SPEAKER 01 : 0:08

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 : 0:23

Good morning and welcome to The Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, you have an invitation to stick around. 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education, but absolutely, I promise, no manipulation. We’re not going to con you. We’re not going to try to solicit money. We’re not going to ask you to join anything. All we would like to do is give you some accurate information, information that I hope will help you verify as well as identify God’s plan for your life. That’s what this show is about. It’s the FLOT line, F-L-O-T. That’s a military acronym for the Forward Line of Troops. What we’re trying to teach on the FLOT line is how there are some wonderful problem-solving devices found in the Bible. And if you will learn these 10 problem-solving devices, we call them a FLOT line, they will act as a main line of resistance in your soul so you can stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. That’s why we always say adversity is, of course, inevitable, but stress is optional. Because adversity is what those circumstances do to you, and stress is what you do to yourself. So you might ask yourself, how could these radio shows benefit me? We’re in a lot of new radio markets right now. Over 100 stations across America are playing this show this morning. And some people, it’s a legitimate question. How can this show benefit me? Fair question. Here’s the answer. As I expand and add additional shows, I take comfort in God’s grace provisions. He always provides what I need. But the objective is to feed you the Word of God, not to make you wealthy financially. We’re not promoting some kind of financial program. But listen to what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4-7. We have this treasure, treasure in earthly vessels. so that the surpassing greatness of the power of God will be not from us, not from ourselves, but of God. There is a treasure for you to learn. It’s in the New Testament. It’s called a thesaurus. You know that word. A thesaurus is a book you look up words. And the treasure is a thesaurus in the Greek word. It’s a word treasure. There is a word treasure found in the Bible for you. And if you learn God’s word, it will make you rich spiritually. So Colossians 2, 3 says that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth, there it is, wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding and resulting in a true knowledge of the mystery of God, that is Christ himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The wealth I’m talking about is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge gives you insight and discernment that other people don’t have. And it’s a wonderful thing to have biblical wisdom. The Bible says in Proverbs 3.13, how blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. For the profit of wisdom is better than the profit of silver and the gain of wisdom is better than fine gold because wisdom is more precious than jewels and nothing can compare with wisdom. This is exactly what God said in Jeremiah. He said, I’m looking for people that know me and understand me. And understanding is one of the horsemen of wisdom, wisdom, insight, understanding, and discernment. God wants you to understand him. This means that God operates under a word I’m going to teach you today called protocol, P-R-O-T-O-C-O-L, protocol. And protocol simply means that a right thing has to be done in a right way or it’s wrong. And when I played college football, I was given a playbook and I was told to learn those plays. And if I did not know the plays, it didn’t make any difference how big I was, how strong I was, how handsome I was. It didn’t make any difference how fast I was. If I did not know the plays, I was not going to get in the game and be able to perform. God requires you to know the plays. He requires you to understand protocol when you’re dealing with him. That’s why the Bible says, study to show yourself approved unto God. That means you could be a starter on God’s team. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. but rightly dividing the word of truth. So the word study is a verb, and it’s not a request. It’s actually a mandate that we are to grow, another verb, grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You can’t grow if you don’t study. You can’t grow by taking a Bible, going out and sitting in the woods, sitting under a tree and contemplating infinity. That’s not spiritual growth. If you’re going to grow spiritually, you have to learn the Bible. And why is that necessary? Because here’s what Jesus Christ said. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2.5. We have to learn what he thought, how he thought, how he lived his life. The unique life the Lord Jesus Christ left us is called the Christian life. He was the first one to live it. No one in the Old Testament lived it. That Christian life is made up of those 10 unique problem-solving devices that we’ll talk about. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ never needed to use rebound, problem-solving device number one. He never needed to use that because he never sinned. And the rest of them, he did not need to use occupation with Christ because he was Christ. But those 10 unique problem-solving devices that we teach on this radio show are for you, they are designed for you so you can live your life with insight and understanding and discernment, called the wisdom of God, and you will spare yourself a lot of trouble. You will spare yourself a lot of misery if you learn wisdom from the Word of God. One of the things that people need wisdom about is in prayer. And I hear this, you hear it all the time as well. When something bad happens, people on the television or the radio will say, our thoughts and our prayers go out to you. Well, I hate to tell you this, but probably in my humble opinion, at least 90% of the prayers that are prayed never get answered because they do a right thing, which is prayer, but they do it in the wrong way. And so it just seems to be a good luck statement now. We’re praying for you. Or someone says, I prayed about it, and so I’m going to do it now because I prayed about it. And it’s like, okay, well, what did God show you? Well, he showed me that I should do that anyhow. I prayed about it. Well, first of all, if God wants to speak to you, he’s not going to do it out loud. He will do it through the Bible. He speaks through the Bible. And when you read and study the Bible, you can hear God the Holy Spirit speaking to you. Verses come alive. You can relate to certain verses. That’s why we’re going to study what the Bible says about prayer. Why sometimes your prayers never get answered. Because you may be doing the right thing. You may be praying, which you should do, but you may be doing it in the wrong way. So if you do a right thing in a wrong way, it’s still wrong. If you do a right thing in a right way, then it’s right. It’s correct. And God wants your prayers to be answered. I can assure you of that. He said, call upon me and I’ll show you great and mighty things. But if you don’t do it in the right way, it’s not going to get past the ceiling of your house or past the roof of your car or past the foot of your bed. It’s just noise. So let me give you some reasons why prayer might not be answered. Here’s one. If you’re praying and you have known sin in your life, your prayer will not be answered. If you’re praying with known sin in your life, your prayer will not be answered. Now let’s determine what sin is. Sin can be something you think, sin can be something you say, or sin can be something that you do. A mental attitude sin would be worry, fear, bitterness, jealousy, implacability, irritability, a sin that you think. Those are sins in the mind. You can think sin. You don’t even have to get out of your chair. You can sin in your chair. You can lust in your chair. And then there are sins of the tongue like gossip, slander, maligning, criticizing, backbiting, lying. And then there are overt sins like stealing, murder, fornication, adultery. These sins, when you commit a sin, you break fellowship with God if in fact you are a Christian. But I can assure you of this, if you’re not a Christian, you’ll never get a prayer to God until you go through Christ. Because he said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. And no man comes to the Father but by me. So if you aren’t a believer in Jesus Christ, the first prayer that you can ever pray that would be answered is Romans 10, 13. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Anyone who’s not a Christian and who prays that prayer, Heavenly Father, I know I’m lost. I know I’m not a Christian. I’m willing to receive Christ as my Savior. When you pray a prayer similar to that, according to this verse, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You are brought into the royal family of God by faith alone in what Christ did alone. It’s faith alone in Christ alone, and you demonstrate that faith in prayer. That’s how you do it. That’s how I became a Christian, and that’s how everybody becomes a Christian. We pray and ask God to save us from our sin, which he’s done through Jesus Christ on the cross. Now that I’m a Christian, I have the opportunity to pray and communicate with my Heavenly Father, but If I have unconfessed sin in my life, that prayer is not going to be answered. Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So let’s assume you have a mental attitude sin. You were driving home on the interstate and somebody made you mad, somebody cut you off, somebody shot you the bird, somebody called you a dirty name. and you got all bent out of shape and your blood pressure went up and your ears started blowing out steam and your hair stood up on the back of your neck and you got really angry and you ran up beside them and shook your fist at them and yelled stuff at them and then you went home and you got to food on the table that your spouse prepared and you bow your head and you say, thank you for our food today, Heavenly Father. That prayer’s not being answered because you broke fellowship with God back in the car when you got angry and lost your temper. You see what I’m saying? It can be in church service. If two people hate each other in the church and the pastor calls one of them to pray, he may pray an eloquent prayer, he may pray a great prayer, and he may sound really spiritual, but it’s not gonna go any higher than the roof of the church building if he has unconfessed sin in his life or hatred and bitterness and animosity toward another person in that congregation. If you can’t forgive that person, the prayer is not going to be answered. So anytime you get sin in your life, if you don’t deal with the sin, the prayer will not be answered. So how do I deal with the sin? It’s very simple. 1 John 1, 9 is the rebound process. Problem-solving device number one. If we confess our sin, if is a third-class condition, maybe you will, maybe you won’t, If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all wrongdoing. 1 John 1.9. So when you know you’ve sinned, you don’t promise God you’ll never do it again. That’s ridiculous. You probably do it another hundred times. You just go to the Father and admit what you did. And don’t try to cover it up. Don’t lie about it. Don’t act like you didn’t do it. Go tell God what you did. Because if you do not go and admit the sin, you will come under discipline. It’s called warning discipline, intense discipline, and maybe, maybe even dying discipline. In Hebrews 12, the Bible says, those that I love, I chasten. And sometimes I scourge them with a whip. And sometimes we’ve had earthly fathers that have disciplined us and we gave them respect. Shall we not much more respect God and live? And live. God, as a child of God, if you are a child of God, he’s not going to tolerate you as his child breaking fellowship with him through your own arrogance and not admitting your sin. He will discipline you for that. unless you deal with it yourself. And so my suggestion, when you know you’ve committed a sin, if you want your prayers to be heard, then go and admit the sin to God first. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sin. and then they purify us from all of our wrongdoing. There’s another issue here. So before every prayer, you must make sure there’s no sin in your life. And then you must use God’s process for prayer. When you’re praying, I was with a friend the other day and he said, can I pray for you? And I said, sure, yeah. And you know what he did? Boy, he yelled out, Jesus, oh Jesus. And I kind of opened one eye and looked at him like, what’s going on over there? And when he got through praying, I said, that was great, but that prayer is not going to be answered. And he looked at me like, well, what do you mean that’s not going to be answered? And I said, because you don’t pray to Jesus, you pray to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. Where does it say that in the Bible? Well, exactly where the Lord said, this is how you pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He prayed to the Father. We pray to the Father in the name of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. So don’t be praying to Jesus or the prayer is not going to be answered. Pray to the Father. In John 15, 16, whatever you ask in my Father’s name, he will do it. That’s the process for prayer. And then you have to use faith. If you don’t have faith, what are you praying for? What are you asking for if you don’t have faith? Listen to Matthew 21, 22. All things you ask in prayer, believing you will receive, and that’s faith. Believing is faith. Faith is a noun, believe is a verb. Same word, pistis in the Greek or pistou in the Greek. Once a noun, once a verb. So when you pray by faith, you believe God’s going to answer the prayer. Unless you pray for something stupid, and I’ve done that before. I bet you have too. Don’t be praying to win a new Corvette at the lottery. Don’t be praying for something that’s ridiculous. It’s not going to get answered. You don’t need it. And see, a lot of people do this. I’ve had friends that were big lottery players, and they’ve told me, if the Lord will let me win that lottery, then I’ll give 10% of what I win to the church. Well, first of all, God doesn’t need your measly 10%. And he’s not going to cut a deal with you to let you win the lottery. So quit praying to win the lottery. If you want to pray for something, I’ll tell you what to pray for here in a minute. That’s the wrong motivation. In James 4, 3, you ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motivation. You ask for the wrong reason. And that’s not going to be answered when you’re doing something stupid like that. So listen to this. They cry out, but he does not answer because they’re arrogant. And God won’t listen. Job 35, 12. Job 35, 12. You can’t cry out in arrogance. That means you want to do something your way. Listen to me for a minute. Arrogant people justify why they’re right and everybody else is wrong. And arrogant people get self-absorbed. They’re deluded because they don’t see themselves as they really are. They see themselves as they think they are. So if you’re arrogant and you’re upset about something, And you go to the Lord and you pray and you say, God, show that person over there he’s wrong. God, show him that I’m right. God, show him. It’s not going to be answered because you’re praying out of your own arrogance. God was in business before you got here. God will be in business when you’re gone. He didn’t send you to straighten the world out, I assure you. Handle your own business. Don’t judge people. Don’t stick your nose in someone else’s process. Leave them alone. Let the Lord handle it. When you go to God and pray, that prayer’s not gonna be answered if you’re praying in arrogance, assuming that you’re right and everybody else is wrong, because that’s what the arrogant person does. There’s also another reason prayer doesn’t get answered, and this hits home. Lack of domestic tranquility. The Bible says in 1 Peter 3, 7, honor each other so your prayers will not be hindered. If you’re married and your husband or your wife, if you fight and you argue and you yell and you scream, you can forget about your prayers being answered because you’re sinning when you do that. Your prayers will not be answered if there’s no domestic tranquility. I hear it all the time. I hear it all the time. Wives who hate their husbands, husbands who are jealous of their wives, husbands who hate their wives, husbands who treat their wives like dirt, wives who treat their husbands like dirt, say nasty things, and then want to pray and ask God, especially if they get sick. They get sick and have to go to the doctor, and then they start sending out letters like emails and Facebook and Instagram. Pray for me. Pray for me that the Lord will heal me. Not going to happen because there’s no domestic tranquility. You’re asking for other people to pray for you. Nothing wrong with doing that. I mean, it’s legitimate for me to pray for you. But as you pray for yourself, you’ve got to learn how to deal with your own sin and your own hatred and bitterness towards your spouse. So that’s one reason. Here’s another reason your prayer won’t be answered. You don’t grow spiritually. So as a result of that, you don’t even know what to pray about. The Bible tells you, grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory. So if you aren’t growing spiritually, if that’s not a priority in your life, You cannot expect God to give you what you’re asking for. Okay? So we have a card I’d be willing to send you. It’s a bookmark, and it’s not very big, but it’ll fit in your Bible. And it shows 10 reasons why your prayers are not answered, and basically what I’ve been dealing with right here. If you’d like to have it, just contact us. It’s no charge. It’s free. Don’t send money. We’re not asking for money. We’ll be happy to send you this. And on the backside of the card, there’s the protocol of prayer that I want to give you before we close out today. Because protocol in prayer is important. And this is what you need to understand. If you’re going to pray, God designed prayer to be done the correct way to come to him in prayer. how to enter his throne room of grace. If you don’t follow God’s protocols, it won’t be answered. So number one, make sure you’re filled with the Holy Spirit by confessing any of your known sins to God the Father, 1 John 1, 9. And then when you pray, pray to the Father, not to Jesus, not to the Holy Spirit. And three, what should I pray? Well, there’s the prayer of gratitude. Gratitude. This is where you give adoration and thanksgiving to God for his daily grace provisions. The Bible says in Colossians 4.2, devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Have you ever prayed and thanked God for saving you? Have you ever prayed and thanked God for giving you life, giving you an opportunity to represent him, to know him by his word? Have you ever thanked God for his justice and his righteousness and his grace? I mean, if you don’t know God, how could you thank him? This is what’s important. God said, I want people to know me and understand me. And a lot of people know God, but they don’t understand the God they know. Do you understand what God is? Do you understand he’s omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutability, veracity? Do you even know what that means? You want to give some gratitude, thinking that God never lies. He’s veracity. He’s absolute truth. Thank him for his immutability. He never changes. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. Thank him for his omnipresence that he’s with you wherever you may go. That’s gratitude and thanksgiving, and that’s a wonderful way to pray. And you can also intercede for others. You can pray for other people, like pray for your nation, pray for the leaders of our nation. 2 Chronicles 7, 14 is a very famous verse. It says, if my people that are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their sin, then I’ll hear their prayer and heal their land. The solution to what’s going on in this country today, the chaos is the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not a politician that you can elect. I don’t care who’s in office, can’t handle the problem. People have sin natures and they are no good. People are no blank good. And you can’t change a person’s sin nature. But once a person believes in Christ and receives him as his savior, You have an opportunity to change the way he thinks. And that’s why the Bible says in Romans 12, three, 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. God wants you to change the way you think. This means you think in terms of divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint. This means you acquire the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. How do I acquire the mind of Christ? First Corinthians 2.16. The New Testament is the mind of Christ. So if you’re in a great local church that has a well-qualified pastor teaching you the Bible and you learn it and you apply it into your life, then listen to what Jesus said. Happiness belongs to those people who hear my father’s word and keep it. That’s what he wants you to do. Learn his word and apply his word into your life. So intercessory prayer, praying for other people, completely legitimate. Pray for me, please. Pray for my radio shows, please, as we broadcast to over 100 stations across America. There’s also the prayer of petition and supplication. This is where you can pray for yourself or you can even pray for the food that you’re about to consume. Ask the Lord to sanctify your food, 1 Timothy 4, 4 and 5. If you’re eating out, you should pray for the food. Pray over the food that it doesn’t make you sick. And so that’s always a great thing to do. Father, sanctify this food before I eat it. Set it apart. Protect me. And then you can pray for yourself, Hebrews 4, 16. There’s nothing wrong with praying for yourself. praying for your needs, praying that you could grow, praying that you would understand what’s happening in your life, praying that you’d understand his will and direction for your life, praying that he would give you the ability to communicate with your children, to communicate with your spouse on a weekly and daily, monthly, hourly basis. I mean, there’s so much to pray about in regards to self. Why do I pray? To get help when I need it. That’s why the Bible says, let us draw near with confidence to the throne room of grace so that we can receive mercy and find grace in time of need. God is willing to help you. He’s waiting to help you, but you’re gonna have to ask. He’s not gonna barge into your life and overrule your volition. He’s gonna let you make decisions. If you want wisdom, it starts with learning the Bible, and then you have insight and understanding to what God’s will and purpose is for your life. So pray without ceasing. Call upon me and I will show you great and mighty things, the Bible says. Turn it over to God. Let him handle it. Be patient. Be persistent in your prayers. And God will answer in his timing. Maybe not your timing, but in his timing. If you want that prayer card, that prayer bookmark, then give me a shout. Send us an email through the website, rickhughesministries.org. Take a look at the other books that we offer, that we have available. They’re all free. You can get us on podcast, on Apple podcast, or Spotify, or Anchor, by just searching for The Flatline. And you can hear The Flatline show wherever you go. 16 years of doing this, and I hope God will give me many, many more. And I hope that you’re learning, and I hope you’re listening, and I hope you’re applying the information into your life. So I’ve enjoyed being with you today. I look forward to being back next week, same time, same place. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write or contact us. Until then, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.

SPEAKER 01 : 27:15

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.