Know you have eternal life through faith in Christ Jesus.
Jesus told Nicodemus that being “born again” is the only way to see the kingdom of God—but what does that really mean? In this episode, Rick Hughes explains the most important decision you will ever make and how faith alone in Christ gives you a new identity, eternal life, and absolute assurance.
Key Takeaways:
• What it truly means to be born again spiritually
• Why your decision about Jesus Christ determines your eternal future
• How faith alone—not works—secures eternal life
• The difference between divine viewpoint and human viewpoint
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stick around. It’ll only be about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, a whole lot of education. And as we always say, no manipulation, because we don’t con people. We’re not soliciting money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We just want to give you something, give you information, information that will help you verify and identify the plan of God for your life if you are interested. Remember, God gave you two ends, one to sit with and one to think with. Success in your life is going to depend on which one of those you use. Heads you win, tails you lose. If you’re hearing the flat line for the first time, you can go to our website, rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. There you’ll find who we are and what we do. We’ve been going to this radio show now for over 20 years. And we may be new in your area. We’ve been getting a lot of new contacts lately, a lot of new stations lately. So we’re very grateful if you’re hearing us for the first time this morning. Appreciate your prayers and your encouragement. So I am the host of the Flotline broadcast, F-L-O-T. And please understand it’s not a political show. Politics is the last thing I’m here to talk about. Don’t need another politician making comments about that. This particular radio show you’re hearing right now is designed to give you accurate information, not useless human speculation. The information I’m talking about is God’s plan for your life. Isaiah 29.11 puts it pretty plain. He says here, For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. And that’s something that you can claim. That’s God’s plan for your life, to bless you and to give you a wonderful life. I don’t know how things are going in your life right now, but is it possible that things are not very good socially, financially, spiritually, Are all of these things spiraling down and dragging you down with them? Is your life a mess? It’s a fair question. Is your life a mess? I know, I know, it’s none of my business, but wait a minute. It just might, maybe, I can be the answer to your prayers. See, my team and I, we are in what I call the rescue business. We’re soul rescuers. We’re in the rescue business. I think we can come to your home and bail you out financially, nor can we come and give you physical support as you wade through the disaster some of your decisions might have caused. But we can give you something much more valuable than gold. Again, I repeat, we can give you something much more valuable than gold. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 119, verse 72, The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces. As a matter of fact, we have invested thousands of our own dollars in hoping to find you. That’s why you’re hearing me speak this morning. It’s not an accident, but rather a divine appointment. It all depends on you and what you do with the information I’m about to give you. Proverbs 1.5 says, A wise person will hear and increase in learning, and a person of understanding will acquire wise counsel. The one thing I can give you this morning is knowledge. But unfortunately, as Proverbs 1.22 says, Fools hate knowledge. The knowledge I’m talking about on this radio show called The Flatline is divine viewpoint. On the other hand, there’s a lot of human viewpoint, two different types of knowledge, divine viewpoint, human viewpoint. And all of this floats around, most of it is the human viewpoint stuff is related to people and circumstances saying that that’ll make you happy. If you date the right person, marry the right person, make the right money, do the right things, you’ll be happy. And that’s not true. Unhappy people take their unhappiness with them wherever they go. So let’s talk about those decisions. decisions you have to make every every day we make hundreds of decisions my wife asked me today what time are we going to the studio and i said well i made a decision we’re going to leave at this time and go down and record the radio show every day we make hundreds of decisions and most of those decisions as you know are related to our habits and our responsibilities We decide to maintain our cleanliness. We decide to maintain our health. We decide to do our chores. But here’s a simple statement for you to remember. Bad decisions limit future options. I’m going to say it again. Let it go into your brain. Don’t forget it. Bad decisions limit future options. The motivation for our decisions that we make can be mental, hopefully, or emotional decisions. The scriptures say this in Proverbs 23, 7, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So the truth is that you are a product of your decisions and the real you is what you think, not what other people are seeing. Did you hear that Proverbs 23, 7? As he thinks in his heart, so is he. That’s why I said the real you is what you think. Here is the single greatest decision you could ever make. Allow me to give you this information. Matthew 22, 42, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? Those are the words that Jesus asked the questions of the Pharisees while they were quizzing him about the laws of Moses. Those questions they were asking him were designed to trap him, but he was aware of their intent. Matthew 22, 18, But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Those Pharisees who were grilling him, the religious leaders of the day, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes, they were the religious rulers. They had no interest in discovering his true identity. But there was one Pharisee who was curious enough to come to Jesus in secret and quiz him about things that Jesus was doing and saying. That individual’s name was Nicodemus, and we find him in John 3, 1 through 3. Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who’s come from God, for no one could perform the signs you were doing if God were not with him. Jesus replied, truly, truly, I sell you this. No one can see the kingdom of God unless they’re born again. That was a shock to hear that. born again, he didn’t quite figure out what that meant. That’s what the Lord Jesus Christ is about to describe to him. What does it mean to be born again? And that’s what I’d like to describe to you this morning. What does it mean to be born again? All right, try to get one sheet of paper apart from the other sheet of paper here. This statement about being born again stunned old Nicodemus because he equated it with physical birth. He got to thinking about going back into my mother’s womb and being born again. The truth was that Nicodemus had a decision to make, and it was going to be the most important decision in his whole life. In John 3, 16 through 18, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke these words to him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him, notice that believes in him, shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. So verse 18, whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already. because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. So there’s no middle ground here. That’s the bottom line. No middle ground. Either you believe or you don’t believe. Either he would believe and receive eternal life or he would not believe and receive condemnation. Well, I’m happy to tell you that Nicodemus did believe in Christ, and I can prove that to you because after the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, when Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, came to Caesar to ask for the deceased body to be given to them, In John 19, 38 through 40, later Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly. He did it secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away, and he was accompanied by Nicodemus. There’s our man. Right there he is. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and alloy, about 70 pounds of it, and taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it with spices and strips of linen, and this was in accordance with the Jewish burial customs. So, just like Nicodemus, I encourage you to decide for yourself who is Jesus Christ. Was he indeed the Son of God, or was he not? Your decision concerning his true identity is critical. So consider this. What actually happened to the body after he was buried? Because we know it disappeared. Some people say it was stolen by his disciples and some say he resurrected. What do you believe? Because the scriptures do say that he was resurrected and he was seen by many, many people after the body disappeared out of the tomb. So here’s a simple question. Why did he have to die? What was the reason for that? Why did he have to die? And the answer comes out of his mouth in Matthew 17, 22. When they gathered together in Galilee… He said this to them, The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. In Matthew 17, 23, They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life. And the disciples were filled with grief. His death, his burial, and his resurrection was God’s plan all along. Jesus told Nicodemus that in John 3.16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. There’s the plan. So since you and I are not able to redeem ourselves, in fact, we can’t do it, no matter how hard we try, because the Bible says there are none that are righteous, no, not even one. So it was the Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed us. Galatians 6.13 tells us that. Quote, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. When you place your faith in what Christ did for you, that’s a simple decision, and you can experience this new birth that Jesus told Nicodemus about. With this new birth comes a new identity. You can be a new person. It happened to me when I was 22 years old. I walked in the house one night with a date with a girl, walked out of that house the same person on the outside, but different on the inside. In 2 Corinthians 5, 17, the Bible clearly says if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All old things have passed away, and behold, all things have now become new. That’s what happens when you receive Christ as your Savior. You’re born again, spiritually speaking. Not physical, but spiritual. This new creation is called a spiritual life which you did not possess prior to being born again. See, when you were born, you had a body, you had a soul, you had a spirit. But you were identified with Adam’s original sin, so you were placed under condemnation. Adam’s original sin was imputed to you, and you died spiritually, and you needed to be born again spiritually. So when you accept Christ as your Savior, you’re given a new status. The moment you believed in his true identity, and that being the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world. In John 1.29, the next day, John saw Jesus coming towards him, and here’s what John said. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Our sins were paid for by means of his death, burial, and resurrection. No person can equal God’s righteousness, but according to Scripture, when you believe in him and receive him as your Savior, you are given equal righteousness with God. You understand God is perfect. And you are made perfect in God’s eyes. 2 Corinthians 5.21. Listen carefully. For he, that’s God, made him, that’s Christ, the one who knew no sin, to be sin for us, so that, or in order that, we might become the righteousness of God by means of him. That’s why you can have a relationship with God. Because of what Christ did, his righteousness was given to you. So on the cross, it was a swap out deal. He took your sin, he offers you his righteousness. And when you receive him as your savior, that righteousness is imputed to you so that you are now able to have fellowship with God. I told you earlier that my team and I are in the rescue business, soul rescue business. The information I’ve given you this morning will rescue you from the doom awaiting Satan and the fallen angels who followed him in his rebellion in heaven. That’s identified in Revelation 20 as the lake of fire. We need to thank God for loving us so much that he would allow his only begotten son to be our redeemer. We don’t have to go to the lake of fire. Thank God. So I’d like to ask you one simple question this morning. If you died today, would you go to heaven? If you died today, would you go to heaven? Don’t say I’m trying, or I sure hope I could go, because the Bible says you can know it for sure, for a fact. In 1 John 5, 10-13, here’s how you know you’re going to heaven. He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. And he who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God gave of his Son. And this is the testimony. that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, here it comes, listen, so that you may know, K-N-O-W, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. By placing your faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on that cross, you are given eternal life and you don’t have to worry about it any longer. I received an email this morning from a listener that thanked me for teaching him that so that he’s now confident that if he dies, he’s going to heaven. You know, none of us have a… Guarantee we won’t be here tomorrow. We read the news every day about planes going down, cars crashing, people shot and blown up in wars. Nobody knows what day they’re going to die. Only God knows that. He knows the time and the manner and place of our departure. Of course, we would all hope we could just go to bed one night and wake up in heaven, but it’s not always the way it happens. But it is possible that if it does happen unexpectedly, you can have confidence that you are going to heaven. So I ask you to please make a decision today while there is still time because it’s never ever too late. Where you are currently right now, you could do this. You could bow your head, listening to me on the radio. If you’re driving, don’t bow your head. Pay attention to the road. But you could bow your head in your home or in your office, and you could pray a prayer, a simple prayer. You could say, Heavenly Father, I’ll help you with the words. Listen to them. Repeat them after me. Heavenly Father, I know I’m a sinner. I believe Christ died for me I’m willing to receive him as my Savior. Thank you for saving me today. There are people that argue that. There are people that say, oh, you can’t get saved by praying a simple prayer like that. However, the Bible says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If you prayed that prayer, and this is the first time you’ve ever done anything like that, this is the day you were born again. This is your new spiritual birthday. Write the date down. Write down this day in May. This is May the 3rd, 2026. This is your new spiritual birthday. The next thing we will teach on this radio show is how to take advantage of all the wonderful resources, all the wonderful assets you have as a child of God. since you’re now a member of the royal family of God. And as such member, you have new privileges and new power. For example, the Bible is your owner’s manual. It is your most powerful and prized possession. Do you have a Bible? If you don’t, I suggest you get one quickly. and start reading in the book of John. It’s a great place to read. But listen to what Hebrews 4.12 tells us. Listen carefully. Hebrews 4.12, For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and joints and marrow is a critic of thought and intents of the heart. So the word of God is found in the Bible. We know it as divine viewpoint, the mind of Christ. So when you get a Bible and read the Bible and learn the Bible and claim the promises in the Bible, you have your most powerful and prized possessions. Paul said, I’ve given you this treasure, and treasure is the word thesaurus. It’s a word treasure. The word treasure in your soul and the mentality of your soul is what the Lord Jesus Christ wants you to do. Now that you are a new spiritual species because of your accepting Christ as your Savior, you have to learn how to think. And you’re told to do that in many different verses. For example, in Philippians 2.5, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. So that’s saying you need to learn to think like he thought. We call that divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint, divine viewpoint. Let this viewpoint, this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. And it goes on to say who humbled himself and made himself not equal. Humility is the key to this mindset. Arrogance won’t work in the Christian life because it’s always you justifying why you’re right and everybody else is wrong. So you have to learn to get over that arrogance and operate under a concept of humility, which is orientation to authority. In Romans 12, 2 and 3, the Bible says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. There it is again, to change the way you think. Think in terms of humility, not arrogance. So that, in order that you can prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The writer of this verse went on to say, for I say through the grace given to me that everyone who is among you should not think of himself more highly than he ought to think. That’s arrogance. But to think soberly, there’s a humility as God has dealt to each one of us a measure of faith. So as you become a Christian, you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You become a new racial species, member of the royal family of God. And then you have to learn to think in a different way, thinking divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint. These verses tell us that the Christian must renovate his thinking. You and I are living souls, and our souls have mentality. And every decision that we make starts with a thought. And that thought becomes an attitude, and that attitude becomes an action. So if you stick with me through this radio show, you will see that God wants you to have clear and lucid understanding of who he is and what he’s provided for you, his child, as you’re living in the devil’s world. Our Heavenly Father made it clear through the teachings of Jeremiah, this thing, Jeremiah 9, 24. See if you can pick it up here. What does he want you to do? But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands me and knows me, that I am the Lord exercising loving kindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth. I want to tell you there’s a difference between knowing God and understanding God. I talk to many people that know him, but not many that understand him. You yourself may indeed know God, but do you understand the God you know? If you stay with me every Sunday morning here on the Flatline Radio Show, I will show you just exactly what the scriptures teach concerning the spiritual life and how to live it victoriously. Remember the words you want to hear at the judgment seat of Christ are these words, well done, my good and faithful servant. Hopefully, we got one thing squared away today. And hopefully, now you understand and you know for certain that you have eternal life. Next comes how to live while I’m still here in this mortal body on planet Earth behind enemy lines, I say it. Becoming a Christian doesn’t mean all your troubles will go away. That’s not what it means. It just means that you will now have divine resources available to you if you learn how to use them. I see many Christians do a lot of weird things, and they call it normal. As a matter of fact, some of the most abnormal people in the world are confused Christians who have never taken the time to understand how the Christian life operates. Yes, they know God, but they don’t understand God. They make their own rules up. They come up with words like, surrender your life to Christ, brother. Dedicate yourself to God, brother. Rededicate yourself to God, brother. Have you ever done that? Did you go down and rededicate your life or surrender your life or dedicate your life and you went out a week later the same person? These are all gimmicks to stimulate your emotion. You will never hear me asking you to do anything like that. So if you’re interested in learning, wanting to learn, what God expects out of you, I hope you’ll come back next week, same time, same place. At that time, I will introduce to you the protocol plan of God. I’ll give you a little hint. Think about this before you hear me next week. If I ask you, what do I have to do to be a good Christian? Well, how will you answer it? Maybe write it on a piece of paper and you can read it to me next week. If I said, tell me how to be a good Christian, what would you tell me? You’re going to be surprised when I tell you next week the answer to that, because this is where most people get it wrong right off the bat. When I accepted Christ as my Savior, that’s what I wanted to know. What do I need to do to be a good Christian? It took me almost two years to find out what it took. Because I got running around in circles with all kind of weird stuff. So what does it take to be a good Christian? If I just accepted Christ in your church and the pastor said, take him over to the side and talk to him. And I ask you, what must I do to be a good Christian? What would you tell me? You need to think about that, because that’s what we’re going to discuss. That’s what we’re going to show you. Verify it, identify it with Scripture so that you will understand it without a doubt, what you must do to be the kind of Christian God wants you to be. I’m very grateful for the time you’ve given me this morning. Thank you for listening to me. Thank you for being a part of our show. You can always get in touch with us through rickhughesministries.org. On our website, you’ll see all the many books we offer. We just came out with a new book on God’s family, Your Enduring Legacy. We’ve got a new book out called Understanding Your Soul. These are all free. You can see them on our website. You can order them free of charge. And you can always call us with your request at 800-831-0718. 800-831-0718. If you call and get an answering machine, be sure you speak slowly, distinctly, so we can call you back. I understand your name and number. Okay. Well, thank you for giving me a few minutes this morning. I pray that this show encouraged you. And I pray this is the day that your life change forever. I pray this is the day you accepted Christ as your Savior. So until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for being with me here on 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.
