Join Rick Hughes as he dives deep into the concept of the FLOT line, a spiritual mechanism essential for every believer. Uncover the ten problem-solving devices that form the core of this approach and learn how each plays a pivotal role in your spiritual journey. Whether it’s through understanding the significance of grace orientation or the importance of confessions to achieve true spiritual fellowship, this episode offers valuable insights for believers looking to align their lives with divine directives.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please stay with me. We won’t bore you. I promise you, we’re not going to beg you for any money. We’re not going to sell you anything. We’re not going to try to manipulate you in any way whatsoever. We just want to give you some information. Hopefully that information will make the plan of God available. You’ll be able to understand it, and you can orient and adjust to that plan if you’d like to, because that’s my mission, to give you the good news, the greatest news I could ever give you, that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. We teach the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, on this radio show. You’ve heard me talk about it many times. I hope you have not forgotten what it means. But it means the Forward Line of Troops, FLOT line, F-L-O-T. And we have 10 unique problem solving devices on that FLOT line. These are things my pastor taught me many, many years ago. And these are very critical for you to understand. So we want to get into that today. And let me remind you that we are going to have a new book on this. My staff is working on the book right now. It should be ready by the first month of June, and you can order this book online free. It’ll be called Christian Problem Solving. We’ve already got it edited, and we just haven’t got it to the printer yet. Plus, we’ve got other things in the works. We appreciate your prayers. We appreciate all your enthusiasm and your calls. You can always contact us at P.O. Box 100 in the city of Cropwell, Alabama. P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054. Or if you need to, you can call us 800-831-0718. 800-831-0718. That’s Rick Hughes, Evangelistic Ministries Incorporated. Thank you for listening. Now, I know the information I’m about to give you this morning may be a repeat, but my pastor used to say, repetition is essential for growth. He would say it two or three times, like repetition, repetition, repetition. It’s essential for growth. You can ask any military recruit how many times he heard forward march about face at ease, repetition, repetition, drilled into the mind of the recruit until he could follow commands in his sleep. I think it’s time for me to do a little bit of essential repetition with you concerning the flatline in your soul. I think it’s very critical you understand what that is. Remember this, you have two lives if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and have indeed been born again. You have a physical life, which we can see, your body. You may be tall, you may be slender, you may be heavy, you may be light, you may be dark-headed, black-headed, white, black, brown, yellow, I don’t know what you are, but you have a body. God gave you a body, he made you. You also have a soul inside of you. And when we’re talking about the spiritual life, we’re talking about the soul. The spiritual life is lived in the mentality of the soul. The soul has mentality, the ability to think, logic, comprehend, reason. The soul has volition, the ability to choose. The soul has a conscience and even a self-conscious. But in the conscience, this is where all your norms and standards are stored, things that you live by. Your parents taught you when you were a little bitty child, brush your teeth, change your clothes, put on your deodorant. And your conscience reminds you of that daily. This is the way we work inside our soul, our mentality of our soul. Now listen, Satan’s very good at allowing you to play church. And you know why? So you can relieve your guilt complex. Yeah, he doesn’t mind you going to church, but at the same time, confusing you as to how the Christian life actually functions. So if AKA the devil, Satan himself, if he can confuse you so that ritual becomes reality, then you will never, and I say never, and I say never glorify God to the max. So let me make this extremely clear so you won’t forget it and you’ll understand it. You will have no spiritual life if you don’t understand the Flatline. The Flatline is an encapsulated picture of your spiritual life. And all 10 of those devices that we talk about, problem-solving devices, make up the essence of your spiritual life. It’s what it’s about. And let’s make it extremely clear. The first one, rebound, R-E-B-O-U-N-D, which is confession of known sin. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all our wrongdoing. Without rebound, then you would have no filling of the Holy Spirit, which is problem-solving device number two. Rebound solves a problem of sin. And number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit solves the problem of the genetically formed sin nature. But unless you have the filling of the Holy Spirit, then all of your religious ritual is totally meaningless. You hear that? Meaningless. Counts for nothing. Because God is not impressed and he’s not glorified by how sincere you are, nor is he impressed with your good deeds. When is the last time you heard a pastor tell his congregation that if they’re in attendance with unconfessed sin in their life, they’re doing a right thing but in the wrong way? When is the last time your pastor started the service with this challenge? Before we begin our worship service, I want anyone here to take a moment of silent prayer and look into your own life. If there’s any sin in your life you haven’t dealt with, name it now to God because what you’re doing, you’re sitting here with the Holy Spirit quenched in your life the Holy Spirit grieved in your life, and even though you might be in the right place, you’re in the wrong way, and you will get nothing out of this service. When’s the last time you heard a pastor tell you that? When’s the last time you heard a pastor start the service with a challenge to confess any known sin to God before we enter into worship? It’s critical. It’s critical. Why? Because your body may be present, but your mind may not be present. The spiritual life is lived in your brain, in your thoughts, in your soul, in the mentality of your soul. And you can show up to church and have on a nice outfit, even a nice Easter outfit, and be millions of miles away from what’s being said. Some people nod off, some people drift off, some people listen and don’t remember, some people thinking about the chicken in the pot they gotta change when they get home and eat lunch. When you go to church, if you are not filled with the Holy Spirit, you’re not gonna get anything out of it that has any lasting value. Why is that important? Because confession of known sin, problem-solving device number one, is the way we are filled with the Holy Spirit. And without the filling of the Holy Spirit, the whole thing, going to church, singing in the choir, going to Sunday school, tithing, is just human good or dead works. It counts for nothing for God. You would not want your pastor to be preaching with unconfessed sin in his life, would you? You wouldn’t want him to get up there and try to preach a sermon to you if he’s been lying to his spouse, if he’s been cheating on his taxes or been stealing from the kitty. You wouldn’t want that because the Holy Spirit would be quenched and grieved. Why would it be any different for you? It’s the same thing. The pastor must be filled with the Holy Spirit to accurately communicate the Word of God. And you must be filled with the Holy Spirit to receive the Word of God that’s been communicated and to comprehend it and to comply with it in your life. So if you don’t understand rebound, if you don’t understand the filling of the Holy Spirit, you are not living the Christian life. I ask people this all the time. Tell me, what’s the first thing any new Christian must learn? And it’s not how to tithe. It’s not how to pray. It’s how to rebound. It’s how to confess their known sin. Why? Because that’s the secret to being filled with the Holy Spirit. And you cannot live the Christian life unless you are filled with the Holy Spirit. And I’m not talking about beating a tambourine and singing do Lord while you foam at the mouth. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit that indwells you at the beginning of your salvation, that seals you, that gives you your spiritual gift and that fills you so that you can manufacture divine good in your life. It’s important you understand that. The sad truth for this is we’ve substituted ritual of religion for the reality of worship. We do all those right things, but we do them in the wrong way. Rebound and the filling of the Holy Spirit are essential if you hope to advance spiritually, and if you ever hope to glorify God with your life, you must live under the filling of the Holy Spirit. Listen to what the Scripture says about these things done in a wrong way. 1 Corinthians 3, 11 through 16, for other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. This is a builder metaphor talking about building a home. Now, if any man build upon the foundation, gold, silver, precious stones are wood, hay and stubble. Then every man’s work should be made manifest for the day will declare it. It will be revealed by fire and the fire will try every man’s work of what sort it is. And if any man’s work abide, which he has built there upon, he will receive a reward. And if any man’s work shall be burned up, he will suffer loss. But, but, that’s a conditional contrast here. But wait a minute. He himself will be saved, yet so as by fire. You can’t burn up the concrete foundation of the home. What are we talking about? Every dime you ever gave, every church service you ever attended, every prayer you ever uttered will be evaluated. Did you do it under the filling of the Holy Spirit or was it done under the energy of your flesh? You can do good things in the flesh. You can go to church with sin in your life. And you know, Sunday morning is when a lot of it’s committed when you get to arguing with your wife, arguing with the kids, arguing with traffic, trying to get there. Hurry up. Going to be late. Going to be late. Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. And by the time you walk in, you’re torqued up and out of shape and out of fellowship. You made a mistake. You didn’t even stop to confess your sin of bitterness and anger. And so what did you do? Well, nothing. You just went through the ritual and there was no reality to it. Living in the energy of the flesh is not rewardable. It’s just bonfire fuel, that’s all it is. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that all your personal sins are gonna be revealed in heaven. Just forget about that. There’s not gonna be a movie theater selling popcorn showing everybody what a sinner you are. All of your personal sins were paid for on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what he died for. What exactly will be exposed? At the judgment seat of Christ is your human good, not your sins, your human good. Those things that are dead works and glorified only you and your ego and did not glorify God at all. The filling of the Holy Spirit is how you got to understand this. You cannot live the Christian life without learning to use rebound and staying filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible. Can’t do it. and it has to be taught from our pulpits, and it is not being taught from our pulpit today. The next essential doctrine that’s critical for you to understand is problem-solving device number three, the faith-rest drill. Why is it critical? Hebrews 11, six, without faith, it’s impossible to please God. Okay, so I need to have faith. How do I get faith? How do I grow my faith? Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Unless you’re sitting under a good pastor that’s teaching you the Bible, you’re not going to grow your faith at all because it comes by hearing the word of God. That’s why we have the mandate found in 2 Timothy 2, 15. Study to show yourself approved unto God, not disapproved, approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You know where you’re going to be ashamed? You’re going to be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ when the bonfire goes up. Every nickel you gave, every prayer you prayed, every visit you made, you did it in the energy of the flesh, and it was no good. It was human good, works burnt up. How can you know what is right? How can you know what is wrong? as far as God’s plan goes for you if you don’t have some sort of spiritual discernment. I mean, this is what keeps you from being impetuous, acting on your emotions. That’s why you’re mandated to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s where the faith comes from. We study, we grow, we develop our faith. Why must I develop faith? Because the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. Second Corinthians five, seven. What does that mean? It means that faith is confidence and trust in God’s provision. Either he will provide for you or he does not provide for you, but either way you will never manipulate God. He’s not a genie. He’s not going to pop out of the bottle and solve your problems. Manipulation is a major issue in organized religion today. You give enough money, God will shine favor on you. If you do this, God will bless you. If you do that, God will bless you. That’s a lie. You want to get God’s blessing? Spiritually grow up, stay filled with the Holy Spirit, learn the Word of God, replicate the life of Christ, begin to think like he thought, and then you can have the plus H we talk about as a problem-solving device number nine. But just because you tithed, just because you got a perfect attendance record, it doesn’t mean anything. Congratulations, good job, way to go. Were you filled with the Holy Spirit when you did it? Or has anybody ever told you that before? Has anybody ever told you you better be filled with the Holy Spirit before you take communion? Because if you try to take communion out of fellowship with unconfessed sin in your life, the Bible promises you you’re gonna get discipline for that. How many times have you taken communion and the pastor never said one word about before we do this, let’s have silent prayer. Let’s make sure we get rid of any mental attitude sins, any sins of the tongue, any overt sins. Now’s the time to name it to God because he said if we would confess it, he’d be faithful and just to forgive us. We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is confidence. It’s trust in God’s provision. He will not be manipulated. So the Christian life requires an exercise in your faith. Our God rebuked his disciples in Matthew 8, 26, in the boat on the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a storm, calling them men of little faith, or some say short-time trusters. Storm blew up. They were in a boat. They thought they were going to die. Waves were going over the boat and the Lord Jesus Christ was asleep on the front deck, worn out from what he’d been doing all day long. And they woke him up and they said, save us, save us. We’re perishing. We’re dying. Help, help. And he looked at him and said, you bunch of short time trusters. He stood up and said, be calm. And the ocean got flat as a, just flat as a pancake. And they marveled, they said, what kind of man is this that can control this? It’s the Son of God, it’s the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he qualified, he questioned their faith. He called the men a little faith. Let me ask you a question, how’s your faith? One of the more than 7,000 promises in the Bible are yours. Here’s a fair question to ask you. If there are 7,000 promises in the Bible, how many can you quote? One? Two? Or do you think God’s a genie just gonna pop out long enough to help you and then go back into the bottle, make your problems go away? You must learn to walk by faith. This is what pleases our Father. Maybe, maybe the suffering that you’re going through was allowed by God for a reason. Huh? Maybe. Psalm 119, 71. It is good for me that I have been afflicted so that I might learn your statutes. Like what? Walk by faith. Walk by faith. Live by faith. Study to show yourself approved. Why do you think God puts these things into your life? To break your arrogance and to give some humility to you. You must learn the faithless drill, how to claim a promise in the middle of a crisis, how to develop a doctrinal rationale for reasons that could have happened, and then form a biblical conclusion. If the Lord’s with me, who can be against me? No sweat, I got it. It’s in his hands. There’s no reason to live afraid. There’s no reason to live in doubt. There’s no reason to live confused if you walk by faith. The next problem solving device that you must understand if you’re going to live the Christian life, as I said, these 10 problem solving devices are the essence of the Christian life. The essence of the spiritual life lived in your soul. The next one is grace orientation. If you don’t understand grace, you do not understand the gospel. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 said, for by grace are you saved through faith. There’s the two words right there, grace and faith. For by grace are you saved through faith, and not of yourselves, it’s a gift from God. What does that mean? It means you cannot earn your way to heaven. There’s absolutely nothing you can do that’ll buy you a ticket to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ did it all for you. And if you try to add your works to his grace, you’re simply cramped, cancel out the transaction. Like if you say, okay, I want to be saved, Lord. So I’m going to ask you to save me. I’m going to tell you that I believe in you for my salvation, but I’m also going to make sure that I do this and I do this and I do this and I do this. See, that’s trying to earn your way to heaven. If you can earn your way to heaven, you can earn your way out of heaven by not doing certain things, right? For by grace you’re saved. You didn’t have anything to do with it. Christ did all the work for you. If you believe in him and receive him as your savior, it’s a free gift. And I got news for you. God doesn’t take it back. He’s not an Indian giver. Learning to live by grace. Here’s what 2 Corinthians 5.21 says. He has made him, Christ, to be sin for us, you and me. So the one who knew no sin, Christ, that we, you and me, that we might be made the righteousness of God by means of him. Learning to live by grace means we depend on God’s provision in times of need. No begging for God to forgive me of my sin. No begging. Just use the grace provision of rebound. Don’t look back. No begging for money. If God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. Do your job. Keep your mouth shut and let the Lord provide your needs. learn to depend on God’s grace for your every need as per Matthew six 25. Therefore I say to you, take no thought for your life. That means don’t worry what you should eat, what you should drink, or for your body, or what you should put on your body. It’s not the life more than meat, and the body more than raiment. Look at the birds of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither gather into the barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them, and you are much more important than a bird. Even in times of extreme hardship, extreme suffering, grace orientation will keep you stable. Listen to this, this is Paul’s words when he was in extreme pressure. He was hurting a lot. And he said in 2 Corinthians 12, nine and 10, God said to me, this answer in his prayer, my grace, grace orientation, my grace is sufficient for you. for my strength is made perfect in your weaknesses. So most gladly, Paul said, I would rather glory in my infirmities, my weaknesses, my sicknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. Well, what is the power of Christ? It’s his grace provisions. It’s what God has graciously provided for you. It’s the spiritual life. It’s those 10 problem-solving devices. What did he say? Therefore I take pleasure, he said, in my sicknesses. I take pleasure in the reproaches, in the necessities, in persecution, in distress for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ because if I’m weak, I’m actually strong. That may sound like it’s confusing, but the weaker you are physically, the stronger you should be spiritually. because you come to realize that it doesn’t depend on your strength. It depends on God’s grace, grace provisions. That’s living grace. They’re saving grace, saving grace, and even dying grace. Yep, dying grace. What does that mean? It means that death is a matter of the sovereignty of God based upon his omniscience of all the facts. Psalm 68, 19, blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us up with benefits, even the God of our salvation. He that is our Lord, he that is our God, is the God of salvation, and unto God the Lord belongs all the issues from death. Because of his perfect sovereignty, he is able to pick the right time, the right place, and the right conditions for our death. God predestined that in eternity past, so we don’t have to worry about it. Because what did Paul say? For me to live is Christ and dying is profit. Philippians 121. Our God provides dying grace for the believer, you and me. Amos 5.8, seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion and turneth the shadows of death into the morning and maketh the day dark with night that calleth for the waters of the sea and pourth them out upon the face of the earth. The Lord is his name. The shadow of death into morning. To be absent from the body, to be face to face with the Lord. Dying grace is the greatest blessing in living. It’s unbelievable. And if you don’t understand that doctrine of grace orientation, you cannot execute the faithless drill, nor can you ever glorify God. That’s why I said it’s essential you know this. There must be total trust and there must be total dependence on God’s grace in everything to give him maximum credit and maximum glory. Next comes doctrinal orientation, another problem-solving device. And it’s based on the doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness of your soul. Hebrews 4.12 says the word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to separate the soul and the spirit, both the joints and the marrow, and able to evaluate the thoughts and the motivations of the heart. All of those 10 problem-solving devices that we will talk about are built on the word of God that circulates in your stream of consciousness called your soul life. And the basis for understanding all that information with regards to your spiritual life, it’s in the Bible. Bible doctrine will be here long after we’re dead because Bible doctrine is always powerful. Even if we’re weak, there is no substitute. There is no substitute for Bible doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness and your thoughts. That’s the faithless drill, understanding, knowing these doctrines, believing and living by them because the word of God penetrates into the human soul and the human spirit through the teaching ministry of God, the Holy Spirit, filling of the Holy Spirit. Thus, all believers have equal ability to understand Bible doctrine. The word of God is able to evaluate your thoughts and your motives, the motives of your stream of consciousness. When you have Bible doctrine in your soul, you evaluate your thoughts and your motivations. Do they come from Bible doctrine circulating in your stream of consciousness? If they do, then you can evaluate your own life and develop your own motivation. You can only learn and function with reference to God’s will through the knowledge of God’s word. The word of God is designed to make us effective in the execution of his will, his plan, and his purpose for our life. Doctrinal orientation is the basis of correct understanding of scripture. Are you hungry to learn the scripture? Are you motivated to take in the word of God daily? Because without positive volition towards the intake of the scripture, you will always be what the Bible calls a lukewarm Christian, and you will never glorify God to the max until his word becomes the most essential ingredient in your life. You must absolutely do whatever it takes to find that source of daily teaching. It’s been a tough lesson. I hope you’re listening. I poured it out to you. I hope you’ll pay attention and come back next week. 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.
