This week on The Flatline, Rick Hughes takes listeners on a spiritual journey through scriptural wisdom, examining the virtues exemplified by Jesus Christ. Through the narrative of the Samaritan woman at the well, Rick reveals profound insights about spiritual rebirth and recognizing divine truth. Encouraging a leap of faith, he invites listeners to reboot their spiritual lives, reminding them that past failures should not deter their pursuit of a future filled with grace and spiritual fulfillment.
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, as usual, as always, please stick it out. Stay with me. Just a few moments of motivation, some inspiration, some education. Always done without any manipulation. And we say it every show on purpose. We say this every time. I know. I hope you don’t get tired of hearing it. But we are not here to con you. We’re not here to solicit money from you. We’re not here to ask you to join up, fess up, give up. We’re simply here to give you information. Information that my prayer, it will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And if you can do that, and my prayer is you’ll do this, you’ll orient and adjust to the plan. If you’re interested, if you want to know God’s plan for your life, you’re listening to the right show. Just 30 minutes every Sunday morning. I wish we had more time to do it, but I’m certainly thrilled to be here with you. Let me remind you of a couple of things before we go into our subject today. Have started a new link to our radio shows on the Internet. If you simply go to theflotline.org, theflotline.org, theflotline.org, it will link you directly to our website and all of the radio shows that you’ve heard on your station. You can, again, hear them on your computer. on your cell phone, in your car, simply going to theflotline.org. Also, we have our problem-solving devices bookmark. If you don’t have one, let us know. We’ll get it for you free. Just send it to you. If you’ve never gotten the book, Christian Problem Solving, it lists all 10 of those problem-solving devices. Write to us. We’ll send you the book free. I think you’ll enjoy reading it. Everything we do is free. There’s never a charge for anything. I’ve always believed if God’s in it, he will pay for it. I learned that from my pastor, and that’s called grace. It’s wonderful to live by grace. It takes the monkey off of your back and lets the Lord handle all the details in life. So it’s great. If you don’t have our book on promises also, we did a new book last year called Promises. and Principles of the Word of God. It’s a small booklet, about like a small telephone book, but that is a great book. There’s not much commentary in it, just simply promises from the Bible listed categorically that you can read through and claim in time of need, and some tremendous principles in the back, one-liners, two-liners, three-liners, but they’re all biblical principles that you hear us say on this radio show, such as Bad Decisions Limit Future Options. That’s a principle. So you can get that as well. Just write to us. I love getting letters from you. I’m enjoying hearing over the holidays from those of you that have written saying that you’ve been listening and telling me what the show has meant to you. Don’t hesitate to write. I’ll write back because I certainly enjoy hearing from you, wherever you may be, from California, to New York. I told you before we were cutting out a few of our shows and adding a few more, and we’re always on the hunt for good cities to broadcast in. So pray with us as we go forward in this effort. Today, I’d like to talk to you about practical principles for people that are principled people, people that live by principle. So it’s kind of a confusing title, but Practical Principles for Principled People. And what I’m trying to say there is the Bible is very practical. And it’s very direct. It’s to the point in regards to us living a principled life. Notice the book on Bible principles I told you about. If you don’t have it, order it. Go ahead and get it. We’ll send it right on out to you. We’ve got several thousand of them here, and they’re free. But learning these principles are part of living the Christian life. Make a note of this. All of our principled thoughts and actions, all of our principled thoughts and actions are derived from the mindset of our Savior as revealed through the Holy Spirit or by the Holy Spirit from our study of the Scriptures, and that’s called the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. When we begin to have divine viewpoint thinking, we begin to have principled thoughts and actions, all coming from the Word of God as given to us by the disciples who recorded it for us. And so let’s examine how the Lord handled some situations in his life and see if we can reflect those same kind of virtues. Because if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, if you have established a main line of resistance in your soul, which we call the flat line, If you’ve learned those problem-solving devices, such as rebound and the filling of the Holy Spirit and the faith rest drill, and you’re grace-oriented and you’re biblically oriented and you have a personal sense of destiny, you have a personal love for God and you have impersonal love for others, you share the happiness of God and you’re occupied with Christ, there are those 10 problem-solving devices. I just mentioned each one of them. And we’ve been over them, and we probably need to go over them again. But how does the Lord Jesus Christ handle situations in his life, and how can we examine what he did? His words are pretty clear to us, and John 5, 24 is recorded by the Apostle John. And remember, when I say the word remember, these words were written in remembrance of what the Lord taught him. John and Matthew were two eyewitnesses. Luke and Mark were not eyewitnesses of the Gospels. They wrote by learning from other people what happened. But John records what the Lord Jesus Christ said here in John 5, 24. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears my words and believes in him who sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but hath passed from death, that’s spiritual death, into life, that’s spiritual life. You’ve heard me use the term reboot, and this is what it means, to pass from spiritual death into spiritual life. When you make a decision to believe in Jesus Christ and receive him as your savior, you reboot or you start again. You start a new life in Christ. That’s why we quote the verse, if any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creation. Old things are passed away and all things become new. So let’s look at John chapter 4, and here’s something that is, you can see how the Lord lived by principle in his life. In John 4, the Pharisees were beginning to get wind of the tremendous amount of followers that the Lord Jesus Christ had amassed, people that were following him. Verses 1 and 2 of John chapter 4, quoting now, the Pharisees had heard the that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, although Jesus himself never baptized anyone but his disciples. Thus, as a point of this, and here’s the principle, the Holy Spirit directed him to leave Judea and to go back to Galilee, back north, go back up north to Galilee because the Pharisees were jealous of And they were worried about their power. They didn’t want to lose their power over the people. And Christ intimidated them. And he was definitely a threat to their power. And that was the whole thing about having him prosecuted and executed and crucified. He threatened their power. They were afraid the Romans would take over, and so they wanted one man to die for all of them so they wouldn’t have to worry about Rome being mad at them. They wanted to keep their power. You know, political power is something that people will kill for. You know that, don’t you? People will kill for political power. And it’s all about power even today in our country. It’s not about politics. It’s not about who cares about you. If you believe that, you’re in la-la land. It’s about power. People want to control and keep the power. And they’ll do whatever they have to do to keep the power. They may lie. They may spread public lies. If you tell it often enough, loud enough, and long enough, somebody’s going to believe it. And it’s only for one reason. either to get the power back or to keep the power so that you can force people to live how you think they should live. What the politicians think is the best thing for everybody. No politician understands the sin nature of man. Very few do. And most politicians think if they give man free chicken and free food and free health care that we’re all going to get along together. And that’s not true. The sin nature of man is horrible. He’s always been against God. He always will be against God. And Jesus said, you’ve heard of wars and rumors of wars. Don’t be discouraged. They’re going to keep happening. So nobody’s going to get man to love each other. So when he goes back to Galilee, got on a little rabbit chase there, forgive me. but the Lord Jesus Christ goes back to Galilee and he goes through a place called Samaria. The Samarian route took him three days travel time to go back to Galilee, but he goes through Samaria. And here’s something that’s interesting. God’s directive will may take you down a road that you had not planned on traveling. You hear me? This is not the direct route back to Galilee. This was through Samaria. Jews did not go to Samaria. They hated the Samaritans. They considered them half-breeds. They absolutely would have nothing to do with him. If someone was walking down one side of the street, he was Samaritan, and the Jew was on the same side of the street, he’d go to the other side. So the question you must ask yourself is this question. Are you willing to take a leap of faith and go down the road God leads you? You must be careful not to make an impulsive, emotional decision that’s based on intuition, weighed on the Holy Spirit, weighed on the Word of God. But this trip to Samaria was not about the quickest way home. That wasn’t what it was about. It was about giving the gospel to the Samaritans. That’s what it was about, giving the gospel to Samaritans. So if you have a good study Bible, and I assume most of you do, you can read the history of Samaria. You can look it up, I don’t have time to teach it all, but understand why the Jews avoided that land, why they hated that land. And by the way, that was the last capital city of the Northern Kingdom, Judah. And it was later on in the book of Acts that Philip the evangelist had a tremendous revival in Samaria. And here is our Lord preceding Philip going into Samaria. So this hike up to Samaria was about 20 miles. They didn’t take a taxi and they didn’t have an Uber. They went to a place called Sychar near the plot of land that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. You can read about that in Genesis 48, 21. And near this plot of land in Sychar is a well. It’s called Jacob’s Well. And it was using a Roman timetable, about 6 o’clock in the evening. And it was hot. And Jesus, our Lord, was left alone as he sent the disciples into town to purchase some supplies for dinner and some things they needed. And because he couldn’t go, he would have attracted too much of a crowd. And as he rested at that well, late in the evening, a Samaritan woman approached to draw water from the well, and much to her surprise, our Lord requested that she pour him a drink as well. She was stunned, absolutely stunned, that a Jew would ask anything of her since the Jews hated Samaritans. In John 4, verse 9, the Jews, she said, have no dealings with the Samaritans. And she was right. But the Lord shocked her with his comments. It’s interesting what he told her. And you can shock people much the same way. When you give them truth, it shocks them. I’m around people, and you are too, and so much of the time we just keep our mouth shut. They’re so full of themselves and so full of braggadocious, and they think they’re smarter than anybody else. And we just let them rattle on. We don’t shock them. But our Lord shocked this woman. In John 4, 10, he said, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that says to you, give me a drink, then you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. A never-ending source of life is what he’s talking about. Eternal life. This was a divine invitation by our Savior for her to reboot her life since she made a mess of things and all of her bad decisions she had made. Jesus went on to say in John 7, 38, He that believes of me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water that’s the promise of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit coming to live inside of each of us in John 4 14 he told this woman whoever drinks of the water that I give him shall never thirst again the water I give him shall be a well of water springing up into everlasting life you know what’s interesting as you read this passage in John 4 and she never gave him a drink of water But she did receive the drink he offered. She did receive the eternal water that he gave her. when he identified himself as the Messiah whom she had heard of. In John 4, 25 and 26, the woman said unto him, I know the Messiah is coming, and he is called the Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us all things. And then Jesus said to her, I that speak to you am he. a face-to-face confrontation with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the Savior of the world. I am him. Can you believe that she was stunned? I think about when our Lord was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and they came looking for the Lord Jesus Christ and they said, where is he? Where is he? And he stood up and he said, I am. And they were knocked flat. They were knocked on the ground. The power of that. Who is that? Christ the Lord. Boom. Down they went. And here he looked at her and said, I am the Messiah. You know, it’s amazing to see that. She left and went into town and told how she had met the Messiah, and half the town came running out to meet him as well. In John 4, 39, many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him because of the testimony of the woman. and many more believed when they heard him speak themselves. This is what they said in John 4. Now we believe not because of what you said, for we heard him ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. And the Lord stayed there two days ministering to these Samaritans. It’s an amazing story how the Lord handled this. And God extends to you the same invitation. You can have the river of living water springing up in your soul, a well that will never run dry, a thirst that will always be quenched. You can reboot your life just like she rebooted her life. I mean, do you think your sin is unknown to God? Do you think God is not aware of what you’ve done? That’s a serious question I’m asking you now. Listen to me. Do you think God is not aware of what you’ve done? In John 4, 16, Jesus told her, go get your husband and come here. And she said, I have no husband. And Jesus said, well, that’s correct. I know you have no husband, for you have had five. And the one you live with now is not your husband. In other words, she was in an affair. He knew exactly how many men she had wed and bed and even their names, just like he knows my failures and my flaws and yours as well. And just as she rebooted that day when she met the Messiah, her life changed. And you can do the same thing. In John 3, 3, Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus, Truly I say unto you, that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Those words spoken to Nicodemus were unbelievable words. In the middle of a night, in a late night, midnight conversation, Nicodemus approached the Lord seeking some answers. He knew something was different about this man. And the Lord replied, you must be born again. Nicodemus was shocked. He said, that’s impossible. Nobody can go back into the womb and be reborn. And Jesus said, don’t be amazed that I told you to be born again. And Nicodemus said, well, how is it even possible? And our Lord told him, you mean you’re a teacher of Israel and you don’t understand these things? The mechanics to being born again, the mechanics to rebooting your life, starting your life all over again, this simply means that you are born spiritually dead. You’re made alive physically, yes, your mom and dad copulated and you were born, You had a body and a soul, but your human spirit was born dead. That’s why the Bible says, For by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. And now death has passed on all, for all have sinned. You are spiritually dead because of your relationship to Adam. But you can be made spiritually alive when you identify with Christ. When you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your Savior, God the Holy Spirit enters into you and makes you spiritually alive. Listen to these words in John 3, 16. Whoever believes in him shall not perish. but have everlasting life. And he who believes in him is not judged. Why would God not judge us? Romans 5, 8, Paul wrote the reason why God demonstrated his love towards us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Why would he not judge you? Because he’s already judged Christ. That’s why. You’re not going to be judged for all your sins when you get to heaven. Your sins have been paid for. You’re going to be judged on the basis of is your name in the Lamb’s book of life. Did you receive Jesus Christ as your Savior? The great white throne of judgment will be a shocking, horrible event for many people. Because the Bible says, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did I not prophesy in thy name? In your name, did I not cast out devils? This is people in the ministry. And he said, I’ll tell them I never knew you. Depart from me. It’s possible to be religious and never have been born again. Religion is man’s effort to aggravate God. It’s you trying to turn God on by being good, and that doesn’t work. The justice of God is not impressed with your good deeds because the Bible says there are none that are good, no, not one. The only perfect one was Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. His death on the cross was our substitutionary concept. One man, the Lord Jesus Christ, died for all, you and me. And the fact that he walked out of that grave alive demonstrates to us that we can have eternal life through his sacrificial death. Paul said it this way to his letter when he wrote back to the church in Corinth. If any man’s in Christ, he’s a new creature. That’s a new racial species called Christians. The old things have passed away, and behold, new things have come. Spiritual death is a penalty of sin. And so given as a warning to our original parents in Genesis 2.17, God the Father warned them, if you eat of that fruit dying, you will die. When they partook of the forbidden fruit, they died spiritually and the penalty was imposed at the fall of mankind. Man is born into sin. The entire human race is born physically alive but spiritually dead. And we’re not condemned by the imputation of our own personal sins, but through the imputation of Adam’s original sin. That’s what condemns us. So if we’re going to reboot, if we’re going to believe in Christ, if we’re going to offer a simple prayer of confession to the Father and say, Heavenly Father, I believe Jesus Christ is your Son, and I would like to receive Him as my Savior. That’s all it takes. Because the Bible said, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so here you are this morning listening. Have you ever done that? Have you ever simply told the Father that you’re a sinner and you believe Jesus Christ died for your sins and you would like to receive him as your Savior? If you will do that, wherever you are, in a car, at home, in your easy chair, wherever you will reboot. You will start your life again. A new racial species in Christ. If you’re a Christian and you’ve already rebooted, you may just need to rebound. You may need to confess your sin to God. Maybe you feel like you’re not saved anymore because you did something that’s so horrific and so horrible that you’re ashamed of it. If you’re still alive, God’s not through with you. So I would suggest that you go to your father and do exactly what 1 John 1, 9 says. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So if you have a spiritual birth born again, then you have a spiritual life. You now are alive in Christ. And the key to living the spiritual life is to reconnoiter and rebound. Reconnoiter means to survey, inspect, examine your life minute by minute because sin is very subtle and sometimes it can even be difficult to analyze. Mental attitude sins are sometimes the most unrecognizable to ourselves when we are arrogant. We don’t see what we really are. We see what we think we are. So the biggest danger, I think, that believers face is blind arrogance coupled with impetuous actions. Blind arrogance coupled with impetuous actions. Because at this stage in our life, we don’t see ourselves as we are, but rather what we think we are. And in emotions, we do things that we don’t even need to do to impress people that are not even listening. Without doing personal reconnaissance, you cannot handle your personal responsibilities. And I mean, sometimes it’s hard to see or admit our own weaknesses, but we have to take a look at that. We have to see our fatal flaws before they destroy us. And it’s best to reconnoiter every day than in retrospect to look back and reminisce about what you assume was your failure or your frustrations in your past life. Because there’s danger in reflecting on your past sins and your past failures. And it’s dangerous that we fail to do what Paul mandates us in Philippians 3.13, where he says, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, I forget what lies behind and I reach forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Don’t look back. Don’t look back at your failures. Don’t look back at your flaws. Don’t look back at the abuses that you suffered at the hand of someone. Look ahead. Put your eyes on the prize, on the Savior. Don’t look back. That is the wrong thing to do because that’s where Satan will gain an advantage of you in your emotions. I hope you’ve been listening. I hope you’ve been paying attention. I hope it’s made sense. Please come back next week, same time, same channel, same city, same place. I’ll be here. Hope you will, too. Until then, 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.
