Friday, February 16th | God, You, and Others

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We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can do just that. The verse of the day today comes from Galatians 2, verse 6. But from those who seemed to be something, whatever they were, it makes no difference to me.

Doggone. God shows personal favoritism to no man, for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. Paul, you've got to chill out, Paul. Paul takes the Galatians to task, man. Bro, he ain't playing around.

He was not having it. For those who seemed to be something, whatever they were, it makes no difference to me. What he's saying is all the degrees, all the pedigrees, all of the religious elite who were... These were the Judaizers who were convincing the Galatian church that circumcision was necessary for salvation, right?

They were really well-to-do people. Paul said it don't make a doggone bit of difference to me. Because God shows personal favoritism to no man, for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me. It means all the education that you have, all of it. And Dr. Shah has said this himself many times.

All the degrees, all the PhDs, it means nothing at all. Nothing if it's not furthering the gospel of Christ. That's right, that's right. That should be our goal.

That's right. I had a question for you. And this is something that I think maybe could be used to further the gospel of Christ, but I think you'd really have to stretch to make that a reality.

We haven't done one of this in a while. Million dollars. I'm going to give you a million dollars. And I love that.

I love to see that. But you can only, for the rest of your life, the only way that you personally can spend money, even if it's money that's outside of the million dollars, the only way you can spend money, you have to spend it at Walmart. Sure. What? Sure, I'd say that. All your clothes are going to come from Walmart? Sure. All your groceries, everything? Yeah.

Most of my groceries come from Walmart anyway. Yeah, easy. I'd take that. Would you do it, David? The only way that you could spend money is at Walmart?

I mean, you get a million, but how are you going to buy a home? I would do that. I would not buy it.

I would be like, Elizabeth, I need you to buy this. Is it the only way I can spend that cash? Nope. The only way you can spend money. It's money at all?

Any money. You cannot make purchases from anyone or anything other than Walmart. All right, but then your wife's name is on your car, your wife's name is on...

If you spend even a cent in your name, it's got to be from Walmart. Sure. You can't put your name on the house.

You can't put your name on the car. Okay. What does that matter? What do I care?

You think they're going to get a divorce or something? No, I don't think that, but it's just not smart. And it doesn't make you look good. It doesn't make you look like a... Does a million dollars make me look good?

Yeah, but you can't spend it unless it's at Walmart. What do I care? I don't care. Don't you buy things that aren't from Walmart? Not anymore. Not anymore. And I'm exclusively Walmart, and I will be the most enthusiastic Walmart shopper. Really? Yep. Write in and let us know if you take that deal.

A million dollars, but you can only spend money at Walmart. I just think you're not seeing the whole picture. I think all y'all listeners, y'all not... I don't know the whole picture.

It looks like a million dollars to me. Tons of people are listening to like, yo, yeah, I would do that. I urge you, I beg of you, stop and think about that. I think as you go about your day, you're going to see, you know what, that's not... It is honestly astonishing to me that you would not take that.

I just think there's way more stuff out there that you can't get at Walmart. I don't know. Go for it.

252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at cleerviewtodayshow.com. Stay tuned. We'll be back after this. What's going on, listeners? My name is Jon.

And I'm David. And we hope you are enjoying the podcast thus far. You know, we really appreciate how many of you download the podcast every day.

Right. But we also want to remind you that we are first and foremost a radio show. Clearview Today is actually syndicated through the Truth Network. And we just want to let you know right now that in addition to hosting the all-time best Christian talk show of all time... Hashtag Clearview Today.

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Again, that's 336-759-0363. Well, John, are you ready? I was born ready, my friend. Let's hop right back in.

All right. Welcome back to Clearview 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 252-582-5020. That's right. And we're here once again in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abbadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. Dr. Shah, happy Friday. It's so good to see you today. Happy Friday. We are celebrating Friday style. You know, we were going to do lightning round questions.

People were clamoring for it. But the conversation yesterday turned out so good. I was like, you know what, let's just keep going. Did you love the conversation today? I loved. And I know you did. The only thing I love more than that would be to win a million dollars.

You know, I think I've changed my tune a little bit, and I think I would actually take the deal. Ah, see. I want to ask you, should I not say that? Isn't there a whole passage about loving money, like being the root of all kinds of people? Well, you know.

Either way. So, Dr. Shah, you get a million dollars. You get a million smackarootenies, right?

Right. But the only way you can spend any money from now on, not just the million, but the only way you can spend money is you can only spend it at Walmart. So here's my thing, because everybody thinks, okay, yeah, everything I need is at Walmart. But if you're overseas and you want to buy some paraphernalia or whatever, you want to buy some souvenirs that you can only get there, you got to get someone else to buy it for you now. If you take the million.

So here was my workaround for that. Just get Nicole to buy it for you. Did Nicole go to Israel in 2016? What else did she not go to? When we know this deal is in place, then she just goes on trips, and then she just makes the purchases overseas. Million dollars, but you can only spend money at Walmart. You personally. You can get other people to buy you stuff, but you can only spend money at Walmart.

I'll do it. What about all the Barnes & Noble? What about your books that you buy off Amazon and stuff? Are they going to give it to me for other reasons, too? What do you mean? Is it like million dollars for Walmart or else?

I mean, nothing else. No, it's million dollars, and you just can't spend any money at Walmart. So you can give... You can't make any purchases unless they're at Walmart.

You can give Nicole an Amazon order and have her order it, but you can't spend any money unless it's from Walmart. I mean... Walmart.com counts, I guess, but... Yeah, I mean, I'll take it. I'm floored.

See, I'm telling you. If it's like, hey, I know that there's this book that I want at Barnes & Noble. I obviously can't make the purchase because now I'm a millionaire.

Nicole, would you please order me this book? Yeah. Done. The end. Easy. I'm floored. Easy.

Let's continue. Easy. Easy answer. Easy answer.

David said he would take it, too. I think I would take it, and I would just get my wife to buy the other stuff, but what an inconvenience that would be. I mean, it's convenient to have a million dollars. Yeah, but part of being a millionaire is having a convenient, like, kind of easy life. You know, some would say that's their whole goal in life is just to get that easy, smooth... I'm not good at doing the transitions like you are. I was trying to follow you, but I... You do it. You do it.

You do it. So, I'm not even going to try to put that in your position. Yesterday, we began this conversation about, you know, this concept of love. Obviously, we're in Valentine's week, and people think about love, but we don't really think about what it means to love someone, because we talk about love in the way that we love cheeseburgers, or we love pizza, or we love, you know, football, or we love our wives. But the love that we have comes from, first, the love that Christ has for us. And then we spend some time digging into these seven different hazards that seem to separate us from the love of Christ.

Right. And we began with this idea, which I heard from my father-in-law, but it has been around for a long time, and I've heard it through other people as well, which is, unless I understand God's love for me, and how He loves me, I cannot truly love myself. And unless I truly love myself the way God loves me, I cannot truly love other people. And so, it is imperative that we understand how God loves us. That's right. So, we went to Romans chapter 8, verses 35 to 39, to understand how does God love us. He loves us beyond the physical hazards that we face in life. Right.

Because we think if these things are happening, it means He doesn't love us. Yeah. Now, if you think that way, then you're also going to see yourself as unlovable if you find flaws in you. If you see physical flaws, or I don't like the way I look, or I don't like the way I sound, or I don't like this about me. I hate my face, or my hair, or my body, or my family.

I just hate this. Well, when somebody says that, what they are saying is, I don't think God loves me. Right. And they'll even say, it's like, no, no, no, I know God loves me, I just don't like this about myself. Right.

No, you cannot exempt yourself from that equation. How you see God's love for you is how you're going to love yourself, and how you love yourself is how you're going to love other people. And you worded it in a very particular way that I really like just now, because you said God loves you beyond those physical limitations.

Right. And I think, like, we as humans, we love in spite of them. Which does imply that, like, it's like, hey, you know, my wife or my kids, they all have all these problems. They've got physical problems, they've got bad habits. I love them in spite of those things.

Okay, cool, that sounds great. But it does imply that it does, there's some give and take, there's some taking away. Right. But God loving beyond those things means those things don't even really enter into the equation with His love. Yeah.

And that's hard for people because they look at their physical problems, they look at the circumstances, ups and downs of lives, trials, tribulations, accidents, tragedies, sicknesses, and they go, He must not love me. Right. And that passage in Romans chapter 8 by the Apostle Paul is to remind us that in any of those situations, those seven hazards, God's love is not terminated. In fact, it even becomes more active. Yeah.

And more available to us. Have you talked to people who felt like God is using those things to punish them? All the time. Like, I know God loves me, but He's punishing me right now. They may not say it, but that's what they're thinking.

Yeah. Nobody wants to say that. It's like, I know God's punishing me. Few of them do, and I respect them because they're actually being honest.

Many don't, but that's how they see themselves. You know, God's given me what I deserve. Yeah. And it's like, oh, you have such a distorted understanding of God's love for you. Right. Because God loves you beyond this. And you cannot understand that unless you live by faith. Yeah.

It's only when you walk in the realm of faith that you can go, yeah, yeah, He loves me beyond that. Yes. Nothing can separate us. Okay. All right. You have to receive that by faith. But if you don't, if you go, I know what you're saying, but how about this? If you love me, this won't be okay.

Time out. You are either lost or you have not grown spiritually. Because if you are saved or if you're growing spiritually, the Holy Spirit is pouring God's love in your heart.

You wouldn't be talking like that. Yeah. And when you say faith, just so that people listening understand, you're not saying like, just blind hate. Just ignore your senses, ignore what you're seeing and just trust it.

You're saying your faith is the assurance that God has given you. Yeah. And you have to ignore your senses. You have to put your senses where they belong. Because if you live by the sense life or if you live by the emotion life, then those things are more important than God's promises. Yeah.

True. Those things are more important than what God has said to us. And what I'm saying is and what I'm suggesting is through the Word of God is put your senses and your emotions on the lower shelf. In fact, just remove them from the equation and let God's Word be true. Let God's promises be true. So it's not like I'm just going to bulldoze my way through this.

No, you're going to live the faith life. So many times our senses and our emotions can be the loudest part of us. They're the ones who sort of like are the flashiest or they come right to the front. They take the most amount of our space or our minds. But I love what you're saying about put those aside and live the faith life. Because that is an action that requires a choice and a decision and conscious effort on our part. Because it's not natural for us. Well, I think it's like that even on the internet.

Like with where we are socially as a culture. When you give even like we all know that there's people who are just loud and they're out front and they're saying things that don't make any sense. But when you start to give them even a little bit of ground, you do internally start to agree with them.

Even though you know that it's wrong because you're giving them that attention that they want. And so when those thoughts start to get in, you're like, well, I mean, I don't agree with it, but I do see they have a point. And it's only a matter of time before you do start going down that road.

And I guess it's the same with those emotions and with those senses. The more you feed into them and give them credence in your life, the lower your faith becomes. And then Paul says in Romans chapter 8 verse 38, he says, I am, for I am persuaded. I am persuaded. He's saying that he is completely convinced.

There is no doubt here. The Holy Spirit has so enlightened his heart that his will has been won over. That's always a good feeling when you're finally on board. Like, have you ever been talking to someone, you're trying to convince them of something, and then you see the gear shift in their mind? The light bulb moment. I'm that way that once I get it, I'm on board.

Like, I'm in. And this is not based on your knowledge. Because people think if I had more knowledge, if I had more wisdom, if I had more biblical knowledge or theological knowledge, that I would come to this. No, there are Christians who are living in the part of the world where they didn't even know how to read. But they know Christ as their savior. There are Christians who may not hear biblical sound, theologically astute, apologetical preaching every Sunday. But they are walking by faith. They are grounded in their faith. And they are persuaded. That's why they can be hungry and not doubt that God loves them.

That's why they can be going through persecution and lose family members and not doubt that God loves them. You know, we talked about that yesterday, all those physical barriers. But I think what's interesting is that Paul is also talking about some of those spiritual barriers as well. Yeah, there are spiritual hazards as well.

So let's look at them. He says, neither death nor life, for I'm persuaded, neither death nor life, neither the fear of the great beyond or the fear of tomorrow. Means if I have to die, God loves me. If I have to live, God loves me. Wow. That's a t-shirt.

If I have to die, God loves me. I'm writing that down. Permission to write that down? Go for it. Write that down.

That's a merch idea. That is. That's really good. And then, nor angels nor principalities nor powers means good angels who are perfect or bad angels who are evil or any other power can ever separate us, separate me from the love of God.

Wow. Just to back up and help our listeners and viewers, what we're saying here is if you understand God's love for you, then you can love yourself. That's right. And then, in turn, you can love other people the way you're supposed to.

And I love that you say that. I love that you clarified that because our culture says that loving yourself means excusing your sin. That's what that means.

Yeah. Loving yourself means giving yourself- Except every aspect of yourself, good, bad, and innocent. Every ugly impulse that you have, it comes from a place that's genuine. And if it's genuinely you, then it must be good.

Yeah. Or if you love me, then you're going to just excuse me or even endorse me for whatever I believe and whoever I think I am. That's love because you accept me unconditionally. God loves me unconditionally. I don't know if I want to say that.

Yeah. Yes, he loves me unconditionally, and that's why he gave his son to down the cross for my sins. Let's make sure we put that unconditional love at the right, you know, before or after the cross. Yeah, he certainly doesn't accept me unconditionally. Well, if you put it before the cross, yes, he loves me unconditionally because he gave his son to down the cross for me. But post-cross, once you know Christ is your savior, yes, he loves me unconditionally.

Hence, he wants me to become more like Christ, to prepare me for eternity, to prepare me to be used in the present. But what we say today about love is, you just love me unconditionally. If you love me, you won't be judging me. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. But what if there is a judge?

What if God's judgment is actually to help you become more like Christ, to be fulfilled, to find your reason and purpose? Right. And our world today says, if you love me, you're going to leave me alone.

True. Let me do my thing. Let me do my thing and just celebrate me.

I'm sorry. Wouldn't the loving thing be to course correct you? Wouldn't the loving thing be to bring you back to the way you were intended to live? And as your creator, God would know that.

Yeah. He knows why he designs you, and he wants to help you. Well, Christians have that faith as well.

When you're a Christian, you have that assurance that there is an afterlife. There is something coming. There's a judgment to come. And how loving is it for me to just sit back, put my hands up, and say, whatever you want to do, man. I'll let you face that. That's not loving.

I can't look myself in the mirror and say, I'm a loving Christian. I'll let that person go to hell, but I'm a loving Christian. Right. Or let them persist in their sinful life or whatever it is that they're doing that is contrary to the word of God. No.

The loving thing to do is graciously, kindly, compassionately help them. Yeah. That's right.

Right? But going back to what Paul was saying is he says, nor things present nor things to come means neither the cares of today or the calamities of tomorrow can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, nor height nor depth. And this sort of is somewhat strange.

It means nothing in the sky above or in the earth beneath can separate us from the love of God in Christ. And then finally, nor any other created thing. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case you miss something. Paul, you missed this one thing, and Paul says, nope. Nope. Not that either. This will cover the rest.

That's it. Can separate us from Christ Jesus. So how do you see God's love for you? And I hope from Romans chapter eight, you begin to see this is how much God loves you. Again, let's clarify.

If you immediately bring up some situation, some struggle, some problem, some hardship that you've gone through or some abuse that you went through, our heart goes out to you if you've been through abuse. But if you keep holding that up as if God loved me, he would not have allowed this to happen to me. I don't know, friend, maybe you need to either get saved or you need to really understand God's promises and God's nature and God's work in this world in your life. You need to spend some time understanding. Because if you are saved and if you're growing in faith, then you'll begin to see God differently and not just keep bringing up the same exhibit that says, oh, yes, but, yes, but, I don't know what to say to you.

Yeah, it's tough because we think that because God is perfect, he promises us perfect things. And I don't know where that thought comes from. And I have thought about it. It's conditional. It's all conditional. And then how you love yourself is all going to be based on how I was. Man, you're stupid. Come on, man, don't be stupid. I'm talking to myself. Why are you calling yourself that? Don't say that. That's not smart. I've said it before, so I take the accusation there to myself.

I've said that before and I have to go, no, don't say that. And then how I will love other people. Do I love them only when they are good and right and treat me well or do I love them in spite of that? That's tough. But if I see how God loves me in spite of all these things, then I'm going to receive myself the same way and then I will pass it on to you.

It's not going to be conditional. So much more depth in thinking about love and not just the love that we have for somebody in a romantic setting, but the love that we have for other people. That's tied to how we love ourselves. Like you just said, Dr. Shaw, that's tied to how we understand God loves us. And it's easy for us to map those tendencies that we have onto God. It's easy for us to map those shortcomings and those pitfalls that we have in our capacity to love or inability to love onto God. But God is perfect love.

He is the one who demonstrates for us what love ought to be. Well, that's why I like what you said, Dr. Shaw, when you said that if you truly think that, then you need to really... It's not like you need to stop thinking that. It's you need to understand God more.

That's the solution. Because like you said, I've done that before where I take what I know and I map it onto God. It's just a recipe for disappointment. God doesn't like me. You can make God out of people. Good people, bad people, families, or enemies.

I don't care who they are. If you begin to make how people treat you as not just a paradigm, but also as a source of how you're going to now love God, then you have the whole thing backwards. Because people are sinful. People are going to mistreat you. Family or friends, enemies, they will mistreat you.

Evil people, good people, it doesn't matter. And then if you evaluate yourself based on how they treated you, then you're going to then hate yourself. Someone calls you a jerk. I must be a jerk. And then why would God love a jerk like me? Well, you know what? He doesn't love me.

Because if he loved me, he wouldn't make a jerk like me. See, the whole thing breaks down. The whole thing is awful.

But that's what people do all the time. They make people and what people have said about them be the standard for how they see themselves. And then in turn, they have this distorted, weird, bad relationship with God. But if you go from top down... That's what I love about what you were saying earlier, is that through Christ, there's nothing that can make God love you less. No matter what I think about myself or no matter what others tell me about myself or even the good things that I think contribute to God's love for me, nothing can make him love me less because of what Christ has done. And you have to receive that by faith. Paul said, I am persuaded. He knows the truth, he knows the promises, he knows the word of God, and he's persuaded because the Holy Spirit pours the love of God in our hearts.

So that's where it's coming from. I read the word and I'm persuaded, but the Holy Spirit, the love of God has been poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. So now I can see the proper source of love and I can apply that love to my heart and then I can give or dispense that love to other people.

We've talked about a lot of the negative examples, like when people talk down to us, when people put those false ideas in our head, or even worse, when we start to listen to them or breathe life into them. But have you ever met someone who just exhibited that type of love that you're talking about? Oh, yeah. You mean love people conditionally? Yeah, unconditionally. You said one time that when you met your father-in-law, the first time you ever shook his hand. Yeah, he didn't have to love me.

I'm this guy who's dating his daughter, or just started dating his daughter, so he could have judged me, he could have hated me, but he just came with open hands, ready to shake my hand. And I just felt that this man loved me, you can tell, and that radically changed my life. Not immediately, it took time because I had been through hurts and struggles, not that I was perfect, but I had been through things that had made me hardened, that had made me very skeptical about church folks. And I grew up in church. I grew up with a father who was a pastor. I grew up in Christianity, but because of bad examples, poor examples of church people and lost people, I had become sort of, I was a hateful person. If I was a hateful person, Nicole would not have gone out with me, but I had this shield, I had this, I don't know how to say that.

It's like a force field. Yeah, like I know you, and I know what you're up to. I don't want much from you. I'll be nice to you, whatever you want, no problem, but you won't get so far in my life. And then God had to do that work, and he did it through Nicole's dad, and it helped me, and it helps me to this day. Again, I'm not perfect. Many times I don't love people the way I should, but I at least know where it's coming from and what I have to fix. It's not just people that I have to fix.

I have to fix my understanding of how much God loves me in Christ. Amen. That's so helpful for us. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, or if you learned something about how you ought to love other people, or how God loves you, write in and let us know, 252-582-5028, or you can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Don't forget, you can partner with us financially on that same website. Scroll to the bottom, click that donate button, and let us know what's coming from our Clear View Today Show family. Remember to visit MightyMuscadine.com, the sponsors of today's episode.

They've got a wonderful line of products. Use the promo code TODAY, that's T-O-D-A-Y, when you check out. It's going to get you a discount on your purchase, and a portion of your purchase comes right back here to the Clear View Today Show. John, what's coming up Monday?

Lots of great things happening this upcoming week. On Monday, we're going to be talking about what it means to be anointed. You know, Jesus was anointed.

What did that mean? That's a very specific word that a lot of times in church, we use it. And princess bride style, we use it, but I don't think it means exactly what you think it means.

You know, it's definitely one that's gotten overused some. So we're going to talk about what that anointing means. Lots of other things coming up throughout the week. George Washington's birthday is upcoming this week.

We're going to talk about two President birthdays in one month, and then we're going to be doing lightning round questions that was meant for today. Going to go on ahead and slap that on next Friday. So we'll see you then. Love it. Action packed week. Make sure you guys tune in. We love you guys. We'll see you Monday on Clear View Today. Thank you.