In this episode, Rick Hughes challenges listeners to examine their character beyond the surface. Through introspective teachings based on biblical scripture, he addresses common obstacles like worry and bad habits. Discover the importance of spiritual priorities and learn how the faith-rest drill can guide you toward a life of peace, balance, and divine alignment.
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 stick around. As we say every Sunday, 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration, education, all done without manipulation. What does that mean? That means we’re not conning you for money. We’re not going to try to sell you anything. We’re not going to ask you to join up, pay up, fess up, nothing like that. We simply want you to listen up as we try to verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If we can do that, then you have the freedom and you have the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. I’m so very grateful for all of you that have been contacting us in regards to our new book, These Things. You should have it by now. It should have been in the mail to you a couple of weeks ago. We have another book coming out very soon called God’s Grace in Aging. It deals with getting old and what God supplies as we get old and what God expects out of us as we get old. And like me, many of you may be getting on up there in years. So if you’d like to get a hold of that book, again, there’s no charge. We don’t sell anything. We depend on the grace of God to provide our finances. Even the radio stations are amazed that we don’t sell commercials. No, we don’t. You’ll notice that in this radio show, there are no commercials. We just act on faith. We purchase the time and we trust God will pay for it. And he always has and he always will because we’re doing exactly what he’s asking us to do. And if you’re learning anything, I appreciate you letting me know. My objective is to help you to understand what it means to be a mature believer, to what it means to get under a well-qualified pastor and grow. not just be another show you listen to on Sunday morning. Some of you say, well, I listen to five or six shows on Sunday morning, and I like yours the best. Well, that’s fine. But my show is designed to take you to a certain place to get you to be a mature believer to where you become a member of God’s pivot that sustains this nation through invisible impact. That’s our objective. And so we don’t want to be just another show to be just like a devotional. We want to be an instructional show to challenge you to get to spiritual maturity and grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That’s done in a local church under a local pastor who’s well qualified to teach from the original languages and explain what things mean, not just play games with you, not just be a cruise ship director and keep you happy on Sunday morning, but to give you the word of God. Most of the times, those types of churches are not very large. They don’t get a lot of people because people are really not interested in studying the Bible. They’re interested in being entertained on Sunday morning. Many folks are. I hope that’s not you. All right, with that off my chest, let’s get started. This is show 949. 949 Sundays God has provided the finances for us to be on the radio across America over 100 stations every Sunday morning. And today I want to talk to you about something invisible inside of you, something no one would ever see. Only God knows these things and this is going to expose a little bit of who we really are. This is called what is your true character? What is your true character? I know some of you are characters. I’m a character myself and I’m talking about the invisible part of you, the true character that God knows you to be. I was listening to a famous football coach a couple of weeks ago and heard him challenge his players in regards to their character. And he made the statement that the character is determined by your thoughts, your habits, and your priorities. Well, I thought this was a perfect assessment of a Christian who’s seeking to become a mature believer like some of you. Many of you have contacted me by letter, some of you by email, some of you by phone. And you’ve expressed to me that this show motivated you to become a mature believer like by learning and applying the 10 problem-solving devices in your daily life. If you don’t know what those are, then you don’t know what this show’s about. This show is called The FLOT Line, F-L-O-T, and we teach 10 problem-solving devices in the Word of God found, and if you learn them and use them, they act as a main line of resistance. And they will stop the outside sources of adversity from ever becoming stress in your life. But you have to learn them and use them. Do you even know what they are? If you’ve been listening to the radio show, you should. If you don’t, order the book, Christian Problem Solving. We will send you and you can study what these 10 problem solving devices are. Beginning with rebound, the need to confess your sin on a consistent basis so that you can stay filled with the Holy Spirit. and the need to use the faith rest drill so you can stand on the promises of God and maintain a relaxed mental attitude in spite of the circumstances. So let’s take a look at these distinct traits that this coach identified And by doing so, you will be adhering to the protocol plan of God if you learn and apply those 10 problem-solving devices, okay? And we want to look at these traits, determine your true character. Now listen, I’m not talking about the person that the church thinks you are. I’m not talking about the person your spouse thinks you are. I’m talking about the person God knows you to be. What is your true character? And it starts with your thoughts, your thoughts. The real you is what you think. As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is, the Bible says, and that’s the real you. Right up there between your ears, God gave you two ends, one to think with, one to sit on. The one you think with is the one you need to operate on, okay? So what about your thoughts? How does that determine your true character? Well, first of all, let me be the first to tell you this. Forget your past failures. Forget the mistakes you’ve made. Forget the sins you’ve committed in the past. Some of you are incarcerated right now and you have guilt. Forget it. If you do what God says do, move on in your life and don’t look back and don’t be manipulated by your guilt. Here’s what Paul said about his guilt, Philippians 3.13. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have yet taken hold of it, but one thing I do. Now listen carefully. I forget what is behind me and strain towards what is ahead of me. That’s your objective. Forget your failures and strain to become a mature believer. Now, the Apostle Paul did not have a stellar track record when it came to what he did in the past. I’ll read you just a little of it in Acts 22, 1 through 5, where he said, Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense. And when they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. And Paul said in verse 3 of Acts 22, I’m a Jew born in Tarsus of Sicilia, but brought up in this city, Jerusalem. I stunted under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the laws of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are here today. They were trying to kill him, by the way, when he gave this speech. I persecuted the followers of the way, that’s Christians, to their death. arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, even as the high priest and all the council can themselves testify that I did that. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. Now he said all of these things to the Jews who were upset about him being in the temple taking a Nazarite vow. They drug him out of the temple and they were trying to kill him. In Acts 21, 29 through 32, listen. They had previously seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, in the city with Paul and they assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple. The whole city was aroused and the people came running from all directions, seizing Paul, dragging him from the temple. And immediately the gates were shut. Oh, this is all the apostles, James, and the bunch shut him out. And while they were trying to kill him, the news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. And the commander took some officers and soldiers and ran to the crowd. And when the rioters saw the Roman soldiers, they stopped beating on Paul. And the Roman soldiers then, that’s the end of that passage, but the Roman soldiers then quieted the crowd and And they gave Paul an opportunity to speak in his defense, and I just read that to you. What I read is that what he told his past zealous behavior towards followers of Christ. He killed them, he put them in jail. Maybe there are things in your past that you might be ashamed of. Can I remind you that at salvation, everything in your past was wiped away? In 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. Old things have passed away, and behold, all things have become new. I mean, how much clearer could it be than that? The day I accepted Christ as my Savior was the day I became a new person in Christ. That verse in 2 Corinthians 5.17 is a demonstration that God has cleansed you of your past sins, and you should understand that if you use Rebound, As we talk about problem solving device number one, it will allow you to be cleansed from your current sins moment by moment. The important thought for you to remember is that you only need to confess a current sin one time, not several times. And that type of misunderstanding will allow guilt to form in your attitude. And it’s tantamount to unbelief in what the scriptures actually said about confessing your sin. So if you failed and if you committed a sin, You just go to God and admit the sin. If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all wrongdoing. And that means even the ones you don’t remember, 1 John 1, 9. But you don’t have to confess it 10 or 15 times because you feel guilty about it. The Christian life requires a new way of thinking your thoughts. We call that learning to think in divine viewpoint. And this is taught in Romans 12, 1 through 3. Here again, Paul wrote, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world. Be transformed, listen, here it comes, by the renewing of your mind. Change the way you think so that you may prove, he went on to say, that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God for your life. This new way of thinking, divine viewpoint over human viewpoint, is mandated in Philippians 2.5 where the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus. It’s obvious that God wants you to think like he thought. Well, how did he think? Well, the next verse says he humbled himself and made himself of no reputation. And humility is the key to it. This type of thinking, the mind of Christ, divine viewpoint, requires us to use the same mindset he had during his earthly ministry, and it was based on humility, not on arrogance. So Paul would even tell you what you should think about. Your thoughts have to think about what? Philippians 4.8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure… Whatever things are lovely, whatever things are good report, if there’s any virtue, if there’s anything praiseworthy, think on these things. Did you hear anything about getting revenge, getting even, revenge motivation? No. You have to have a new way of thinking to have the type of character God’s looking for. You have to change your thoughts and think different. Think divine viewpoint based on the scriptures. The next thing I want to look at that will determine your true character is called your habits. Now we looked at your thoughts, let’s look at your habits. This simply means as a believer who wants to glorify God, you have to stop letting sinful habits control you. The Bible indicates we all have a sin nature which we receive from Adam and Romans 5.12 tells you that. For by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. But the wonderful thing is now that we have received Christ as Savior, we’ve been given the Holy Spirit whose job is to guide us through time into eternity. But there’s a conflict in the mentality of your soul, and the battle rages over who’s going to control your habits and who’s going to control your thoughts. Galatians 5.16, Paul wrote, I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. That’s your habits. That’s what you’ve been doing in the past before you got saved, or maybe even doing now. Maybe you have some bad habits. You don’t need me to point them out. You know what they are. The Holy Spirit will tell you. So the flesh, verse 17, wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh. And they are contrary one to the other so that you don’t do the things you want to do. Those habits are strong. They’re hard to break. The only way you can break out of that is to allow the Holy Spirit to control your life and to take in the word of God and grow spiritually. The Bible tells you in Romans 6, 12, don’t let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust. Don’t be addicted to those habits. So the key to being consistent in your spiritual life is simply your volition, your chooser, your decider. If you don’t allow the Holy Spirit to fill you, if you don’t allow the Holy Spirit to control you, then you will simply be a creature of bad habits. These habits can be called flaws, self-induced flaws. They come from neglecting your responsibilities spiritually. The good habit that we all need is to daily feed on the word of God, and that’s why we’re mandated to grow spiritually in 2 Peter 3.18. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. You can never have a flatline in your soul’s mentality if you don’t obey these mandates. Grow, study 2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. It’s obvious I’m not talking about a short 10-minute devotion each morning. I’m talking about listening to a well-qualified pastor teach the scriptures to you, hopefully on a daily basis. Why is that important? Ephesians 4.11, and he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, that’s me, and some pastor teachers, that’s the person I’m talking about, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all come to the unity of the faith of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ, so that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and be carried about with every wind of doctrine and by what by the trickery of men who lie and wait to deceive you but speaking the truth and love we grow up into all things grow up into him who is the head even christ so that habit of being consistent in your bible studies requires a volitional decision for you to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and for you to locate and find the pastor teacher who can shepherd your soul. Unfortunately, many people neglect that, and this habit never grows to spiritual maturity. They never get in the habit of studying daily. They always have an excuse. Well, I’m raising children. Well, I have a job. Well, I have a hobby. Well, I have this. I have that. I don’t have time to study. Listen, I’m not a pastor, but you can listen to The Flatline anytime, anywhere, any day. We podcast this show on Spotify, Anchor, Apple iPod, and you can tap in like the millions of others that have done that, and you can listen daily, and you can pray that God would show you where there’s a pastor you can study under. I’m not him. I’m just pointing the direction. When you find him, you need to get a habit of listening on a daily basis every day. You know, one of the reasons you need that is Hebrews 5.12. For though by this time you should be a teacher, now unfortunately, I added that word, you need someone to teach you again the very first principles from the plan of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone, everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. He’s still a baby. But solid food belongs to those who are full age. They have good habits and good thoughts. That is, those who by reason of use, habits, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but evil is a system, not necessarily an act. It’s a total system manufactured by Satan to manipulate people in this world. And the number one evil thing in this world is organized religion. So next we have to examine something else. We’ve examined your thoughts. We’ve examined your habits. Perhaps we should examine what? One other thing, your priorities, your priorities. That’s the last building block in your true character, your priorities. In Matthew 6, 25 through verse 34, this is what Matthew wrote, quoting the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, I say to you, do not worry. Do not worry. That’s a priority. You have to get to that point by building the flat line in your soul, using the faith thrust drill, standing on the promises of God. You don’t have to worry. Worry is a sin. If you’re worrying, if you’re anxiety, if you’re being controlled by stress, you are in sin as a Christian. You don’t have to let that happen. You can be filled with the Holy Spirit and You can take God’s word, learn it, and use it, and trust it, and you can overcome your worrying. Don’t worry about your life, the Bible says in Matthew 6, 25. Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat, or don’t worry about what you’re going to drink. Don’t worry about your body or what you’re going to wear. Is not life more than food, the Lord Jesus Christ said, and is not the body more than just clothes? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. Are you not more valuable than a bird? And which one of you, by worrying, can add one day to your life or one cubit to your statue? So why do you worry about your clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow, and they neither toil nor spin, and yet I’d say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these flowers. So if God can clothe the grass, the field, which is today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Then you hear the challenge here. Oh, you of little faith. Oh, you of little faith. Therefore, stop worrying about anything, the Bible says in Matthew 6, 31. Stop worrying about anything. Don’t worry about what you’re gonna eat. Don’t worry about what you’re gonna drink. Don’t worry about these things. Set your right priorities. What is that? What is it saying? For after all these things the Gentiles seek, that’s unbelievers, for your heavenly Father knows you need these things, but you seek first, here it is, priority, priority, priority. You seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all of these things will be given to you. So don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient is for the day as its own trouble. So here’s a direct mandate. Do not worry about anything. It must be your priority. And I’m gonna tell you straight up, this requires you to get some spiritual maturity. This requires you to put trust and have faith in God’s plan. If you don’t have faith in God’s plan, using the faith rest drill, If you don’t have trust in God’s plan with personal love for God, you will worry. You will never have the happiness of God. You will never be occupied with Christ as long as you worry about your health, you worry about your home, you worry about your children, you worry about the weather, you worry about your money, you worry about all sorts of stuff. Don’t worry. Trust the Lord. Put it in his hands and walk away from it. Concentrate on something else. Put your thoughts someplace else. Your thoughts and your priorities and your habits are critical. Your priority must be your spiritual life. You hear me? Your priority must be your spiritual life, not your physical life. It must be your spiritual life first. That’s the invisible part of you. That’s the part people cannot see. See, you live that spiritual life in your head, in the thoughts of your head. That’s where you live it. As a man thinketh in his soul, so he is. You are what you think you are. That’s where your spiritual life is lived, right between your ears. And your priority must be to concentrate on that, not your physical life. Paul stated it this way in Philippians 4.11, not that I speak in regards to need, For I’ve learned in whatever state I’m in to be content. Here’s the key to the spiritual life, contentment. He said, I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I’ve learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. And then he says the amazing statement you should be able to claim. You should write it down and put it somewhere where you can look at it daily. I can do all things through Jesus Christ who gives me the strength. That’s actually your spiritual life. That’s the spiritual life of the mature believer that fuels the actions of the physical life. Again, it’s the spiritual life of the mature believer that fuels the actions of the physical life. Spiritual strength is much stronger than physical strength. 1 Timothy 4, 8, for bodily exercise profiteth a little, but godliness, that’s the spiritual life, the Greek word eusebia, godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and promise of the life that is to come. So when you reach spiritual maturity, it affects not only your life that you live now, but it affects the life you will have in eternity as well. So you must establish a routine of consistent Bible study. And if you do that, you will develop a rhythm in your life, sort of a rhythm. A rhythm moving through life like a beautiful sympathy. It’s not a sympathy, excuse me, a symphony. Like a beautiful symphony, I’m trying to say. So you want to have that rhythm in your life, and you’re moving like a beautiful symphony through your life. And the spiritual momentum that you develop with the right thoughts, the right habits, and the right priorities, that momentum of routine and rhythm will produce in you this wonderful character, strengthened with the faith rest drill, having confidence in God’s provisions and protection, as well as being comfort from having a relaxed mental attitude free of worry and fear. I want to say that one more time. When you have this sort of rhythm, when you have this sort of thoughts and priorities and the things we’re talking about, then your life produces a character, the true character, the invisible character, strengthened with faith, rest, drill, of confidence in God’s provision, confidence in God’s protection, as well as the comfort from having a relaxed mental attitude, living a life free of worry, and living a life free of fear. That’s your true character. That’s who you want to be. That’s who God wants you to be. I hope you paid attention. I hope you’re listening and hope you did a little gut check like me. Check yourself out. Is that you? Was I talking about you? Did you hear something in there that applied to you? Again, this is not a daily devotional. This is not a little feel good message. This is a challenge to you. for you to get with it spiritually so that you can be the man or the woman God wants you to be. I don’t care what your age is. If you’re still alive, God still has a plan for your life. And it’s time you got with it and quit wasting God’s time and wasting your time dilly-dallying around worrying about stuff you shouldn’t worry about, having the wrong priorities and thinking the wrong thoughts. You will never have that type of character until you get those things under control. You’ve got to think the right thing. You’ve got to have the right priorities. And you’ve got to be the person God expects you to be. Is that fair? Is that clear? I hope it is. I hope it is. The right thoughts, the right habits, and the right priorities make you the right person. And that means the person, when you get to heaven, you will hear the applause and you will hear, well done, my good and my faithful servant. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to order the book, God’s Grace in Aging. It’s available and free of charge as all our material is. Again, we solicit your prayer support as we continue to press on in over 100 stations every Sunday morning across America. Believing and trusting God will provide our finances. Thank you for calling. Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for your notes and your letters and your prayers. I’m very honored that you take a few minutes to listen to us today. Next week, we hope to be back same time, same place, same channel. Sometimes we move around to different stations. If you don’t hear us, call us and let us know what’s going on. So until next week, I’m your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Floodline.
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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.
