophy for God’s grace. You arrive in heaven and you will hear, well done. Great job. Well done, my good and my faithful servant. So I hope you’re listening. I hope you’re learning. And I hope you’ll apply this into your life. Until next week, I’m 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.
