Join Rick Hughes in this episode of The Flatline as he delves into the concept of spiritual autonomy. Learn about the vital importance of being able to stand alone in your faith, free from manipulation and influence. Discover how biblical principles can guide you in making independent decisions that reflect your faith and personal conviction, highlighting the significance of having a stable mental attitude rooted in spirituality.
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 every Sunday morning, same time, same place, we come to you by this local radio station. Thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time. I promise not to manipulate you. I promise not to beg you for any money. I’m not going to try to sell you something. I just want to give you some information. Hopefully, that information will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If you’re able to do that and you would like to orient and adjust to the plan, then you have the freedom, you have the privacy to do that. It’s your life, your decisions, and you are responsible for every decision that you make. And remember, bad decisions limit future options. If you make enough bad decisions, you’re not going to have any options left. And that means you have to stay off of the my way highway path. So please listen to the things that we have to say today. Let me encourage you to check out our podcast, The Flotline. The Flotline is on Apple iPod or Spotify. Just type that in the search engine and you can find podcasts, The Flotline, and listen 24-7, anywhere, anytime, any day. That’s The Flotline Podcasting. And we also have printed material available free of charge, unlike podcasts. A lot of ministries that charge for their material, we don’t. We believe if God’s in it, God will pay for it. Obviously, we depend on unsolicited contributions, but he’s always paid for it. He’s never failed us yet, and he never will fail us because he promised if he was in it, he would meet the needs. So our books on Crash Course in Christianity, Christian Problem Solving, The Life’s Toughest Years for Young People. We’ve got several books. If you go to our website, simply rickhughesministries.org, rickhughesministries.org, you can find them, and they’re all free of charge. Just give them an order, and we’ll ship them out to you. Today, if you’ll let me, there’s something important that I want to talk about. I want to talk about standing independently on your own, being able to stand alone. I call it having spiritual autonomy if you are a Christian. If you’ve believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and you’ve made the single most significant decision any person could ever make, then you are told in the Bible that you are to be autonomous, to have some spiritual autonomy. It means that you have to have the ability to act independently of your own, to govern yourself and not let somebody else run your life for you. Now, there’s no shortage of people that would love to run your life for you if you’ll let them. I’ve been around those type and you have too. And they mean well, most of them mean well, but they’ll tell you where to go and where to stay and what to say and what to do. And they’re trying to help you, but they’re really going to take your life over and run it if you let them. And those people you have to be very kind and gracious to, but decline their suggestions gracefully and move on down the road. But being spiritually autonomous is a key to growing up spiritually in the spiritual life and understanding your destiny in Christ. You can never have spiritual autonomy unless you’re able to be filled with the Holy Spirit. to learn the word of God and to use the faith thrust drill. Those are all situations on the flat line of your soul. Remember, the flat line is made up of 10 problem-solving devices that stop the outside sources of adversity before they become the inside source of stress. We have a bookmark on that, the flat line of those 10 problem-solving devices. We’ll be glad to send it to you. Stick it in your Bible and you can look at them occasionally, but they include rebound, which is solve the problem of sin, the filling of the Holy Spirit, which solves the problem of your genetically formed old sin nature, the faith rest drill, which solves the problem of impossible situations, grace orientation, biblical orientation, having a personal sense of destiny, having personal love for God, which is the greatest virtue you could ever possess, having impersonal love for others, which is you using God’s love in your life towards other people, and sharing god’s happiness and being occupied with christ those are 10 unique problem solving devices and perhaps we need to go back and teach all 10 of them again because we could spend hours in each one but if you don’t have that bookmark with the 10 problem solving devices write to us we’ll ship it right on out to you and the book we have christian problem solving book all 10 of them are listed from various radio shows we have the transcripts printed and binded and put in a book We’ll be glad to send it to you at no charge. So let’s get on now. Spiritual autonomy means you have enough Bible doctrine in your soul to make your own decisions without being impetuous, without being goofy, without doing something stupid. And it’s easy to do if you get impetuous. But you have to be able to stand on your own two feet as a believer and act independently. And at certain times of our life, we all have to learn to do that. I mean, we have to. By this, I simply mean that you must prepare yourself for the testing that’s coming and for the difficulty that you may face in your life without having to depend on someone else to give you answers, without having to depend on someone else for your happiness, without having to depend on someone else for your comfort. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have people help you in medical situations. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about when you face testing that you will go through, and we’ll talk about that shortly. testing that you will face in your life, difficulties that you’ll face in your life. You have to be able to handle it on your own without running to someone else and asking them, what should I do? What do I do about this brother? What do I do about this preacher? That doesn’t glorify God if you’re not able to handle it on your own and come up with your own answers. That’s what the whole thing about learning and growing in grace is about so that you can handle your own problems. In Psalm 23, four, the Psalmist wrote these words, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Now, yea, though I, he didn’t say yea, though we, he said yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I, not we, I will fear no evil. This is living through death’s shadowed valley. And this is the individual that has to do it alone. That’s the one thing you’ll always have to remember. When you come to time to go to the home office, when it comes your time to be transferred to heaven, you will do it alone. You won’t have anybody go with you and hold your hand. You’ll have to do that alone. And so there is where spiritual autonomy is critical. In Matthew 4, 1 through 11, you can read about where our Lord Jesus Christ faced tremendous evidence testing from Satan. This was even after he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and was in a very weakened physical condition. He did this alone, without any supporters cheering him on, without asking someone to pray for him or tell him what he should do. As an independent human being, he did it alone. I know this is God, and I know this is man, undiminished deity, true humanity in one form forever. As God, he could have just banished Satan away, but as man, he handled it just like you or I would. He didn’t ever use his deity. Let me restate that. He never used his deity to solve any human problems. He solved them the same way you and I solved them. Yes, he was God, but yes, he was man. He’s hypostatic union, God-man together. And so alone, he faced Satan, he faced evidence testing, and he had enough autonomy to act independently of what others said, and he passed that test. In 1 Samuel 17, if you read that chapter, you read about young David, how David faced incredible odds when he challenged Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, on the battlefield. And he challenged them alone. He walked out there alone. He was mocked at and made fun of by brothers and laughed at by the Philistines when he walked out with a slingshot to face the giant, but he had enough faith to overcome those odds. He lived it and he died alone, just like you and I will die alone. He acted alone, independently of what others thought, independently of what others said. So David was a champion because he had autonomy. He had the ability to govern himself and not be controlled by fear and not be manipulated by public opinion of popularity. Let me give you some principles on spiritual autonomy. Spiritual autonomy is critical for every one of us. Why? Because we must all be able to govern our own lives as believers and not be manipulated, not be coerced by some organized religion or some legalistic believers that tell you you’re going to go to hell if you smoke. You’re going to go to hell if you drink. You’re going to go to hell if you dance. That’s not true. That’s not in the Bible. And that’s what legalistic people will try to do. They will try to manipulate you if you don’t have the ability to stand autonomously on your own. to act independently on your own, to govern yourself and not care how these people judge you. Organized religion is the same way. It’ll tell you if you want to go to heaven, you got to do this, you got to do that. And that’s not true either. The Bible says if you want to go to heaven, it’s simply one thing. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. John 3.16 said, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus said, this is the will of the one that sent me that you believe in me whom he have sent. That’s why it says in the Bible, we’ve been unbelievers and we become believers. We believe that he is the anointed son of God. We believe he is the savior of the world. And we accept that by faith. And we acknowledge that through prayer, telling God the father, we’re willing to accept Christ as our savior. Spiritual autonomy is critical. This type of autonomy that I’m talking about is nothing but a mental attitude. It’s just a mental attitude which is you having orientation to reality in your life, having orientation to authority in your life, having orientation to freedom, while at the same time you reject those things that would destroy your spiritual life, such as fear, worry, anxiety, bitterness, things like that. You don’t have to live that way. That’s not the Christian life. So, point three, mental stability is a key to autonomy. Mental stability is a key issue in the spiritual life. Spirituality is a mental attitude produced by the filling of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is a mental attitude produced by the filling of the Holy Spirit. Here’s what I want you to listen. Billy Graham, the great evangelist, could not be any more spiritual than you. He could be more mature than you, but not more spiritual. If he’s filled with the Holy Spirit, you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then you’re both spiritual. So spirituality is a mental attitude produced by the filling of the Holy Spirit. And the Bible tells us in Galatians 5.22 what that mental attitude is, and it’s nothing more than the mindset of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated in the Scriptures. And that’s what mental stability is. And what I’m talking about is you having that mental stability, having the mindset of Christ, and being able to act independently on your own, govern your own life, make your own decisions, stand by those things. So your mental stability, point four, is the ability to thank the Word of God and To think divine viewpoint, even under pressure, and I call that courage, it’s you having the ability to make correct and accurate application of those things that you’ve learned in the Word of God when you face testing in your life. It’s you having the ability to make correct and accurate application of those things you’ve learned from the Word of God when you go through testing in your life. And that testing can be momentum testing. You’re always gonna face momentum testing before you get to spiritual maturity. You’re going to go through momentum testing. This is what the Bible says, put on the armor of God so you can stand against the strategy of the devil. He’s going to test your momentum. He’s going to try to deter you from ever becoming a spiritual Christian. If he can get you preoccupied with your environment, if he can get you preoccupied with your situation, if he can get you preoccupied with your neighbor, then you will never advance spiritually because you’re not using the word of God in your life to make the right decisions. You have to make correct application of the word of God. So spiritual autonomy that I’m talking about is nothing more than a perpetuated stability of a mental attitude in your life. It’s a perpetuated mental stability in your life. where you don’t vacillate. You’re not up today, down tomorrow, in and out. You are the same today and tomorrow and the next day. You have that rock solid mental stability. You have the ability to govern yourself. You have the ability to act independently, not needing someone else to make you happy. That’s a wonderful way to live and that’s part of the spiritual life that comes from the filling of the Holy Spirit. So don’t forget, autonomy means the state of being independent or the ability to direct your own life. And you cannot fully do that until you have use of the word of God and you’ve learned what virtue love is. Virtue love comes in two packages, personal love for God, impersonal love for others. Your motivation to live the spiritual life is your personal love for God. 1 John 5, 3 says, if you love me, you will obey me and my mandates are not hard. And so that’s where it starts, having that personal love for God. And you cannot live the Christian life without that virtue love. The Bible says we love him because he first loved us. And that’s what it means. The Bible also goes on to say if we say we love God and hate our neighbor, we’re a liar and the truth is not in us. So virtue love is a tremendous problem-solving device because it gives you the ability in impersonal love to love the unlovable person. Impersonal love gives you the ability to love the unlovable person. Oh, by the way, do you remember God saving you? Did he not use impersonal love? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He didn’t love you with personal love. You weren’t even a member of the family. He loved you with impersonal love. He loved you based on his character, not your character. It was grace in action to you, for by grace are you saved through faith. The gift of God was his anointed son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he gave that gift to you. Once you believed in Christ, once you entered into the royal family of God, then there’s personal love for you because now you’re his child. So remember that. You cannot fully be autonomous until you understand virtue love. Have personal love for God, impersonal love for others, and these are two of the problem-solving devices, number seven, number eight. You should get the book, Christian Problem-Solving, and read and study that. So, point seven, spiritual autonomy is grace orientation to life. There’s problem-solving device number four. Spiritual autonomy is grace orientation to life. You live by grace. You die by grace. You’re saved by grace. You grace other people out. What a wonderful way to live. What a wonderful way to operate a ministry by grace. People say, you don’t charge for your book, brother. No, I don’t. Someone asked me the other day what I charge to come speak. Nothing, nothing. There’s no appearance fee. We operate on grace. I was reading where some famous celebrities the other day I read about were going to speak at some Christian organizations and Christian churches and Christian gatherings, and they had an appearance fee of $10,000 to $20,000 to come and give their testimony and talk about how they love the Lord Jesus Christ. We don’t do that. That’s not right. You don’t do that. You live by grace. You don’t ask for money. You don’t solicit money. You don’t take up love offerings if you’re in the ministry. You just go do your job, keep your mouth shut, and let the Lord handle the finances if you need them. So spiritual autonomy is grace, orientation to life, and that’s just one area. Money’s one area. There are a lot of other areas you can go into as well. So point eight, under the protocol plan of God for the church, Grace, God’s grace, is everything that God is free to do for every one of us from the moment we get saved all the way through the eternal state. And apart from anything we could do, apart from any human merit, apart from any human ability, any system of human planning or any behavior or any talent, that’s not grace. That’s works. Grace is all that God is free to do for you. And there are many, many ways in which people use their own human abilities to try to solve their problems. But grace orientation, the person who’s grace oriented, That problem solving is spiritual autonomy. And you don’t take any recognition or cognizance of whatever human abilities you have. You depend on the Lord. You know, you hear people say, let me do it my way. I’ll get this solved. I can work it out. Let me think about it. God, just turn it over to the Lord and let him handle it. It doesn’t mean you don’t have to make good decisions. You make good decisions based on what the Bible says. But you don’t attack a problem and try to solve it yourself. Human abilities is not the solution. Human solutions are no solutions. Divine solutions are the only solutions. So there can be no spiritual autonomy unless you and I, unless we have spiritual growth, unless we’re building that flat line in our soul. And that’s what this show is about, getting you to build a flat line in your soul. I’m looking for those of you that want to grow to spiritual maturity. I’m looking for those of you that want to be spiritually autonomous, that want to have the ability to stand alone, that want to have the ability to act independently of others and make your own decisions and glorify Jesus Christ to the maximum. Now, what about these tests I’m talking about? Well, how about system testing? System testing. I speak at a lot of schools, and a lot of schools have faculty, and faculty sometimes are required to do things they don’t want to do. System testing. For example, if you’ve been teaching all day and have a big basketball game and the principal or the headmaster says, we want you there tonight to support the team and you don’t want to go and you get mad or angry about it. System testing is simply the maintenance of poise and professionalism when you’re treated unjust. The maintenance of poise and professionalism when you’re treated unjust. It’s the perpetuation of high standards of workmanship during unfair treatment. And you can only do that if you can act independently of others and govern your own emotions in your own life by being spiritually autonomous. Here’s another one for you. Thought testing. Fear, worry, this is the ability of humility as a virtue to avoid any type of self-pity. To get away from that, stay away from that. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. When you get into this thinking testing, thought testing, and you have the ability to feel sorry for yourself, that’s not humility, that’s arrogance. You’re looking at yourself as something you’re not. So you have to get away from that. This gives you the ability to never feel threatened in any form of bullying, never feel threatened by unjust or unfair treatment, to be treated obviously unfairly, and yet at the same time, not to get mad, not to be hated, not to have self-pity. It’s a fantastic way to live, being spiritually autonomous. And then there’s disaster testing, and you better learn about this one because it’s coming to America. You can fulfill the principles that Job uttered in Job 121. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Also, if you want to read more, read Job 2, verses 9 and 10. And in Job 13, 15, he said, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. That’s grace. So disaster testing is coming for this nation. You can see it in the headlines. You can hear the train whistle blowing. And you have to have enough of the word of God to act independently and stand on your own. When you reach spiritual autonomy in your life, you will be the most normal person around. Because you will have passed a milestone that excludes the abnormal, that excludes the neurotic, excludes the psychotic and the psychopathic, and you will advance to spiritual maturity by being autonomously on your own, acting independently on your own from the filling of the Holy Spirit and from the Word of God resident in your soul. So that means that if you’re spiritually autonomous, you have control of your life. You have control of your life. You don’t depend on someone else to run it for you. Spiritual autonomy includes personal control of your own life while refraining and restraining yourself from trying to control someone else’s life. You cannot control other people and at the same time control your own life. It’s not your job. You have to watch some people fail. You have to watch some people make a mess out of it. They just won’t listen. That’s okay. Maybe they didn’t ask you to start with. You just butted into their life and said, if I was you, brother, I think I’d do it this way. Well, who asked you to start with? Under spiritual autonomy, you have to learn to stop interfering in the lives of other people. You restrain those tendencies towards being possessive because if you’re autonomous and you’re freed from these arrogant functions in your life and you will recognize that other people have the right of self-determination, The more you stop interfering in the lives of other people, the sooner you have personal control of your own life. So what are some of the keys to being spiritually autonomous? If you read Psalm 119, you can get a lot of them. It’s an amazing chapter in the Bible. It’s the longest chapter in the Bible, and it teaches the importance of God’s Word and our submission to the authority of the Word of God, which results in happiness and fulfillment. Listen as I read a few of those verses to you in Psalm 119, verse 1 and 2. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. Undefiled means that you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, free from personal sin. You’ve rebounded. You’ve gotten in fellowship, and you’re walking in the way of the Lord, and you’re obeying. That means obedience. Verse two, blessed are those who keep, keep, that’s your positive volition, not negative volition, obey, keep his testimonies. And blessed are those who seek him with their whole heart. Seek, blessed means happiness. So happiness to the undefiled people. Happiness belongs to those who walk in the law of the Lord. Happiness belongs to those who keep his testimonies and who seek him with their whole heart. Is that you? I hope it is. That’s the only way you’re ever gonna find happiness. In Psalm 119, verse 11, here is the key to having spiritual autonomy. Your word I have hidden in my heart so that I might not sin against you. That means to learn it and apply it in your life. The word of God. And you’re not going to do that unless you sit under a well-qualified pastor that can teach it to you. Unless you go to church, open your Bible, take a notebook and write some notes and remember it and go home and read over your notes and apply it into your life. And I’ve said before, if the song service is longer than the teaching, you’re in the wrong church. Find a church where the word of God is taught and honored. So the Bible goes on to say in Psalm 119 verse 27, make me understand the ways of your precepts and then I will meditate on your wonderful work. In Psalm 119 29, remove from me my lies and grant me your law graciously. Beginning in verse 33, teach me. Verse 34, give me understanding. Verse 35, direct me in your mandates. Verse 36, incline my heart to your testimonies. Verse 37, turn away my eyes from beholding vanity. Verse 38, establish your word in me. Verse 71, it’s good for me that I’ve been afflicted. That means suffering, so that I might learn your word. And then in verse 105, your word is a lamp unto my path and I will keep it. What we gain from these verses is this. Great joy and great blessing in life by maintaining a healthy relationship with God and obeying his mandates. Much more joy, much more happiness than you can even imagine. Because in spiritual autonomy and actuality, you’re never alone. God the Holy Spirit indwells you. God’s word strengthens you in times of conflict and in times of confusion. He will never forsake you. He said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. There’s more for me to say about this, but I just don’t have the time. Sometimes I cram it all in. I have a mere 27 minutes and 15 seconds to tell you these things. I hope it’s encouraging. I hope you’re learning. If you want to learn more, get in touch with us. Come back next Sunday, same time, same place. 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.
