In The Showroom Of Grace Your True Value Is On Display

Hi, this is Nikita Kolov from the Q&A with Kolov Podcast, where you, the listener, get to ask me the questions, where you get a personal phone call from the Russian nightmare. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a moment. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things. Welcome to the Christian Car Guy radio show. I say this calls for action and now.

If only they could read between the lines. I wanna go home. I wanna go home. Oh, I wanna go home.

Here's my year, oh Lord, my God. Take me to your door this day. I will serve you eternally. A free man I'll never be. In the showroom of grace, your true value is on display. Yes, today's Christian Car Guy show. I love this title, by the way.

I'm gonna think about it for maybe a long time. In the showroom of grace, your true value is on display. And so grace is that word that I'll never forget as long as I live when I came to understand its true value and meaning.

It has to do with favor, like being highly favored, like being somebody's favorite. And I've said this for years that when you're in somebody's presence and you feel like, oh man, I'm their favorite, that's grace. And Jesus is what?

Full of this. He abounds in it. And so when you're in Jesus's presence, you know that you're his favorite. You know that you are highly favored. And so if you're in somebody's presence and you don't feel favored or you don't feel like you're their favorite, guess what? That's disgraceful.

I mean, it just is. But if you feel grace and you feel favor, you're feeling Jesus is what you feel like. And so when you're in the showroom of grace, which we're gonna get to, and it has to do with cars and all that stuff, then you're gonna feel like home. That's why you heard in that song, you're my favorite things, and then you heard about home, and then you heard something about piercing your ear. We're gonna get to that.

That's really beyond cool. So you heard Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, favorite things, and then Bobby Bear, who I wanna go home. And of course I do. I wanna go home. I wanna go to that place where I feel highly favored. And if you listen to all that song from Detroit City, you know, where he made the cars, his whole problem was he didn't feel loved where he was.

He didn't feel appreciated. He wanted to go home where his parents were, where he knew he was somebody in their eyes, right? And then you heard, of course, Pierce My Ear by Michael DiIlla. And oh, it's that cool when we get to that.

But here's the thing. When have you felt like you were in that showroom? When in your life did you feel like, man, oh, this is home.

This is heaven. This is a place I'm highly favored, and all my anointings and giftings and all that I am is clearly on display. I would love to hear that story.

866-348-7884, 86634 truth, and today's show is brought to you by the Hebrew letter Mem, which is the word in Jesus, but it is also water. And that's going to be very connected to the idea of piercing your ear. We'll get to that. But I got to tell this story. A dear friend of mine, a dear, dear friend of mine was recently in a place that clearly didn't appreciate him.

I don't know how to put it. And they kind of discontinued his position. And then interestingly, in God's providence, he came across this story, which really brightened his spirits. And he immediately told me about this story being the Christian car guy. And I had never heard this story, but this story is so true.

So I got to tell it very quickly here. So a father said to his daughter, you have graduated with honors. Here's a car I bought many years ago. It's pretty old now, but before I give it to you, take it to the used car lot downtown and tell them you want to see how much they offer you for it. And so the daughter went to the used car lot, returned to her father and said, oh, they offered me a thousand dollars because they said it looks pretty worn out. So the father said, now take it to the pawn shop. So the daughter went down to the pawn shop, returned to her father. The pawn shop offered a hundred dollars.

What? A hundred dollars is just an old car. So the father asked his daughter to go to a car club now and show them the car. So the daughter took the car to the car club, returned and told her father, wow, some people in the club offered a hundred thousand dollars for it because it's a Nissan Skyline R34.

It's an iconic car and sought by many collectors. So now the father said this to his daughter, the right place values you the right way. If you are not valued, don't be angry. It means you're in the wrong place. Those who know your value are those who appreciate you.

Never stay in a place where no one sees your value, right? And this especially, let me tell you from my perspective, speaks highly to the church, right? Like this is how I can tell whether or not somebody truly is in Christ. When they're around me, I feel loved. I feel like, man, I'm their favorite. Now that doesn't mean they won't come to me and say, Robbie, you're messing up here, but they do it in love, right?

Like I think you ought to do this another way. I love that. My wife loves me dearly. She corrects me all the time.

Okay. I've often said, you know, my best friends, my best friends are correcting me all the time, but they do it in love. That would be Jesus through his word and all sorts of different, he's correcting me all the time, but he does it because he loves me. My wife corrects me all the time because she loves me.

My kids, I bet you've experienced this too, Jerry. So my best friends, they correct me all the time, but I never doubt, well, I rarely doubt, but I'm almost never doubt that they truly love me and they truly value, right? Yeah. You know, in correction, what is, you know, it's either corrected to tear somebody down or devalue them, or it's to encourage them and to build them up and to encourage them. So it's where the correction is coming from and from the heart of the corrector. Right. So, right. This question's back for you.

Like, and I really want to know, like, when have you felt, and I can just tell you lots and lots of places, like, where you feel like, man, oh, yeah, this is it. Maybe that's at home for you. I hope it is.

866-348-7884. Maybe it's in your Sunday school class. Like, man, these people, anytime I walk in there, I just feel like, man, these people are hugging on me and they're so glad I'm here. And, you know, I have my band of brothers with Masculine Journey, and I can assure you, every Tuesday night when we get together, and they're not afraid to tell me, Robbie, you're messing up here, you're doing this wrong, whatever, because they know that I know that, man, if I go to war, these people are going to war.

That if they go to war, I'm going to war. We're intimate allies, and these are the people I walk with, and they're dearly beloved. And so, like, man, when we do boot camps, Jerry, one of the places I almost frequently feel this is, you know, we've been ministering all day long, and we get all these prayer requests from the guys, and one of the honors that we have is to pray for these guys. Anybody that ever sat in one of those prayer meetings with these people that dearly love each other that are really, really seeking the face of God on the behalf of all these people, you'll feel like you've been to heaven. I mean, you just go like, yeah, this is it. Yeah. You just feel God's goodness being poured out.

Right, right. And so, I know that that's praying something up in you, and as you testify to that, maybe there's somebody out there that doesn't feel so much that way, and they'll begin to think, you know, I need to find some people that really—because they're out there. And so, I need to tell this story. Many people have heard that I taught special needs for years and years and years. And, you know, talk about some people that never felt valued, okay? And my wife kind of drug me into this thing kicking and screaming. It's another story for another day. But this was my wife's idea that I teach special needs.

There's no doubt about it. And God taught me so much through this. And so, I fell more and more in love with the students, and I got to see their value. Some of them couldn't speak. You know, they were severely autistic, and they never developed language. And so, to communicate with them, we use sign language. But others of them, you know, were so autistic, they couldn't focus. So, they were punching the air.

They'd look out the window. You weren't sure that they were paying any attention to what you were saying. I can remember one young man, he had a dinosaur, and I mean, whenever you saw him, he had that dinosaur. And you never thought he was paying any attention. But, you know, often, he would out of the blue just quote something you just said word for word for word. In other words, everything that you were teaching about God, everything that you were thinking about, he was taking in with all this gifting that he had.

You never thought by looking at him that he had that. But the truth is, oh, yes, he knew. And he also knew, by the way, how you felt about him.

Believe me, that, you know, people know how you feel. So, I got a story along these lines with the special needs class when we come back. But I want to hear your story, right? When were you in the showroom of grace, where your car was on display and that people could truly see its value?

866-348-7884. All sorts of favorite things. And it occurs to me that as we're thinking about this, you know, the question today is in the showroom of grace, your true value is on display. And so, with that, when have you felt like you were in the showroom of grace? Like, you were in this place where you were just highly valued and favored and people just loved you beyond anything you maybe ever thought was possible. I don't know, but I would love to know that story.

866-348-7884. And it also occurs to me that perhaps you might be in a really good place, but you just don't know it because, honestly, you never treat everybody else like they're your favorite. And so, you will find, you know, as it says in the book of Proverbs, you know, if you're friendly, then people get friendly. In other words, you know, when's the last time you just came up and gave somebody a big hug?

And by the way, we got a new guy in the band of brothers. And this guy's a kisser. Like, that'll stretch your comfort zone. Like, he not only hugs you, but then he kisses you on the neck, man. I'm like, what was up with that? But after a while, man, I got used to it. And I'm like, where's my kiss, man? I'm like, what's up with it? You know, because that's the way he does. I mean, you know, and it's pretty friendly. I'm not saying just go do that, you know, in your Sunday school class. Maybe you should.

I don't know. But nonetheless, what I'm saying is, like, a lot of times I catch myself, and I know you got a story, Jerry, along these lines, where God showed you. Yeah, sometimes you just sometimes we don't understand it. And as you're talking about speaking and talking about teaching special needs, sometimes we don't know how God is using us. You know, we're just called to go where he leads us and just do the best we can. Well, I know I've shared on on the radio many times about going to Jamaica and how much that mission trip short term mission trips means to me that we'll be heading back and it's probably I've been going for 16, 17, 18 years. I don't know.

It's a lot of years. But when I first started going, and I know Robbie will talk about this because when Danny Spain out at Pinedale, the short term mission trips had said, Well, you're going to have to do a VBS in the mornings, then we do construction in the evening. Well, I had no desire.

I couldn't see how God want me to do VBS. I mean, I need to be building something. I'll go dig a ditch. I'll put a roof on or help. I'll do whatever I need to do, but I just do not. And so we was back and forth.

So finally, okay, I'll go to Broadleaf and do VBS and which now that's probably the main reason I keep going back because of relationships and stuff. Well, probably after a few years, going at my first few years, I was getting ready to teach one morning and people start coming in, get sated. We're outside, got a tarp over us.

It's about 90 degrees at 10 o'clock in the morning already. And you got to kind of like herding cats. Sometimes you got to kind of keep your body under control and stuff. And you're excited. And my group is from 14 to 30s. And, and it's usually anywhere from 40 to 50 people.

I mean, we're a large group. So you got to stay on top of it. Well, young man comes up and gets ready to get seated.

I'm about ready to start doing the lesson that morning. Before you get to that, just to interrupt for a second, because you had to give him the prelude to he'd had him in the class before. And he was not your favorite. Yeah, you know, he just didn't never seem like he was paying attention. And I'd always have to call him down, maybe talking to somebody, hitting somebody in the arm, talking to somebody, I'm always telling him, Hey, listen, look at me.

And it was for especially the year before, when I really didn't think and I was surprised he was back the next year. Here he is, he's back and he's got a bag. And they all had back then as black plastic bags, like little grocery bags, you know, grocery bags, and he had that had something in it. And he kept wanting me to look in there and kept wanting to speak up. And I kept saying, sit back down.

If you don't sit back down, you're going down the hill could probably step on a hill. And if they miss behave, I made him go down the bottom of the hill. Well, he is just I could just see the disappointment and had to hurt because he was just I mean, he sat there and the rest of the morning, he didn't say a word.

When I got finished, he comes up here kind of head dragging. I said, said, Mr. Jerry, I just wanted to show you something. And he opened up this black bag and pulled out. And I know every little elementary class do these, the little Bible made out of out of construction paper, and he make a square out of it on the inside, we had them write their favorite Bible verse in it. And so you open it up and had that Bible verse in it.

We've done that the year before. Well, he pulls that out of the bag. And you could tell it had been open quite a bit.

I mean, it was wore out. And he goes, I just want you to know every day I open that up and read that Bible verse. You talk about I could have you could have put me under a rock. I mean, I felt but then at the time, I felt really embarrassed and ashamed and like I felt terrible. But more thought about it is, you know what? Sometimes it isn't what I think they're getting.

He got it. And but yeah, it kind of made me also realize that that time when we have opportunity to influence people, man, use it wisely and, and, and, you know, just show Jesus Christ and everything we do. But yeah, from that point on, every time anybody wants to share with me, I try to make sure because I was, I felt so, so bad.

Right, right. God has a way of showing us what what's going on there. And, you know, I had a similar, well, first I'll tell the good experience, right. So as I got into teaching special needs, you know, here's a group of people that initially I didn't think they were paying attention.

But a lot of times they would come up like you said, and they would just quote something that you did. And then I saw their hunger and their smiles and their love, because when they begin to learn, they begin to love. Now, when they begin to feel valued, like they haven't been like you, you begin to say, Oh, man, that's so awesome.

Look what you did and blah, blah, blah. Then all of a sudden they brighten up because they haven't heard a lot of that in their life. And the next thing you know, you have a real disciple on your hands. You know, somebody that's hungry and thirsty and wanting to learn and God shows you a way if you keep at it to finally, you know, connect with that person, whatever that and you continue to know that deep inside of them is that God spark. In other words, you never met a mere mortal that inside of every single person you ever met is this God's in there. And when you see it, it's going to come to life and you're just going to go, Oh man, you know, I had no idea that was coming. Well, believe me when I tell you that, and I know you already do, you probably were telling me that inside of every single like special needs person, regular people, whatever you think is going on with their attitude, believe me, he's in there and we got more stories, but I need your story.

Maybe you got shown the hard way, or maybe you, maybe you just experienced the love. 866-348. Please call.

We'd love to hear your story. 866-348-7884. 866-344-TRUTH.

In the showroom of grace, your true value is on display. When the bee stings, when I'm feeling sad, simply remember my favorite things. Does he really work?

Of course he does. You try it. What things do you like? No school.

No school. Well, I'm hoping that when you think about your favorite things, maybe you're thinking about favorite people. Like, wow, you know, these are my favorite people, and it's interesting that when you're around your favorite people, they treat you like they're your favorite, and it's grace, and it works like that. And so, you know, it's a neat thing, but sometimes you just realize you're in an environment that isn't that way, and so what are the opportunities?

You got to pray and ask God where you need to go. But along those lines, you know, we have found ourselves in an environment with a Jesus-labor love, car-repair-labor, for single moms and widows. One of my favorite things is when somebody gives us a car, and we've had that happen a lot recently, and we're so grateful for these cars that people have donated, but often they need some work, and we're really struggling to find that place. And so I was hoping that maybe somebody would volunteer to do that kind of work with us, and again, I've been just—I've been praying God supply us with, you know, somebody that could do this without, you know, trying to sell us a bunch of stuff that wouldn't necessarily be needed just to get this car back on the road for somebody who desperately needs transportation, right? And so if you go to my website, which is Christian Car Guy, or the Christian Car Guy website is christiancarguy.com. You can see all sorts of contact information for Robbie, and if that's something you could help us with, that would be so greatly appreciated and so wonderful.

Yeah, Robbie, can I just inject something? Because, you know, most of these cars, and I may be off track some because you're more involved at the end of it than me, obviously, but, you know, it's just they need transportation, local transportation, get the doctor's office, get the grocery store, get to work. I mean, we're not talking about they need a 2018 Suburban to drive to Nevada or something or California. They just need basic transportation, and so if you have that car, please, you think it's just sitting there donated. We definitely could find somebody who can—that'll be a blessing to them, but then as far as what your plea or your prayer is, because yeah, I would certainly—I'm going to definitely put that in my prayer, daily prayer, because they need people who can do that, and I'm in the repair industry, the body repair industry, and I know exactly what you're talking about. Somebody can come in, and we can tell them that it needs $10,000 worth of damage, but they've got a car that's just basic transportation, don't need that, but also they need to make sure they got a headlight and signals that work or air conditioning that works or something like that or needs a front-end alignment that I can do for a very minimal expense and get them on the road with a safe vehicle that'll meet their needs, and really that's what you're asking for, I think, is just somebody who is just willing to work. We want to make sure that they have a vehicle that's safe, but there's so many things we can do to make it functional and safe without all the cosmetics or all the other things that it may need. Yeah, if this was my car and I had the money to spend on it, yeah, I would do that, but really I just need to get it back to the position of get it running and where it's safe and dependable, and that's really what we're looking for.

So if you're a repair facility, if you're a tire shop or just have to do basic mechanical and stuff that can just help out, man, I hope you will go online and... Contact Robbie, right. You'll see my name Robbie there and all my contact information. I get calls from listeners, all sorts of people all the time.

I love it, right? I know there's people listening that are thinking, how can I give back to the community? And there's a lot of ways to give the community, but I tell you what, finding a place that you can give back to the community and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, man, that is powerful. So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, I've always kind of wondered how I could help out in my community, how I can give back, where I've been blessed in so many ways, I can just give a little back or I can work with some organization. I'm tell you what, the door is wide open. This is a great opportunity.

It really is. Again, christiancarguy.com. Okay, so moving on, I'm in special needs and I've got a very vital class and really in love with the students, really having a blast every Sunday and in comes a new young man by the name of Joshua and I'll always refer to him as Joshua the giant killer because he had something for me. But anyway, he was special needs to say the least and that he was in a wheelchair as such that you might have seen where somebody's so skinny that they can't hold up their head and so he had a special brace to hold his head up and he, you know, had no vocal skills that we knew of or any ability to communicate. But unfortunately, most of the time during the show, I mean during the class, as I was teaching going on my hand signs and stuff like this, Joshua would begin to moan and it would go something like this and it would get louder and louder and he would get more vocal, which was fairly disruptive, right, when you're trying to teach and so it actually frustrated me but he always looked like he was in such pain and he always looked like, you know, he was in distress that it was like, well, I don't know that I blame him for screaming but boy, this sure is hard. Well, you know, after he's been there about a month or so, his mom comes in one day and she goes, I just got to tell you, this is Joshua's favorite thing in the world to do is to come to this class.

I'm like, what? You know, in my mind, I'm saying he moans in absolute pain the entire time he's here. I mean, how in the world could he enjoy this? He doesn't interact with anybody. I mean, what's he getting out of this?

This is crazy but okay, your son loves it. That was Robbie's take on the whole thing other than honestly, you know, if I really looked in my own back pocket there, I was fairly annoyed like you were with the other young man. Like, I was annoyed.

This is annoying. I can't even think better yet, you know. And so the Christmas party, we always used to do all the stuff that we'd learn throughout the year. It was sort of a big show, you know, and everybody's going to show what God's shown them and it's always an amazing event. And so all the families are there and they're going to see, you know, their students, which a lot of them are older.

You know, some of them are as old as me, you know, that were in the class. And so Joshua's there and just right on cue, as soon as I start, right, you know, going through the material that people are going to show their hand signs, Joshua starts moaning. Like, you know, and off he goes. And so his mother immediately says, Joshua, it's not your turn. And Joshua went quiet.

And I went, oh my soul. Joshua was trying to tell us he had seen it. And I was just dumbfounded because the rest of the time, Joshua didn't say a sound.

And so the very next day, this was on a Saturday night, so the next day was Sunday. And so here comes Joshua again, we're doing our stuff. And so I just, just like Joshua, I owe you the biggest apology on the planet earth, man.

I am so sorry, I did not realize your gifting. I said, dude, it's your turn. Let us have it. And he would, you know, and so after that, you know, after, you know, in the middle of the class, whatever, I would just stop everybody and say, okay, wait a minute, it's Joshua's turn. And Joshua would tell us whatever Joshua was telling us. And I could, all of a sudden, the person that always looked so miserable to me, I saw joy. I saw things that I did not see before because God had shown me what a klutz. How did I miss this? And that's why I always refer to him as Joshua the giant killer because what a delight it was once I understood what was actually going on.

I just totally misunderstood what was going on, like you misunderstood the bag and his excitement. Well, unfortunately, just to add an emphasis on this, Joshua only lived about another 18 months after that. But I, I will, I will remember Joshua as loving the Bible, loving the word of God, and, and, and a gigantic member of that class that was truly like part of the favorites, you know. Wow. Powerful. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, it's, but that's how it works. It is, is that, and I, you know, now I look back at pictures of that class and things, and I think about how much I was loved in spite of how I, I knew so little going in, but over the years, God taught me. And so it's such an opportunity for all of us, for all of us, from my perspective, to truly follow Jesus into treating others, right, is, is we want to be treated.

It's just, you know, it's kind of the golden rule kind of thing. Like, man, I want to be treated like I'm somebody's favorite. Like, like I've got something to offer. Like I, I can contribute, right? Yeah. You know, it sounds so simple, sounds so easy, but it's not.

No, no. And I, I sometimes think they have an advantage because they have no pride. I mean, they, they, they simply come from that place, you know, where they're coming from. And so we need your story and we're going to hear about like, why did Jesus spit on his fingers and put it in somebody's ear? What's that all about? Like we got all sorts of information coming up in the next segment. Plus we're hoping for your call.

866-348-7884, 866-34-TRUTH. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com.

So this idea of piercing your ear, right? We're going to get to that. And, but I'm going to just, I guess the best way to connect the dots for you would be how God connected the dots for me. So I have been studying John chapter 10 all week, very, very diligently for sermon I'm giving tomorrow at West Asheville Baptist church where I'm pastor. And as I was studying the sheepfold, it just, you know, what's the sheepfold?

What, what is that exactly? Which clearly it's heaven and clearly it's home, but you know, I was thinking about my special needs class when, when they all had their arms around me and they were hugging me like that's, that's it. And that is the showroom of grace from my standpoint, that that's the picture. And so as I was working on that study, I recalled one of my favorite books of all time, which is The Shepherd's View of Psalms 23 by Philip Keller. I could not recommend that book. It's an easy read.

I bet it's not 200 pages. And it's one of the most delightful books you'll ever read. If you like the 23rd Psalm, you just got to read it. So I'm, I don't know how many times I've read it, but I'm rereading it. And there's stuff about your soul being cast down and cast sheep.

Like you just can't get this stuff any other way. Or like why the water's got to be still for sheep. There are so many things that are in that book that you will treasure forever. But what I want to talk about is in the beginning of the book, that a sheep, right, like if you were a sheep owner, that one of the ways that they, like you would brand a cow to show that it's your cow. Well with sheep, they notch their ear in such a way, they pierce their ear in such a way, their ear that would hear his voice, okay.

They pierce it in such a way that you would know from a distance whose sheep that is, okay. And he even made reference to this verse in Exodus 21. It's also in Deuteronomy.

And there's a lot here. So it says, now these are the judgments which you shall set before them. If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve you, and in the seventh he shall go free for nothing. If he came by himself, he should go out by himself.

If he's married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master give him a wife, and she was born him sons or daughters, and the wife and the children of her masters shall go out by himself, and if that servant say plainly, I love my master, that's critical to the equation by the way, and that word love in Hebrew is very significant, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges, and he also shall bring him to the door. Now just think about the fact that this is the door. Jesus is the door according to John chapter 10, but he's also, you know, where they put the blood over the in Exodus, you know, all this stuff is all coming to the door, right?

It's the narrow gate. He takes him to the door, and at the doorpost his master shall bore his ear through with an awl. And he shall serve him, what, for the rest of his life? No, forever. You know, and clearly in Hebrew it's forever. He shall serve him forever.

His ear is bored through with a hole. Now, at the same time that I'm thinking about all this, you know, one of my good friends and boss, Stu Epperson, called me last night on my way home to tell me that he was doing this whole thing on Jesus's spitting on his fingers and sticking it into the deaf man's ear and also spitting on his finger and touching his tongue. And you may know that Jesus also spit into the mud to put on the man's eyes.

And I was just pondering that because I knew Stu would be teaching it, and he didn't tell me this, but I was just pondering it like, Holy Spirit, what's up with this? I've always wondered, why would Jesus spit? And all of a sudden it hit me that biblically speaking, from my perspective, and I think it's true, that the mem means water, which also means Jesus, which also means the word.

So they're all equal. Like, Jesus is the word and Jesus is water and Jesus, of course, is the Messiah and my Savior and all that stuff. But the idea of Jesus's spit would be his water. Well, his water is the word. And so it is by his words, obviously it opened up the man's ears and it's by his words, but it's also by his water, right? Jesus spit is special stuff, man.

I would love for him to spit and touch my tongue. Like, man, if my tongue could get right, like, oh my goodness. Because you're talking about the more you take in the word, the more you do this. And so as I looked at this word all in Hebrew, myself this morning as I was studying it, the word all in Hebrew starts with, guess what, a mem. And so how are you going to pierce your ear? Well, in my case, my heart was pierced through the Bible. I came to Jesus through studying the Bible, right? I got to the book of Job and he pierced my ear, okay? And I will serve him eternally, gladly, never being afraid. In other words, in that sheepfold, I'm gladly his sheep, right? Because in his showroom, he will always show off your true value, right? So does all that make any sense?

Yeah. I mean, our value is, we allow the world to put value on us and God just says, you know, it's my value that counts. And that's what it's all about is how does God value us? What does God see in us? What should we do to give that back to God? Should it just be given 70 percent of who I am? No, it says here eternally, eternally he's yours. I mean, God wants to grab a hold of us and hold on and hold us tight to the good times, the bad times, the ugly times, the pretty times, the happiness, the sadness, eternally.

Right. And the whole idea is, you see, the Lord is my shepherd. Now, if you got a shepherd, guess what?

You're not free to move about the country. And because the Lord is your shepherd, right, you shall not want. But it does require that you have somebody that's your best friend that's going to correct you when you start to go in the other direction, but still they love you in such a way that they see your true value and they actually, you know, begin to show you episodes like you had with the young man in Jamaica or I had with Joshua the giant killer.

Yeah. And when those opportunities come to us, man, it's just so humbling when we see—and just think about it, that's how God sees us all the time. Oh, oh, that could—those are true words. Because clearly, you know, we all are special needs.

Man, he couldn't be any thicker than he. I have to say, thank you, Jesus. Right. Because apart from me, what could you do?

Just absolutely nothing. And so just one little bonus thought about this idea, right? He restores my soul.

Right? That's in the 23rd Psalm. It's about sheep. Well, if you look in Psalms 42, you'll note that Jesus—I mean, excuse me, King David said three times, again, the good shepherd that he was, right, he knew this all too well.

Three different times he said, Why are you so cast down, O my soul? Well, a sheep, when it lays down, if it if it doesn't get in the right position, when it goes to stand up and it flips on its back, it becomes what they call cast. And see, for a sheep to be upside down, it can't get its hooves on the ground to get up. And then with its hooves up in the air, it begins to panic and flail around. And when it does, you see the gases inside because they got all this, you know, grazing that they've done.

This is all, you know, in the process of fermenting. And it literally blocks off the blood vessels to their legs. And they're no longer able to walk. So how does he restore your soul? A good shepherd will lay you on your side, rub you down, rub your legs, you help you get your—and see, Why are you so cast down, O my soul?

Well, think how many times I've been upside down, flailing around like I have no idea what's up next. I need the shepherd. So remember, thank you for listening so much. Slow down. Jesus walked everywhere he went. Got it all done in 33 years. Thanks for listening. This is the Truth Network.