Explore the transformative power of faith with host Rick Hughes in this enlightening episode. Discover how the disciples, despite their rough beginnings, changed the world and how you can apply the same heart-driven approach to your spiritual journey. Analyze the importance of volition, righteous judgment, and genuine spiritual growth for a fulfilling life aligned with Christ’s teachings.
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 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the FLOT line. I’m your host, Rick Hughes. FLOT, F-L-O-T, stands for the Forward Line of Troops. It’s a military metaphor. We’re talking about designing and building in your soul an invisible forward line of troops made up of ten unique problem-solving devices found in the Bible. And if you will learn them and you will use them, then these unique problem-solving devices will stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. Adversity is always inevitable, but stress is certainly optional for the believer in Jesus Christ. So the FLOT line is designed to remind you of these biblical truths and hopefully introduce you to an in-depth way of studying and learning God’s Word. It’s all done without any type of manipulation, no solicitation, just some education, motivation, inspiration. That’s my job. Verify and identify God’s plan and with the hopes that you will orient and adjust to the plan. The plan always starts with Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, the one who redeemed us out of the slave market of sin. The Bible clearly says in Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness which we’ve done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s how it all starts. That’s how it all happens. And then as we believe in Christ and receive him as our Savior, then we have to advance forward. We have to continue to grow. I don’t know how long you’ve been a Christian. I have no idea. But I want this to be a time of decision-making in your life. you learning and growing and committing your life to god’s agenda god’s plan it’s always my prayer that god the holy spirit will take the messages you hear on this radio show and cause them to gel in your soul producing spiritual fruit that will glorify god to the maximum and hopefully our father will be really satisfied with what we do how we live our lives Remember in John 15, Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey my mandates. So remember that we have to learn these things ourselves. First, I do. I have to learn the word of God before I ever bring it to you. And oftentimes the Holy Spirit has to rake me over the coals before I rake you over the coals. So I have to pray and figure out how to present these things to you. And not necessarily in always the most polished way. And listen, the disciples weren’t great polished professors. They were not great public speakers. Most of them were just crude, rough men who made a living the hard way. I mean, Andrew was a commercial fisherman, Peter’s brother. Bartholomew, or Nathaniel we call him, may be a noble man by birth, but not much more information given on him other than what Jesus said, there’s no guile in him. James was a fisherman. James the Younger, the brother of Jude, was a common laborer who was a carpenter. John, the brother of James the Elder, the sons of Zebedee, he was a fisherman. Judas, maybe a Jewish nationalist wanting freedom from Rome, I don’t know, but he didn’t make it, we know that. Jude, the brother of James, the younger man who had three names, and Thaddeus was one of them. He was a common carpenter. and matthew the tax collector peter the commercial fisherman philip a fisherman and simon zealot a fisherman from galilee so our lord had rough men and these men traveled with him for three years they learned how to think like he thought they learned his divine plan he told him everything the father has told me i’ve shown it to you because he knew that they were going to have to carry on once he left. And so rough men had rough endings, but they changed the world. So it’s really not about the amount of education, nor is it about your oratory ability. It’s about your heart’s desire to serve your Lord in spite of what the cost may be. And certainly there may be a price to be paid. So if we’re going to serve him, if we’re going to hope to effectively represent him, And then we have to learn how to represent Christ as individuals. And we have to be sure that we do it correctly. Now, listen to this passage. Jesus said in Luke 6, 46, Why do you call me Lord and you don’t do what I tell you to do? Everyone who comes to me and hears my word, this is verse 47 in Luke chapter 6. Everyone who comes to me and hears my word and acts on them, I’ll show you whom he’s like. He’s like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rocks. And when the flood occurred, the torments burst against the house and could not shake it because it was well built. But the one who’s heard and has not acted accordingly says, Well, he’s like the man who built his house on the ground without any foundation, and the rains came, floods burst against it, and it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great. So the question is this. What do you hear when you listen to these radio shows that maybe you haven’t heard before? And the second question is, what will you do with what you hear? Because these shows are designed not only to give you an objective view of your life, but also an objective view of the future of this great nation that we call America. And your volition determines your destiny. I’m going to say that one more time. Your volition determines your destiny. Volition is the decider or the chooser that God gave you. He did not make you a little automaton. He gave you a free will. And along with the mentality, along with a conscience, he gave you a volition. So you can choose. Choose you this day, Joshua said, whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So each one of us, you, me, and anyone else who is a believer in Jesus Christ, we have the potential to have a phenomenal life. But we also have the potential to destroy any chance for happiness, any chance for blessing in this life, if we fail to get with God’s plan, if we have a subjective viewpoint about our spiritual life. What is a subjective viewpoint? Well, it’s someone who thinks he’s something that he’s not. Listen to Luke 18. This is verse nine through 14. This is what Jesus gave a parable. He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves. Lord, deliver us from the self-righteous religious type. That’s the worst type in the world. I don’t like to be around self-righteous people, but self-righteous religious people are the worst. So he speaks this parable about people who trust in themselves. that they were righteous and they looked down their nose at other people, you know the type. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble, I don’t dance, I don’t, so I’m better than you, I’m a good person. And so the Lord goes on to give this illustration in the means of a parable. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, that’s the self-righteous one, and the other a tax collector. And the Pharisee stood and prayed with himself and said, God, I can just hear it. I could spell it G-A-W-D, God, making that self-righteous sound. I thank you that I’m not like other men. I’m not an extortioner, he said. I’m not unjust. I don’t commit adultery like this tax collector over here. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all that I possess. Verse 13 said the tax collector stood afar off and would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but beat upon his breast and said God have mercy on me a sinner. Verse 14 Luke 18 I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. This Pharisee had an unrealistic self-image. He thought he was something that he was not. He qualified himself as a good church member because he did the things that good church members do. But just because you’re a good church member, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to glorify God as a Christian. It doesn’t even mean that you’re saved. That’s why Jesus said those words, in that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name do many wonderful works? And he said, I will tell them I never knew you. This self-righteous religious Pharisee evaluated his spiritual life on his misguided judgment. His unrealistic self-image. And my question is, how would you grade yourself? How would you evaluate your spiritual life, if in fact you have one? I mean, would you be subjective, or would you let God do the evaluating? I mean, you’ve got a pastor, and you go to church. You’ve been a member of your church for a lot of years. How’s that working out? Any doubts, frustrations, any regrets? Are you growing spiritually? Are you advancing in the plan of God? Or are you not being fed? Are you starving to death? Are you listening to this radio show because someone’s giving you some information finally that you can learn and apply in your life? Well, this old Pharisee here in Luke 18 was convinced that that he was doing all the right things on his misguided judgment. He convinced himself. And what was his rationale? How did he come to that conclusion? Well, he prayed about it. It’s a completely ineffective prayer. It was a prayer based on a misguided assumption. You see, without proper procedure, prayer is nothing more than an exercise in a religious ritual where you try to convince yourself that you are in God’s will and in God’s plan. Protocol is required in prayer. And a right thing, such as prayer, done in a wrong way, such as with misguided assumption, is wrong. It’s not going to be answered. And so people constantly do this. They look into the mirror of self-righteousness and they assume that God is standing up and giving them a big round of approval because they don’t, as this man said, don’t extort people. I’m not unjust. I don’t commit adultery like that tax collector over there. I fast twice a week. I give a tithe of all that I possess. What really makes you a good Christian? This man in this case was praying to convince himself that he was righteous before God. And the reason is he weighed his life in the scales of the law. He saw he was fulfilling his pharisaical duty Let me warn you, never assume you’re impressing God because you follow certain religious rituals. Right things must be done in the right way. And God’s not impressed because you tithe, God’s not impressed because you come to church and don’t miss Sunday school. I mean, he likes that you give to your church. He likes that you are faithful to be involved in your church’s ministry. But what impresses God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ accredited to your account. You can’t buy God off by being self-righteous and religious. Jesus, the Bible says, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we could be made the righteousness of God by means of him. The Old Testament tells us there are none that are righteous, no, not one, because all of our righteousnesses are like a filthy rag in God’s eyes. So just imagine this, the best you could manufacture, the best you could do without knowing Jesus Christ is nothing but human good. It’s a dirty, filthy rag. And God will not accept it. So never assume you’re impressing God because you follow certain rituals. You may be saved. You may have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. But as Jesus said, if you love me in John 15, you will obey my mandates. What kind of mandates? Well, abide in me and let my word abide in you, John 15 says. If you don’t learn the word of God, if you don’t apply the word of God into your life, how can you abide in Christ? How can you let his love abide in you if you don’t even know what his love is? You need to read John 15. My pastor’s been doing a tremendous study on this and it’s really close to my heart. That’s why I bring it up to you. In 2 Corinthians 10, 17, let the one who glorifies glory in this, that he glorifies the Lord For he who commends himself is approved, but who the Lord commends, not the one who commends himself. I read that again. Let he who glorifies, let him glorify in the Lord. First, excuse me, 2 Corinthians 10, 17. And this is the key, verse 18, 2 Corinthians 10. For it’s not the one who recommends himself that’s approved, but the one who the Lord commends. So God does the evaluating, not you. This guy was convinced that keeping the law was what gave him righteous standing before God. His mind was set in stone because he had this unrealistic self-image. How do you have a perfect righteous standing before God? Well, as I quoted, he had made him to be sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God by means of him. The perfect righteousness of Christ is accredited to your account the moment you believe, that Jesus is the Son of God. The moment you accept his death, burial, and resurrection on your behalf, that’s the moment that his righteousness is given to you. This false assumption that the Pharisee had led to a wrong conclusion, and that was that he was much better than the tax collector. because he observed the Mosaic Law. This is called relative righteousness. I mean, where you compare yourself to other people in the congregation. I want you to look at your congregation this morning if you go to church and take a look around and do you ever say to yourself, I’m better than that one, I’m better than that one, I’m better than this one? Don’t do that. Don’t ever compare yourself to someone else because you’re going to come to the wrong conclusion. You know, the big question is, why do smart Christians do dumb things? And the answer is because they convince themselves they are in God’s will. And it’s easy to do. I mean, organized religion teaches us all the time in an unspoken sort of way. like pay your tithe. So if you give your tithe, then you think you’re doing a good thing. And it’s fine that you give to your church. That’s a noble, wonderful thing. But let me remind you of something. Just because you tithe, it doesn’t mean you’re advancing spiritually in your life. And on top of that, tithing was an Old Testament system of taxation, and everybody in the nation gave 10% of their income to support the temple. Everybody. Everybody. What we do as New Testament believers is give as God has prospered us. But some people have this idea, and it floats around all the time, that if they tithe, then God’s going to bless them. And that’s not true. This is misguided judgment. It’s human viewpoint thinking. There’s no biblical rationale for making that kind of decision. A rationale is a set of reasons or a logical basis that forms a course of action. or a belief in your life. So if you have misguided judgment, it results in wrong conclusions. And wrong conclusions equal wasted time and self-condemnation from your guilt. Now let’s make it personal. How many times have you flown the coop thinking you’re making the right decision based on a misguided judgment? In other words, no biblical rationale. You just had an emotional override. and you thought you were doing the right thing, it felt like the right thing, but it wasn’t because you didn’t have biblical rationale to do it. I mean, for example, have you ever convinced yourself you’re in God’s directive will for your life? I know a lot of people that have done just that. Let me say you cannot know the will of God apart from knowing the Word of God, and you cannot do the will of God apart from the power to execute it. So what was it in the first place that convinced you that you were doing the will of God? Oh, I know, you prayed about it. That’s it, you prayed about it. You convinced yourself that you had made the right decision. You convinced yourself of the false conclusion. You prayed about it. I recently heard a school board member tell me how the high school principal of that school had decided it was God’s will for him to move on to another job. How could he know it was God’s will if he didn’t even understand the spiritual life to start with? I mean, on what rationale did he base his decisions? You know, the Bible says in Isaiah 58, 11, the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desires in scorched places and give you strength to your bones, and you will be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. So if somebody tells you that they think it’s God’s plan for your life, you need to stop and consider how they came to that conclusion. I mean, there is in the Bible an operational will of God which says what he wants you to do. There is the viewpoint will of God which says what he wants you to think. And there’s a geographical will of God that says where I want you to be. So the question is, did we rationalize our decisions based on seeking some sort of happiness through the people and the circumstances that I’m involved in, or did we fall for the decoy, the decoy of Satan that eventually leads to temporal death in the spiritual life? I mean, any time there’s a push for you to make a decision, very quickly, Then you can bet God is not in that one. You know, the car dealer type preacher, you know, make a decision now, come forward now. Let’s make this decision. You can make this decision tonight and your life will be changed forever. There’s only one decision that will change your life forever, and that’s believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. But as far as the Christian life goes, that’s a process. Today, tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, you must take in the Word of God. You must stay filled with the Holy Spirit. You must grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no one-shot decision you can make. You may get emotional about it. You may want to surrender your life to God. You may go forward and say, I surrender all. Maybe they sang 37 stanzas of that song, and you did it. You surrendered all, but you went out the next day and had the same problems and the same desires and the same failures because you acted on your emotion. If you don’t act on the protocol plan of God, doing the right thing in the right way, it’s not going to work. It’s a wrong assumption. So you have to determine what is God’s will for your life. In the case of that Pharisee that I told you about in Luke 18, it was a matter of heaven or hell. It was a big matter because this man was going to go straight to hell because he was religious, self-righteous, and convinced himself he had no need of a savior. That’s why Satan is a master, a master at getting you to waste your time, waste your energy, waste your effort in religious pursuits. He’s a master at distracting you. He will use a decoy, and he will decoy you. You know, I’ve got friends that duck hunt. I don’t. I never have duck hunted, but the dumb duck doesn’t know he’s falling for a decoy since the little floating ducks out there look real and sound real, and some guy’s over there in the reeds quack, quack, quacking away, and the duck doesn’t know it’s a fake thing until he’s blasted out of the sky and winds up on the dinner table. And he goes from a fast-flying beautiful duck to the sewer after dinner. That’s not exactly my idea of success. It would be much better for you and for me to wait, to evaluate. Listen, God was in business before we got here. He’s going to be in business when we’re gone. It doesn’t all depend on the decision we have to make today. It’s better to wait and to evaluate and pray before you make a life-changing decision. Any decision made apart from the directive will of God for your life will lead to you having a convoluted and a confused life. And I’m talking about years and years and years of confusion. There was an old song the Kingston Trio used to sing, and I compare this to Christians sometimes who get out of the will of God. It went like this. Let me tell you the story of a man named Charlie. On a tragic day, he put 10 cents in his pocket, kissed his wife and family, and went to ride on the MTA. That’s the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Well, did he ever return? No, he never returned, and his fate is still unknown. He may ride forever neath the streets of Boston. He’s the man who never returned. Right thing, wrong way, and you may never return. That’s why I tell you that your emotions ride on the current of circumstances. Fear, regret, appreciation, anger, bitterness, loneliness, love. The current of circumstances. Has a decision you made about salvation caused things to be convoluted and confused in relationship to eternity? I mean, eternal security is not confusing. The Bible says these things are written so that you might know that you have eternal life. If you don’t know that you have eternal life, maybe you made a decision based on some sort of works, some sort of membership, some sort of creed that you followed. When the Bible simply says he that believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. The Bible says 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. We are all like unclean rags. Our righteousness is filthy before God’s eyes, Isaiah 64, 6 says. we’re really not worth much. It’s impossible for a self-righteous unbeliever to know he’s dirty since he compares himself to other people and says I’m not as dirty as they are, that’s relative righteousness. And it is impossible for a misguided Christian to determine God’s will since he or she does not use standard operating procedures before assuming some sort of emotional response. You know, like, this is God’s will for me. I’m convinced. That’s why impetuous people make permanent mistakes. That’s what you have to be careful for. That’s why you have to grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That’s why you must never base any decision based on emotions. rather than the word of God. Because if you do that, you’re gonna fail to recognize the decoy. Because you look at the circumstances. Oh, those little ducks look real, they sound real. They’re sitting down there in the pond and I can fly down and join them, bam, and he’s shot down out of the sky. You justify why it’s okay to go down there with all those others. And you buy into the lie and live your life on human viewpoint thinking. Because you let Satan dumb you down by distracting you from the word of God. You must grow in grace. You must learn God’s plan. And it all starts with the single greatest decision you’ll ever make. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. This is your host, Rick Hughes, bringing you the Flatline every Sunday, same time, same place. Hope you’ll join me next week as well.
SPEAKER 02 :
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.
