The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Created for Love, Settling for Likes

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

We are created to be loved, and to love others. But it’s easy to settle for likes. We feel a boost of ego when someone leaves a flattering comment or shares our post, and it’s satisfying … to a point. But deep inside we all want to be loved, not just liked. Jeff brings up Scripture passages on what it means to be created for love and talks about the things that hold us back from pursuing authentic love. Do you have comments or questions for Jeff? Use the comment box below, or email Jeff at [e-mail]. You may hear your question or comment in an upcoming podcast episode! Snippet from the Show “We are created for love, but we settle for likes because of fear, anger, hurt, woundedness, ego, inconvenience, love of money—all of these things can stop us.” SHOWNOTES John 15:13 “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” CCC 545 “Jesus invites sinners to the table of the kingdom: ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’ He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his Father's boundless mercy for them and the vast ‘joy in heaven over one sinner who repents’. The supreme proof of his love will be the sacrifice of his own life ‘for the forgiveness of sins". John 13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 17:26 “I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 14:21 “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” What stops the love of God? Fear – fear of opening up your heart Anger – unresolved conflict in our hearts Hurt – go to confession and profess your desire to grow closer to God Woundedness – wounds from our lives that stop us from receiving the love of God Jealousy, Envy, and Inconvenience Ego – believing that we can do it all on our own Love of Money and Career - are our careers keeping us from loving those around us?

You're listening to the Jeff Kavan Show, Episode 124, Created for Love, Settling for Likes. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavins. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Hey, welcome to the show, and glad you're here with me this week. is we're going to be talking about something that is so central to our culture, and that again has to do with social media, but particularly this whole issue of what we are going for, what are people looking for in social media. The measuring stick for much of social media

are little things called likes or hearts or, you know, kudos to you. And so it's a way kind of of measuring whether you are connecting with people or people like you or they find you attractive or you're cool or whatever. But it's really interesting because the social media platforms themselves are starting to notice that this might be getting out of hand and might not be accomplishing what they think people really want to experience on the web, which is a sharing of information and ideas and community and so forth. Not simply a barometer or a measuring stick as to whether you are popular. So I've got a very interesting announcement from Instagram in Facebook that I'm going to be sharing

with you in just a moment, and it might surprise you. It might surprise you what they are thinking of doing. Got a lot of good email this week. Appreciate that. My email is The Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. And I always look forward to your comments, your suggestions, just how you're doing in life, and we get an awful lot of email, and we read it, and we do appreciate it. Kelly writes in and says, first, thank you for coming back to the Catholic Church and for leading

us into the scripture and an understanding of the Eucharist, the gifts we have been given. She said, I listened to two of your podcasts, one of them being parents write in your Bible. What a lovely idea, and she talks about how that might take place, maybe even with grandchildren. children. She has sons that are 18 and 21. And then she mentions that the other one was on Lexio Divina, the other podcast that I did. That was a little while ago. And she said a couple years ago, she attended my talk at a small, beautiful church in Bakersfield, California. I remember that, Kelly. I remember that very well. She said, where you recommended the practice of Lexio divina. The summer before, I had attended the adult conference at Franciscan University of

Stubinville, and afterwards spent a few days in Pittsburgh, and that is where she picked up this beautiful journal, and the journal sat around for a while. She said, which I have sat around for a while, and then in the past few months, I ventured out of my own, so to speak, and independently read and reflected on the books following the Gospels. Thanks be to God, it has been exciting and enriching. In other words, she is doing Lexio de Vina. Congratulations. And I also notice in your note, Kelly, that you hope that someday maybe your sons would go with Father Mike Schmitz and myself to the Holy Land. And I hope that can happen. For anybody who's a young adult, that's really, you know, if you think you're a young adult, you know, you have to discern. We have a whole bunch of people

going to Israel with us in June of 2020 with Father Mike Schmitz, Ali Alia, a singer, tremendous singer, Taylor Tripodi, brother Isaiah, Andrew and Sarah. Sarah Swofford are going to be joining us on this epic trip. You can go to my website, jeffcavens.com, and look under pilgrimages, and you can pre-sign up because those positions are going to go El Festo. So they really got to get on top of that. So thanks, Kelly, for your note. Hey, the Parker's Wright from Florida just heard the encore of your time with Marcus Grotai and the journey home on EWTN. It was wonderful to hear your voice, your story again, and faith-filled guidance. And the parkers, they've gone to Israel with us. And listen, Diane, I know that you want to go

again with the whole family, and you can go ahead and sign up. It's going to be an epic, epic trip. Okay, back to this whole issue. The name of the show is created for love, but settling for likes. I want to address this today, because I think that, I think we have a basic problem, and the problem is multi-dimensional. One thing I want to say right off the bat, which I have actually heard other leaders in the Catholic Church commenting on even in the last couple of months, and that is how social media among some Catholic leaders and speakers and writers and whatever is in some ways getting kind of mean. It's like a battleground. And I did a show just recently called Tweet Others the way you want to be tweeted. And I think that we need to take a, a real look at our relationship with social media. Do we use it as a shield to just speak in a vitriolic way and a nasty way about people? Is that really what our life is about? Is that what we're called to proclaim? Or is it a platform to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ? That's another

show that we definitely need to talk about it at some point. But on today's show, I want to talk about this whole issue of what are we looking for in social media with this idea of likes, trying to get likes, trying to get people to follow our pages and so forth. And this is something that I think speaks of something deeper that's going on in our life. Let me start off by telling you what Instagram just announced. And I'm reading from an article by Nicole Martin in Forbes magazine. Instagram is currently testing a new feature that would hide like counts on your page. Rumors have spread around for a while since a tester leaked screenshots of the new update. Well, a few weeks ago, this went public and the screenshots were acquired, and now it's out that

they're going to be doing it. Starting, I guess, in Canada, they said, we want our followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get. Instagram says in one of the screenshots from someone by the name of Wong, during this test, only the person who shares a post will see the total number of likes it get. So I guess what they're saying is they're not going to let everybody else see how many likes you get. You're the only one, which kind of solves a little problem, but still I think what I'm going to argue for today is valid. They go on in the article and say with the test, Instagram plans to remove the total numbers of likes from photos and videos on that show up on the main feed profile and permalink pages. Only the account

user will be able to see the number of likes post receives. Well, we can talk more about that at another time, but I want to use that as a springboard to talk about what we're really looking for in our lives and what we settle for. You know, the social media has become a platform in which many people gauge their popularity, whether they are loved or cherished or desired, and it simply is not an accurate barometer at all as to who you are, your value, how much you're loved, or anything else related to that. The truth of the matter is, is that you are created for love. You are created to be loved by God in a perfect way, infinitely loved by God.

And you're also created to love. That's really what the goal is here. But the whole social media scene has sort of lulled us into a reality where we're not really looking for love. We're looking for likes. We're created for love, but we will settle for likes because in our culture, likes have a certain currency all their own that says, wow, you're really something. When the truth of the matter is, you might not be known by these people. In fact, not too many weeks ago on a television show they were talking about how they have now developed these social media computer banks

that people are hired to just constantly like a video or a post so it raises rankings in a way. It's a completely contrived environment. And yet this completely contrived environment is the gold standard for so many people in the way they perceive themselves and what they think of themselves. And in some cases, it's been so deadly that young people have taken their own lives because they believe this pseudo community and what they were saying. Sometimes it was just plain brutal. You know, kids gossiping about other kids. And when I did, you know, when we were in school, you'd just go to school the next day and deal with it. But now it's got a life of its own. But deep inside, we all want to be loved. It reminds me of a paper I wrote, there's my thesis back in school, on the spiritual dimensions of Vincent Van Gogh. And in that research, I discovered that Vincent actually started off as a missionary, a Christian missionary. And he wanted to, he wanted to translate the Bible.

he wanted to be a Bible teacher, and eventually he was in the coal mines in the south of Belgium, in the Borinage. But his father came to visit him, and he found out that Vincent had sold everything he had, gave it to the poor, and was proclaiming the gospel, and his father thought that a minister should be an upright, clean man, and he dismissed him, and that broke Vincent's heart. And it was shortly after that that Vincent turned to painting. And in his writings to his brother Theo, he often says this. He says, I'm just looking for love. I want to be loved. And I want to love deeply. Vincent, you see, never really talks to Theo about wanting to be liked. And the scripture doesn't say that Jesus so liked the world, that he gave his only begotten son. He loved the world. And this is where we need to raise the bar to, is love.

and not likes. So throughout our day, throughout our week, our month, our entire life, I believe that we are pursuing love. We're pursuing love and we are, we want to love. And what is really behind social media when someone posts something and then they look to see how many likes they have, then they come to a conclusion about themselves. No, what you're looking for is love. And my friend, I mean this. You're never going to find it on the web. You're never going to find it on social media. You will only find the love that you're really looking for is you're only going to find it in Jesus Christ. And so we could say in some ways is that old song looking for love in all the wrong places are looking for love and all the wrong apps. You're not going to find it. Scripture talks to us a little bit about what love is. I'm going to give you some. scriptures here, and I'll certainly put them in the show notes. You say show notes. Yes, if you send me an email, The Jeffcaven Show at ascensionpress.com, and put in the subject line show notes, we'll put you on the list. You'll get them every week automatically. But 1st John 316 says love is laying down your life.

It really is. It's laying down your life. And that's how we love, is that we have the eternal good in mind for others. Scripture talks about different kinds of love, and I'm going to mention that in a moment, but the love that we're talking about needing in our own life and giving in our own life goes beyond just simply liking or being fond of something. It's really interesting in a catechism in paragraph 545. It talks about how Jesus interacted with people, that you and I probably wouldn't naturally interact with. And that was, you know, the unrighteous. It was sinners and so forth. And these are the people that he didn't just like, but he loved. And he invited them into his life. It says, Jesus invites sinners to the table of the kingdom.

He invites sinners to the table of the kingdom. I came not to call the righteous but sinners. He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his father's boundless mercy for them and the vast joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. The supreme proof of his love will be the sacrifice of his own life for the forgiveness of sins. And that's what Jesus does for us. You know, looking at this word love, what we're going to be.

we're talking about when we talk about love. There's a lot of different Greek words for love. There is Storgay, which is really like a mother's love for a child. There is filetio, filial to love in the sense of being friendly, like you know the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. It's to delight in or long for, to love or to do or to do something with pleasure. So the word represents tender affection. like philanthropy, you know, giving in a friendly, in a friendly way. But then there's another word for love, which is what we are deeply desiring. You're looking for more than brotherly love. You're looking for more than Storgay. You're looking for more than Eros, which is a passionate love.

And it can be not only a passionate love that is related to sexuality, but a passionate love that is related to even a hobby. Pope Benedict talks about that, you know, that you can have this eros, this kind of love. But what we're talking about here is the word agape. And the word agape is an unselfish love ready to serve. Agape is often described as the kind of love that God demonstrates. It is a selfless love that has the other person's eternal life in mind. And so this describes in the scriptures God's attitude towards his son in John 1726. The whole human race in John 316, for God so love the world, and to those who believe on Jesus in John 1421, and it's used to describe the attitude of God's children, one to another, love one another,

John 1334. Now, the clear distinction between this idea of filial and agape love is seen in the application. It's seen in the application. Since love as an emotion is prompted by feelings, it cannot be commanded. Now I'm talking about filo, brotherly love, or Storgay or Eros. It cannot be commanded. I command you to be a brotherly, you know, to have an affection for me. I can't do that. So filo may not be used in a command to love, but in contrast, Agape, love. the God's kind of love, that is a choice, and it may be commanded. Hence, Jesus commanded his disciples to do what? To love your enemies. You see, this is the kind of love that will transcend all obstacles and will reach hearts that are simply settling for likes right now. It's also used in

scripture in Ephesians 525. Husbands, guess what? Love your why. just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So Agape describes a life-enhancing action that flows from God to human beings. And this commandment to love regulates all of human conduct within the church, loving one another, husbands loving your wives, as I mentioned. But those outside are also to be loved. So you see, my relationship with you and my relationship with my neighbor doesn't have anything to do with is not based on liking. It is based on a choice to love, to put that person first and to keep their eternal life in mind. So the mandate for Christians to love their enemies stretches human capacity to its limits, but is based on God's love for humans. This is what the church teaches.

So while we were enemies, Christ loved us, and we're called to imitate our Father when we love all people. And so what I'm encouraging you to do, I'm going to take a break here in a moment, but what I'm encouraging you to do, as I'm challenging myself, is let's stop living in the realm of likes. Let's live in the realm of love. When I come back, I want to talk a little bit about how this is the sign of who we are and what are some of the things that stop the love of God in our lives or from us transmitting that love of God to other people. And I have an amazing story that I'm going to tell you. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Every one of us is made in the image of God. We are unique, worthy of love.

and called to greatness. In this world, though, we can be distracted from that truth and begin to doubt God's love is real. You see, we live in a world that tells us we are not smart, attractive, thin, or rich enough. It is easy to focus on the ways we fall short of worldly perfection and forget that we are already made perfect. We are already enough.

I'm Danielle Bean, author of You Are Enough. what women of the Bible teach you about your mission and worth. You Are Enough dives into the stories of women in the Bible so that you can fully see God's plan for your life. To order, visit ascensionpress.com or Amazon. And welcome back. Talking about created for love but settling for likes. and just kind of a time to think about our own lives and for you to think about where you're at in life right now. Are you looking for love? Of course you are. We all are. Are you settling for

likes? Are you working hard to get the likes? Are you spending a lot of time? Are you looking at the algorithms and everything else? Boy, you know, the way that we're going to change the world is to receive the love of God and transmit the love of God. And it's true. The social media platforms can be used as a tool to share some good things about the Lord Jesus Christ. But I think honestly that the way that the Lord has called us to transmit his love and his message is real relationships, real relationships that are not going to stay on the web, but even if they start on the web, they're going to somehow end up in what we would call real life, you know, out here. And so many people that I talk to are craving real life.

And you would not believe the number of young people who have come up to me and said, I am exhausted from the Internet, just exhausted. I just want to live a real life. And what they're saying is, I want to be loved and I want to love. Now, in John's gospel, John 13, 34 through 35, John talks about one sign that will show the world that we are his disciples, we are Jesus disciples. And that is that we love one another, that we would love one another. That is the sign that has been given to the world, that we love one another. And I've got to go back to. that question I started with at the top of the show. Are we tweeting others the way we want to be tweeted? Are we in social media showing the world what love is really about? Or are we just a Catholic news channel outlet that is criticizing everything we can find in the world? That's not

what we're called to. That's not the abundant life. That's not the victorious life that we have been called to. John 1-18, no one has ever seen God, but Jesus has made him known. Now, since our love has its source in God's love, his love reaches full expression. It's made complete when we love fellow Christians. And that's what we are called to do. Now, what are some of the things that can stop the love of God? Well, God is trying to love you today. And my friend, he loves you just the way you are right now. And I heard one person say a long time ago, he loves you so much, he loves you just the way you are right now, but he loves you so much, he won't let you stay the way you are. He wants you to become like him. He wants to open up the

floodgates of love to your heart and to give you that satisfying life that you are so desperately looking for and that you can only find in Jesus Christ. But some things stop the love of God. one is fear. We have fear in our lives. And we might have fear because of a past relationship, maybe relationship with your parents, with a former employer, a date you were on. There's a fear of opening up your heart, even to God. And God wants that to come down today. God wants that fear to go away. And another one is anger. So many times the love of God is stopped. it is prevented from coming into our heart because of the anger that we have because of that incident, that relationship, the things that people have said. There is an anger. There's unresolved

conflict in our hearts, and we cannot receive that. And what do we do? What do we? We settle for likes. Those days are over. Those days are over. We need to to crush those barriers of fear and anger. Another one is hurt. We've been hurt and the love of God. It has a hard time getting through. I want to encourage you today that if you have been hurt, if you're filled with anger or fear, one of the first things you can do is go to confession and say, I am struggling with barriers in my life to receiving the love of God. And I want to receive the love of God. I don't want to just live my life looking for likes. I want to receive the love of God. Woundedness is another reason. So many people are wounded, father wounds and other types of wounds that stop them from receiving the love of God.

Jealousy, inconvenience, ego can keep us from the love of God. Ego. We are the story. We are the ones building a kingdom. We are the ones who are smart and clever and have the word for today. Ego. It stops the love of God. It stops the love of God. The love of money stops the love of God. All of these things can stop the love of God. But you know what? They can also stop us from sharing with other people. Fear can stop us from loving our enemy or loving that person at work. Anger can stop us from loving relative. Hurt keeps us in a wounded castle all by ourselves. Woundedness and jealousy. Ego can trap us in our laptop to where we are going to focus on ourselves until we feel that we have accomplished a certain number of likes and have been made

important. Love of money as well can help us or can prevent us from loving other people. Now, the purpose of this particular podcast is not to go deep into all of those things, but simply to bring out that we are created for love and we settle for likes. And oftentimes it's because of fear, because it's anger, hurt, woundedness, ego, inconvenience, love, of money, even a career, all of these things can stop us. But we have been called to be loved and to love. I want to share with you a beautiful story that I have kind of kept on file for a number of years that is a story about a husband and a wife. And the husband, his name is Robertson. I'm going to get into that. I'm going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about

that, had a choice to love his wife, the thing that she really needed, and that he wanted to love. But he had a barrier that he realized he wouldn't be able to love her because of a career, a career. And this is a very powerful story, and I hope it ministers to you. Here's the illustration. Roberts McKilkin was the president of Columbia Bible College and seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, and he had been there for 22 years, a true story. Now, his wife Muriel was outgoing, very involved on campus, had a TV show, and she began to experience difficulties in preparing meals and painting. And after being tested for possible heart problems, the doctors told Robertson and his wife Muriel, that the verdict was in, and Muriel had Alzheimer's.

Robertson approached the school board with the need to begin a search for a new president for the future. He said that when the day came that Muriel needed him, he would be there for her. Then came the struggle with the question of what should be sacrificed. Ministry or caring for Muriel? Should I put the kingdom of God first? Hate my wife, and for the sake of Christ and the kingdom arranged for institutionalization? Trusted lifelong friends, wise and godly friends urged him to do just this. Muriel would become accustomed to the new environment quickly, they said, wouldn't she? Robertson asked himself, would she? Would anyone love her at all, let alone love her as I do?

As the days approached when Muriel would need him, he asked the question, who gets me full-time? Muriel or Columbia Bible College? When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. Had I not promised 42 years before, in sickness and in health, till death do us part? Robertson McGilkin resigned, as president of Columbia, to care for his wife, Muriel, full-time. He laid aside dreams that were on the drawing board to love his wife.

Robertson was astonished at people's reaction, which was positive, until a distinguished oncologist who lives constantly with dying people told him, almost all women stand by their men. Very few men stand by their women. As the disease progressed, one of the few statements that Muriel could make to Robertson was, I love you. My friends, we are looking for love. We're looking for love. Let's not settle for life. likes. There's someone in your life right now that needs to be loved, not liked. There's someone that you are friends with on Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat. There is someone in your life that needs more than your like. They need more than your like. They need your love. And you need that love. Don't settle for

likes. Don't make that your goal. Make it your goal to be loved by God and be known by God and to have that intimate relationship with God as an activated disciple walking with Jesus on a daily basis. I know that it's hard, particularly with young adults, to not be a part of the scene and to resist that temptation of wanting to be liked. But you're created for more than likes. You're created for love. What you're looking for is love. likes are fleeting and do not have heaven in mind. And if Instagram is going to get their way, get this. Nobody out there is going to know how much you're liked. Isn't that ironic that people have been working so hard to get the likes, and in one switch, you're the only one that's going to know.

I find that so ironic. You see, love gets behind enemy lines. Love speaks to hardened hearts. Love deactivates explosive situations. Love disarms the angry. Love is the anecdote to poisonous speech. So every time you go to check your numbers, and social media remind yourself, it is love I am created for. It's just a good reminder, isn't it? I am created for love. Remember this once again. For God, it doesn't say for God so like the world. This is for God so love the world.

And he loves you today. Be free. Allow yourself to be released from the tyranny of settling for likes. allow yourself to be loved. Give that fear to God. Give that anger to God and that hurt and that woundedness, the jealousy and the envy that you experience and the trap of ego, the love of money. Give it all to him. Exchange it for his love because that's what you're really looking for. let me pray with you and let's let's believe god for a freedom a release to be free to be who you are so that you can be loved and you can love shall we do that in the name of the father and the son and the

holy spirit lord i lift up my friend to you right now and i ask you lord to release them from the bondage of settling for likes i ask you lord to free them to pursue them to pursue them to pursue love and to love with their life. For that is what we're called to and what we're known by as disciples is our love for one another. And to love is to be obedient to your commands. It's not something that we just gather with clicks. Lord, we thank you for this, and we just repeat what you gave to Paul. It was for freedom that you set us free. Therefore, help us not to return to a yoke of bondage. Galatians 5. We thank you for this, Lord, in your mighty name, in the name of Jesus we pray, name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. My friend, I love you

and asking you to pray for me, and I will continue to pray for you. Love you so much.