Monday, February 5th | Loving People Intentionally

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You've been replaced by the Clearview Today show. The verse of the day today comes from Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 and 5. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. You know, it's very simple. You love God more than anything else.

But it's so hard for us to do. As Christians, we love all the beautiful things of the world. And I think the easier life gets as time goes on, the more convenient life gets, the harder it is to love God. To love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? What about my comfort? What about this great life I have here on earth? What about my money and my success?

I would like to love my leisure, please. Yeah, seriously. And it's difficult. And I think it's in those hard... We always say it's in those hard times. It's harder to love God. But sometimes I think that it's in the difficult times.

It's almost easier to love God because I see how well he's come through for me every time. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's often been illustrated like the mountains and the valleys of life. When you're on the mountaintop, you're looking out. But when you're in the valley, you have no choice but to look up.

Yes. So when life is difficult, we're kind of prone to look toward God. But when life is good, a lot of times we can be lulled into complacency or comfort and neglect our relationship with God. That's a good illustration, man. Did you come up with that? I don't think I did.

The valley... I'm pretty sure that's not original to me. But you don't know where you got it. I don't know where I got it from. That's pretty good. I'm not comfortable taking credit for that.

Let's patent it and then go after anybody, legally go after anybody who uses it. Sounds great. Circle C Ryan.

I loved it. All right, so two things. Number one, clearly, clearly if you're watching, if you're listening to us on the radio, nothing is different. Absolutely nothing is different.

You get to keep on with the ground. We sound exactly the same. But if you're watching the video podcast, you can tell we are in a... No, it's not a new studio. It's the same room, but we've completely redone the room. Feels new. Feels new. It's got that radio vibe.

You know what I mean? It's got the acoustic panels on the wall. It's got the gray walls. It's got a little bit of mood lighting. It's got the vibe.

New studio, new us. Same delicious content. Same delicious content. That was the number one thing. Number two thing. I've been watching children's programming with my kid, with Gavin.

Sure, as you do. Why does Bluey hit so hard? Bluey does go hard.

You ever seen Osmosis Jones? Like, bam! Oh, why you hit so hard?

Why you hit so hard? So, a children's show has no right being this emotional. Make me in the feels. Get me right in the feels. I don't know if this is just a thing that parents do, but you'd just be sitting there ignoring it and then you'd just be finding yourself watching it.

And with some stuff, it's like Cocomelon or what Mickey Mouse Club has. This is mindless. But then I'm watching Bluey and I'm like, oh my goodness. Dr. Shah, obviously he's had kids. He's had four that have kind of grown up under him.

I would imagine that he's been sucked into one or two or maybe more times. I have a picture. Yo, I have a picture of Pastor Shah looking at his two boys laying in the floor, heads touching, looking at this little CRTV that's that big. And they're just watching it together, the three of them. And I think they were watching Robin Hood, Disney's Robin Hood or something. Yeah, we'll bring it up.

We're gonna ask him about that when he comes back in. But write in and let us know if you've ever found yourself sucked into children's programming. What was the show?

And would you recommend it to adults now? It happens. Write in and let us know.

Call us now at 252-582-5028 or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be right back. Hey, hey you. Me?

No, not you. You, listening to the Clear View Today Show. You're here right now because you love Christian talk radio and I'm 100% down for that. But what if I told you that Clear View Church also produces original music?

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You can worship God in any situation. In the car, at home, in the gym, while cleaning your house, wherever you are, we'll be right there with you. You can check us out on Apple Music or on Spotify, anywhere digital music is consumed. We've got a few singles out right now. We have an EP out as well and right now, at this moment actually, we are working on our first ever full length original album.

Hopefully that's going to be out sometime this coming summer. Clear View Worship on iTunes and Spotify is your 24-7 place for inspiration and worship. Follow us today and let God's message of hope, love, and faith be a guiding light in your life.

Amen. Let's hop back into the show. Welcome back to Clear View today with Dr. Abbadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. That's right. We're here once again in the brand new, renovated Clear View Today studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is still a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show. New studio, new us, but some things just don't ever change. That's right.

That's right. Let me ask you this because some things that do change, we were talking about this earlier, is kids TV. It used to be there was a time where, like when I was a kid in the 90s, kids TV felt like it was just gold, just pure T gold.

Oh man, that was prime era. Felt like in the 2000s it got like, and maybe even in the 2010s, it got so obnoxious. I'm talking about like Yo Gabba Gabba. I'm talking about like the Backyardigans.

It was just obnoxious to watch. Now my son is watching Bluey. Yeah. And I'm in here like 31 years old, grown man, and I'm into this show. I'm like, this is for real.

This hits hard. Did you ever feel like that when you were watching kids shows with your children? Oh yes, definitely.

Really? Yeah. It felt like, man, you don't know the shows you're missing. Animaniacs. That's a show. You know, stuff like that. And then in time you realize now there's, everybody has their shows. There are some shows that came in the 2000s that I would say is, they were just weird.

Oh yeah. That was a cat dog. Cat dog was not allowed in our house. I was never a fan of cat dog.

Cat dog. I never got into cat dog. Not allowed in our house. Our parents did not let us watch it. Yeah, like, no, we're not going to have these half, half, half breed animals. It's an abomination.

For real, my mom would not let us watch cat dog at all. Really? Nope. Yeah. No honey, that's not going to work here.

No, we're not going to do that. You can have your Hey Arnold. You can have your Doug funny, but we're not. Cat dog wasn't doing you any favors.

I mean, our kids used to watch, what was that? Clifford the big red dog. Yeah, Gavin likes Clifford. Yeah, Clifford's good.

Clifford's a staple. Franklin. Franklin. Franklin. Franklin.

I forgot about Franklin. And then of course, SpongeBob, which you were not allowed to watch. I was not allowed to watch SpongeBob. I was not. And then, so like, when I, when I got to the point where there wasn't like an allowed, not allowed list anymore, I was like, let me watch SpongeBob, see what I'm missing out on.

And I just, I guess I'd pass that point as I could not get into it. No, see, I didn't watch SpongeBob as a kid, but I watched it in college and I thought it was the greatest thing. I was like, I can't believe I've skipped out on this all these years.

This is so great. I would never have pegged you as a SpongeBob fan. It began with just sitting there watching the kids watch SpongeBob, and it was initially we would hear, you know, it's like, don't let your kids watch them, their brains are gonna turn to mush. And we were like, huh. And then I sat there, watched one time, and I'm like, this is actually funny.

This is actually funny, and so. Did you and your brother, when y'all were kids, did y'all ever fight over what y'all were gonna watch on TV, like what cartoons you guys were gonna watch? Little bit, but it was not the same. You know, by the time we got TV, it was in the early 80s. And yeah, that's when we got our TV. And so Spider-Man would come on. Spider-Man was the one I would watch. And there was Knight Rider, you know, shows like that. And then there were also He-Man.

By the power of Grayskull. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, a lot of times with those TV shows, especially in those nostalgic eras where maybe you and your sibling are close in age, there's a lot of fighting that happens over what to watch. What's on, do I get the TV? We deal with that a lot in our house. Did your kids deal with, did your kids fight over the TV?

Yeah, oh yeah, they did. The girls or the boys more? The boys would fuss about it, I want it, I want it.

And so we were like, okay, you gotta. And usually they ended up watching it and the girls had to go along with it. Sibling rivalry at its best. It's easier to tell you guys, just don't worry about it.

You can watch something you wanna watch later on. But in that, you have the opportunity to teach your kids that even in this sibling rivalry, in this tension, it's important for you to love one another. You are siblings, you're never gonna not be siblings, so it's important for you to love one another. And that's what we're talking about on today's episode, although not in the context of biological siblings, but in the context of the church family.

That's right, that's right. Well, we're gonna talk about Peter today. Peter is talking to the church and people are going through some fiery trials and he wants them to know that this is not the time to abandon that love, this is the time to almost double down on loving each other. I mean, the message applies to us in the church today. Instead of fighting against each other, just know that as the pressure mounts, as trials get worse, as the world becomes more and more antagonistic towards Christianity, towards the church, we gotta love each other even more. It's a choice, it's a decision, we have to do this.

That's right. And it's one of those things, especially here in February, everybody's talking about love, everybody's thinking about love. Love is in the air. But the world's definition of love doesn't really come from the Bible these days.

We're not talking. It's emotions. Yes, but it's also emotions brought about by sinful desires, by perversions of Judeo-Christian values, is what I was trying to say. And we all must end up talking past each other when we talk about love around this time of year.

That's right. And so true love in the family comes from being set apart and being born again. That's where true love comes from.

And the times are dark, but God is sovereign and we can, and we should love each other. Whether we're going through a crisis right now or not, or whether we're going to go through a crisis in this nation again, we have to be used, I think we overuse the word intentional. It's like, anytime you want to sound very knowledgeable, just use the word intentional. Yeah, just do it intentional. Just do it really intentional time. Which really would be intentional during this time. I've seen that people get asked a question and when they don't have the answers, it's like, you know what, what I think is be intentional. Yeah, that's right.

Whatever you do, do it on purpose. Yes. So, but here it really means it, which is when you're going through a crisis, be intentional about loving one another. That's right, that's right. So the passage here is First Peter chapter one, verse 22, which says, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit, and since you love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. And I love that he says that this is a pure heart. And you can't fake it, you know what I mean?

I can fake my smile and I can fake my nice words, but I can't fake that pure heart. And eventually people will see that. Yeah. So what was happening was, in the early church, and Peter is writing to the pilgrims of the dispersion, these are Jewish and Gentile background believers. I would say primarily Jewish background believers who were scattered in the diaspora, especially around Asia Minor, but also Gentile background believers who are now in the church who are also being addressed as pilgrims. But they are Christians. They're Jewish background believers.

They're not just Jewish people. Jewish background believers, and Gentile background believers, and they were being ostracized by their families and they were facing discrimination by society from their neighbors, and Peter was telling them, don't lose that love for each other. Brotherly love. And interestingly he talks about that in 2 Peter chapter one as well. One of the attributes of climbing this ladder of spiritual growth is brotherly love.

That's a good point. It's different than just love. Yeah, because when you are growing, your love grows, you know what I mean? When I'm stagnant and when I'm not growing, I feel these things that I call love, but it's not really biblical love, and how could I be growing in the Bible and not be growing in my love? Well, that's a marker for our faith, too, is that if we're not displaying brotherly love, love among each other, then are we truly saved? Do we understand what it means to be saved?

Do we understand what it means to be a part of God's family? Right. In fact, Peter is trying to get them back on track. He does that in 2 Peter, but he also does that in 1 Peter.

In three areas. The first one is holiness. He wants them to know that times of trials can cause us to lose our moral compass and feel entitled to indulge in sin. Don't do that. Instead, be intentional about being holy. Yeah, there's no time that we see morals start to tank in people than when they go through a crisis. Just don't lose your values. This is not the time to say, well, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

I might as well do this. Yeah, with all that going on, God's not gonna care about this one little thing. He doesn't care about me fooling around over here or messing around or having a little indulging here. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And Peter is telling them, no, it matters.

It's like this. With all the craziness happening in our world during the pandemic, the IRS still sent out your taxes. That's a great point. They still collected their money. We didn't worry about those envelopes circulating.

No, they still came. So also think about it. God is billion, trillion, so much more than just the IRS.

Don't you think he keeps an account of everything that you do? That's right. Crisis or not? Yeah. So holiness is one. Secondly, misguided fear. Times of trials can also cause us to become fearful of people, of circumstances, and instead we are to fear God. Make sure that we don't have misguided and misapplied or misappropriate, I guess, fear. We need to have fear for God, who is our Father, who is our judge, who will judge us without partiality. Keep our eyes on him. It's a good point because I think when we fear things, when we fear worldly things, not only are we failing to trust in God, but we are giving that part of ourselves that belongs to God to that thing. Not that we're to be anxious about God and facing him or be frightened, but that reverence and that weight that belongs to him is going to that other thing. I also love that this is Peter. This is Peter talking, the one who did have fear, who did get off track, and he's the one that's saying, hey, don't do what I did.

Don't make me say what I did. Right, right, I love that. He's speaking from a place of experience. So holiness, misguided, fear. But the third one, which is our focus today, is our love for each other. And he uses the word, he says love of the brethren. It's coming from two Greek words, which is Philadelphia, which is Philos, is love, and Adelphos, is brother. And we get, of course, Philadelphia, which was the name of two ancient cities. There's a city in Jordan, Amman, was called Philadelphia, but also there was a city in Asia Minor. I went past it, didn't get a chance to go into ancient Philadelphia, but he is referring to the love of the brethren, not necessarily just the city. And Peter even uses this adjective called anupakritas, anupakritas, which means without hypocrisy.

Anu, hippokritas, without hypocrisy. Means be sincere, be genuine in your love for each other. Don't pretend. I guess that kinda comes back to that time of crisis where we, like, I can fool people when things are at peace, but in times of crisis, your true colors, I guess, come out. You know what I mean? Yeah, pressure can either bind us closer to each other or it can break us apart. And so, do examine your heart. Do you really love this person? Do you really love the people that God has put in your life? Whether it's family, whether it's your church family, do you really love them? And if you don't, it's going to show. When the pressure mounts, you're gonna break, and it's gonna break your friendships, it's gonna break your relationships, if it's not genuine.

Do you think that's why so many people fall, I don't wanna say fall out of love, but they just expect this kinda warm, fuzzy, like emotional high, and then when things get tough and they don't feel that, they say, I guess I was never really in love, or I guess love is gone, or love is faded. That's right. You know, there was a famous personality, this is going back in the 60s, 70s, by the name of Dr. Leo Buscaglia, okay? And he was known as Dr. Love, and he would ask this question. Look at this and this. He said, do I have an ulterior motive for wanting to relate to this person?

Wow. That's a hard question to ask yourself. What is my motive? Am I being nice, am I being friendly, am I caring because I want this from them? Am I planning to change this person? I think those are good questions to figure out, do you really have brotherly love, or do you have this hypocritical love? Do I need this person to help make up for some deficiency in myself?

Let me repeat that again. I think it's probably gonna help somebody today. Do I have an ulterior motive for wanting to relate to this person?

Here's another one. Is my caring conditional? Am I trying to escape something? Am I planning to change this person? And do I need this person to help make up for a deficiency in myself? I'm almost scared to ask, but what do you do if the answer to those is yes?

Because clearly you're like, no, not me, of course not. I would say repent. Where appropriate, seek forgiveness. Sometimes it's best not to go to that person and say, hey, I've been loving you wrong. Yeah, I've been using you. Maybe not do that, but you can always. Maybe just go the Ed Sheeran route and just say, I love you better now.

Yeah, what you got, Dave? Well, the only thing that I wanted to kinda ask is, loving somebody and then helping them change, how is that bad if like, say there's a relationship, like a mentor, mentee, and they're loving them, but they're showing them how to change. How does, are you trying to change them apply in that situation? Well, this is, I believe what Dr. Basgaglia was saying is more changing them to fit my agenda.

That's what I was gonna say. Like, what he's talking about, I feel is more like, I don't want you to improve yourself. I want you to make life more bearable for me or more comfortable for me. Yeah, that's to do with the heart behind it. My motive. Yeah, my motive. If in our relationship you change and I help facilitate that process, then great, but that's not my goal in establishing the relationship. I'm not setting out to change you. Or it's the case of, I really need you to be more compliant with me so that I can get my work done or I can get this or I can achieve this. So for that, I'm going to change you and in a way manipulate that relationship so that that happens. But I think just, hey, I really care about you. I see that you're falling into this trap.

I want to help you. I don't know that that's what he's talking about. Well, Peter tells us two things that we can do so we can have sincere love for each other in the spiritual family. They're equally necessary and they're connected. And the first is this. Your life has to be set apart by obedience to the truth through the Holy Spirit.

Now, I would not have put that as one of the things. But that's what he does. You have obedience to the truth. How can you have this sincere love for the brethren? He says in verse 22, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. Since you've purified your souls. Right.

Oh, I see, I see. You've purified your souls in obedience. So the Spirit is the one who purifies your souls. Right. It's your obedience.

That's the contribution, I guess, quote, unquote. In sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart. But that's prefaced with, since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit. Now, the word for purification is hegnekates. Okay, hegnekates means consecration or being set apart.

It has the idea of these vessels being set apart in the temple for sacrifice and for offering. So, since you have obeyed the truth of the Gospel to the Holy Spirit, we've become set apart to love properly. Right, we've been, you have received Christ and now you're ready to love.

Right. To love properly. To love by God's standards. So, I guess the question is, have you been set apart?

Mm-hmm. Have you experienced God's salvation? Have you obeyed the truth of the Gospel? Yeah, which is in the series that we're going through right now at Clearview, on track, Dr. Shiley, you've said that as, like, if you think about it as a ladder, you can't even get to the ladder if you have not made that step of salvation. Right, your faith.

That's step one. That Christian faith is the base, that's like the floor that the ladder is resting on. Yeah, then you can start climbing, but we've gotta get to that first. Yeah. Right, salvation is the ground.

It's almost, I feel like, people are trying to put, like, a ladder in, like, an ocean or something and then getting upset that they can't climb it because it's resting on water. It doesn't work that way. Yeah.

Yeah, it's not gonna happen. So, it has to be done on the ground of salvation. That's right. The second condition that Peter talks about is that you have to be born again with an eternal nature of which love is the essence. You have to be born with an eternal nature of which love is the essence. Listen to what he says in verse 23, which is the very next verse. He says, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, corruptible means it's not eternal, having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Reminds me of when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus when he was saying you have to be born again. He must be born again. Right. He was confused. What are you talking about?

I can't, obviously, I can't do that. So, what does this born again imply? What does this rebirth imply? Well, of course, we were born once and we need a rebirth in heavenly existence, not just the earthly. Secondly, the rebirth was thought to be at the end of time but now through Christ it can happen right now in your soul. Wow. Yeah. I'm actually reading, so you actually gave me a book on New Testament theology and that's a big, big part of it, is the already and the not yet and how they're married together beautifully because they sound contradictory, like the kingdom is here, it's already happened. It hasn't happened yet. And they're both true at the same time, 100%.

That's really cool. And this rebirth happens through faith and love. Remember, we emphasize the importance of faith, faith in Christ, that first step of salvation or first step of the Christian life is when you receive Jesus Christ as your savior and king and you do that by faith.

And also love, you love him. And it's the living hope in the person of Jesus Christ and we begin to share in his attributes as children of God. This is all part of that rebirth.

Yeah. And I can go on and on and talk about how when you are reborn, you begin to live in a new community. Just like we had nothing to contribute to our first birth, we cannot do anything to merit our second birth. All this is part of being born again. But then there is a shift that Peter brings about in verse 24. He says, because all flesh is as grass and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass, the grass withers and the flower fades away, but the word of the Lord abides forever or endures forever. And now, this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. So he went from talking about loving fervently and being set apart to being born again to talking about the imperishability of the word of God.

Why did he make that switch, the shift? Well, Peter is actually quoting from Isaiah chapter 40, but in the Septuagint. Is it different in the Hebrew Bible? In a sense, it is. Yeah, Septuagint overall is the same, but there are some differences.

Some places, very big differences. Wow. So Peter quotes from Isaiah because Peter believed that the prophecy of Isaiah applied to his readers. And what was his prophecy?

Listen to this. In this passage, Peter is quoting from Isaiah where the introduction of the promises of God was making this people who were in exile in Babylon. So this is at Babylonian exile time, when Isaiah was writing.

Right, right. This is going back to the sixth century when the people of Judah were in Babylon wondering what had happened to God's covenant. And Isaiah, who came before all this, says in verse one, Isaiah 40, verse one, comfort, he has comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem and cry out to her that her warfare is ended and her iniquities pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. So Isaiah lived before the Babylonian exile?

Yes, of course. Okay, so he was prophesying about it, was still to come. That's why when people say, you know, man, the Bible is not an extraordinary book. Well, they haven't done their homework. Yeah, that's true.

Right? And they can always say, well, somebody made up the Bible. Okay, well, those are easy, I can just say, well, you don't exist. You know, we can all say things. Yeah, and I can start collecting evidence like that you don't exist. Like, I went and talked to people in London, they never heard of you. Yeah, I mean, we can make up stuff and that's not good.

But if we study the Bible scientifically and give it the same amount of attention that you give to any other piece of literature, it's amazing that this man, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gave this prophecy way down, for people way down the road. I see what you're saying. Do you guys wanna dive into Isaiah a little bit tomorrow? Yeah, I would love to. Let's do it.

Let's do it. So helpful for us. If you guys enjoyed today's episode or maybe you learned something about the Book of Isaiah or the importance of loving one another, write in and let us know, two five two five eight two five zero two eight, or you can visit us online at cleaviewtodayshow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website.

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