The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - If We Took Christianity Seriously! Prayer

Episode Date: October 5, 2018

What if we really took Christianity seriously and truly lived out the teachings of Christ? When it comes to prayer Jesus said, “When two or three gather in my name I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). If we really believed this, how would we pray? How would we live our lives, knowing that God was with us in prayer? Jeff zeros in on what we can learn from the Our Father in today’s episode. The Great Adventure Catholic Bible is sold out, but more are being printed right now! To be alerted as soon as this Bible is available again, click here (https://shop.ascensionpress.com/pages/great-adventure-bible-optin). "As children of God, prayer takes on two fundamental dispositions: First, the desire to become like God, and second, a humble and trusting heart that enables us to turn and become like children."

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 84, if we took Christianity seriously. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. 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 this week. A little bit of a provocative. title, but it's a title that I think we need to look at. If we took Christianity seriously, what would our lives look like? And we're going to look at several topics today that if we took them seriously, it could seriously change our lives. And this is a message not only that I wanted

to share with you, but it's a message for myself, too. Every once in a while, you have to calibrate your life and you have to, you know, take a look at, well, what do I believe? You know, what do I believe about prayer? What do I believe about the Eucharist? What do I believe about the Blessed Virgin Mary? Communion of saints, the angels, heaven or hell, all these things. And if I really believe them, how does that change my life? One of the things that I have realized in study is that the catechism talks to us about the response to God's divine revelation. And the response is the obedience of faith. It isn't simply an intellectual acknowledgement, but there's obedience of faith that is really important in our lives. And if we really believe the things that we profess as Christians today, then it will have a profound impact on our lives. Before we look at that, which, by the way, I've got three things I want to look at today when I talk about if we take, you know, if we took Christianity seriously, we're going to talk about three things, prayer, Eucharist, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the next show, I'm going to talk about three.

more. But I think it's a good time to calibrate our lives, honestly, and to take a look at what we believe. And if we really believe it, then what's our response? Because it should actually change our life. Had some great email this week. This is Tom. Thomas. Thomas writes, my wife and I just had a very nice 10 days in Italy topped off with the final day spent at the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica. I'd say that's a good final day. It was very nice to see that the burial site of St. Peter lies under the altar of St. Peter's and shows the continuity of our first pope with our current Pope Francis. Yes, it has been difficult recently. You are correct. We need to keep our face like Flint. That was

the last show and understand what the Bible is telling us and realize the church is composed of many people and they do sin. Fortunately, today's saints will lead us as St. Peter did. And back in the early days of the church. Thanks for your good work. Thomas, I agree with you, Thomas. I think that there are a lot of good people today, a lot of good bishops and priests and lay leaders that are going to be addressing the issues that we are facing.

Monica from Singapore writes, may we know when you will be coming to Singapore in the details? We're so excited to be able to meet with you in person. Our church has just completed your Matthew and Acts course, and I will be helping to facilitate your Bible timeline course, year. It has been a wonderful and enriching journey taking your course, and I look forward to the Bible timeline next year. You have a good fan base here in Our Lady of Perpetual Sucker Church. I especially like how you are able to explain things so clearly. Could you please include

me in the show notes? And what Monica means there is that if you want show notes for every for every show, all you've got to do is write me at the Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com in the topic, the line write show notes. We'll give them to you every week. We'll send them to you automatically. When am I going to come to Singapore? Good question. Well, I got the dates now.

In May of 2019, I'm going to be in Australia for five-city, a five-city tour, talking and giving the Bible timeline in Australia. all my friends down under. Get the word out. Next year, I'm coming to Australia. And in May, I think it's the 8th, 9th, or 10th, Monica that I'm going to be in Singapore. We're going to be leaving Australia. We're going to stop in Singapore for a couple of days and look forward to meeting you and all of your friends and those that have gone through the Bible timeline. And then we will head home. So that is May 8th through the 10th. Somewhere there in Singapore. And prior to that, a five-city tour of Australia, looking forward to that. Okay, so if we took Christianity seriously,

what would that mean, you know, in our lives? And I thought about this, and I thought, I want to do a couple of shows here to talk about some of the main things that we believe, and intellectually, we make assent. We really, really do. But if we committed ourselves and entrusted ourselves to the revelation of God, what would our life look at? like. For example, today we're going to be talking about prayer, the Eucharist, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'm not going to talk a long time, obviously. This is about a half-hour show, but I want to give you enough to challenge you to, if you do believe this, your life should change. I mean, you know, you might want to recalibrate as I'm doing right now, as I'm looking at,

I'm looking at 15 things right now that are huge in what we believe as Christians and challenging myself and my wife and I, actually this came from our tea time in the morning where we were talking and said, if we really believe these things, you know, are we living them? Are we entrusting ourselves to God? Should we readjust ourselves and, you know, recalibrate ourselves? Well, one of them is prayer. One is Eucharist and one is Mary. So I want to jump right in and look at the subject of prayer. You know, one of the most common questions we ask people is, how's your prayer life? know, how's your prayer life? And the common response is, what? You know it as well as I do. It could be better, right? We always say that, well, it could be better. It's funny how life crowds out prayer.

It's funny how television and entertainment and sports and the tyranny of the urgent crowds out prayer. But if we really, really believed in prayer, and we believe that God hears us, and we believe that prayer works, would we do it more? If Jesus came to us today, for example, and said, if two or three gather in my name, there I am in their midst, if you ask anything according to my will, I will do it, okay? If we believe that, would we ask more? Would we pray more? Would we pray for our relatives? Would we pray for our colleagues at work? We pray for our children that perhaps have left the church, and we don't know what to do. Well, there was something so infectious about Jesus' prayer life

that the disciples literally, they asked him how they too could pray. There was something about him. They were like, wow, I want to do this too. In response, Jesus entrusted to his disciples in the church what we could call the fundamentals of prayer, the Lord's Prayer, the prayer commonly referred to as the Our Father. And it contains seven petitions. Our prayer life is, according to the church, based on the filial relationship with God.

That is the family relationship, a father and his children. We are the sons of God. We're the daughters of God. He is our father. Remember Matthew 6.9, our father. And Jesus invites us to participate in this family relationship of the Trinity. But this unique relationship with God is only possible due to the work and the in the revelation of Christ. So when we pray our father, the prayer reveals something about ourselves

as well as revealing something about God as Father. We learn that we are indeed children of God and place our hearts accordingly. Now, as children of God, prayer takes on two fundamental dispositions. And this is really important to get as Catholics, you know, as Christians, is that when we pray the Lord's prayer, it takes on two fundamental dispositions. Number one, first, the desire to become like God, okay? The desire to become like God when we pray the Lord's prayer. Second, a humble and trusting heart that literally enables us to turn and become like children. Matthew 1125, for it is to little children.

that the Father is revealed. Now, one aspect of prayer that we learned from the Our Father is that we're not primarily individuals, but we're a family. We leave individualism, in fact, which is just rampant today. We leave individualism behind, and we adopt an attitude of solidarity with other believers when we pray the Our Father at the beginning of the prayer. when we say who are in heaven, we're not placing God at a distance. We're emphasizing the fact that

he is majestic and transcends everything that we can conceive about him. He's here with us right now. He's in my heart, in fact, right now, Jesus is inside of me, animating me, animating you. But he is in heaven. Yeah, we serve a big God. I remember that book J.B. Phillips wrote back, I think it was in the late 60s or early 70s, your God is too small. Reality check, is your God too small? There are seven petitions in the Lord's prayer. The first series of petitions carries us toward him. For his own sake, thy name, thy kingdom, thy will. It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love. in none of these three petitions do we find or mention ourselves.

The burning desire, even anguish of the beloved son for his father's glory, seizes us. Hallow it be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. These three supplications were already answered in the saving sacrifice of Christ, but they are henceforth directed in hope toward their final fulfillment, for God is not yet. yet all in all. Catechism, paragraph 2804. Now, that's the first series of petitions that carries

us toward him for his own sake, thy name, thy kingdom, thy will. The second series of petitions unfolds with the same movement as certain Eucharistic prayers, as an offering up of our expectations that draws us down toward itself the eyes of the Father of Mercies. Catechism tells us, they go up from us and concern us from this very moment in our present world. Give us, forgive us, lead us, not deliver us. The fourth and fifth petitions concern our life as such to be fed and to be healed of sin. And the last two concern our battle for the victory, the battle of prayer. And so as you go through these seven petitions, let's do that real quickly here before we take a break. we have number one, hallowed be thy name. If we really believed it, if we really believe that Jesus

is Lord, is second person of the Trinity, creator of the universe. In Jesus, the name of the holy God is revealed and given to us. This name is above all names, Paul says to the Philippians in chapter 2, and must be viewed as totally different than all others, because we are Christians. We are in Christ. We also must be holy. We must be set apart as he is holy. Hallow it. Be thy name. The sanctification of his name among the nations depends upon our life and prayer. If you really believe that Jesus is Lord, then the sanctification of his name depends upon your life. it depends upon your prayer and you must sanctify his name the second petition thy kingdom come in the lord's prayer thy kingdom come refers primarily to the final coming of the reign of god

through christ's return but it also speaks of his rule made manifest on earth now and his rule is displayed through us it's through us if you believe he's lord then thy kingdom come in my life. The kingdom is also synonymous with the church, the pillar and the support of truth. And when we pray, thy kingdom come, we're not only looking forward to the return of Christ, but we are asking that Jesus would be king and rule in our hearts on a daily basis. Recalibration time. Do you believe in prayer? Do you believe, hallow it be thy name, thy kingdom come? Is there a change that needs to take place in our life? Third petition, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Our Father's desire is that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1st Timothy 2, 3 and 4. Jesus has made clear the will of God for our lives. Prayer is the conscious determination to work with God and seeing all of His will manifest on earth. do we believe this this is radical my friends this is crazy radical by prayer we can discern what is the will of god and obtain the endurance to do it look it up thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

look up the catechism paragraph 2826 fourth petition give us this day Our daily bread. Give us this day our daily bread. Man, do I believe that? I mean, do I really believe this? As children of God, I can tell you right now, we're not going to get through all three topics this week. I'm too into this one right now. Give us this day our daily bread. As children of God, we are dependent upon him for everything to sustain life. Everything. Everything. Through prayer, we acknowledge our complete dependence upon him, both spiritually, get this, both spiritually and physically, both spiritually and physically, totally dependent. Give us a stay, our daily bread. You know, Deuteronomy 8.8.3 is one of those, to be honest with you,

I think it's a misunderstood text in Deuteronomy 8.3, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, in light of, or in the context of give us this day our daily bread, what does Deuteronomy 83 mean? When I was taking Hebrew at the University of Minnesota, I was a 26-year-old student there, Dr. Paradise, great Jewish teacher, he was talking to us about this text and he said, you know, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. He said, if you want to know the really the literal translation of that, it is that man can live by anything that God says.

Anything that God says, you can live by it. Give us this day our daily bread. And God sustains us spiritually, and he sustains us physically. St. Ignatius once said, pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended on you. The fact that we are to petition our Heavenly Father daily, daily, D-A-I-L-Y, reminds us that we are on a pilgrimage to our Father's House in heaven, and we are sustained by repetitious encounters with the Trinity. Give us this day our daily bread. It means that we literally daily. We depend upon Him. We are dependent upon him in every single way, daily. And if we lose track of it, Do we really believe it? Or are we off on her own? Again, I speak to myself.

Petition number five, I'll tell you what, let's take a break. I've got to take a break right now. When we come back, I'm going to do number five, six, and seven, these petitions of the Lord's Prayer. What are we doing? We're talking about if we took Christianity seriously, prayer today. Obviously, I'm not going to get to the Eucharist. I'm not going to get to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Those are going to be future shows, but today we're talking about prayer. And we'll be back in just a moment to talk about petitions five, six, and seven. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Reading the Bible is something we as Catholics know we should do, but let's be honest, it can be kind of complicated.

Even though it's a complete story, the Bible isn't really one book. It's more like a library with dozens of books and dozens of genres. There's poetry, prophecy, and prose. There are apocalypses and revelations, historical accounts, and allegories. No wonder it's difficult to keep a finger on the story of God's love and plan of salvation for his people, the thread that keeps all of it together. If you're wishing there was a simple guide to help you tie all of this together, then you're just like Jeff Kavins and Tim Gray.

That's why they wrote the book, Walking with God. Walking with God is a single book that traces the story that ties the Bible together. It helps you to understand the big picture of the Bible. If you're looking to read more of the Bible, walking with God will help you do it with confidence, peace, and clarity. You can find out more and order Walking with God on ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about if we took a lot of...

if we took Christianity seriously, and I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing, I do, I do, I know you do, so do I. But if we really took Christianity seriously, how would it change your life? If everything that has been revealed by the church passed down from Jesus to the apostles and to their appointed bishop, after them, the deposit of faith, would your life change? If Jesus came today and he reiterated everything that he passed on to the disciples, would it change your life? I dare say yes, it would mind. And that's why I'm doing this today because, hello, checkup time, recalibration time, plum line. And we're looking at, we looked at the first four petitions of

just the Lord's prayer, how it be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us to stay our daily bread. And we come to petition number five, which is, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Wow. Okay, this isn't getting heavy, you know. Now, since we are to be holy, as our Heavenly Father is holy, we must make the daily corrections in our lives. do you believe it or do we go on with weeks and months of making no corrections when was the last time that you were at confession and living this this aspect of the lord's prayer you know we're prone to concupiscence compucin's big fancy word metal language alert the tendency to sin you know

disordered self-interest and selfishness. We're prone to concupus sense, therefore we must daily check our hearts to make sure that we are walking according to his will. Christ's forgiveness becomes even more a reality in our lives as we extend this forgiveness to other people. And I know that you've done that. I know you have opportunities even maybe today to do that. And by doing this, we become what? His body. and carry out his mission to the world to forgive people. Do you believe that? Seriously, do you believe that? I mean, this is, this is cray-cray. This is wild stuff. And if we really believed it, are we doing that? Are we forgiving others? As Christ is forgiven us, Christ's forgiveness

becomes even more of a reality as we extend that to other people. And our forgiveness is dependent upon our willingness to be like Jesus. And Jesus said, and I quote from Matthew 18, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And he says this on the tail end of a great parable about a man who owned 10,000 talents, which is, in today's language, billions of dollars, he couldn't pay it back, but he was forgiven, and he went out, and he put his hands around the throat of a guy who owned a couple thousand dollars. And it was reported to the master, and the master ended up saying, well, you're going to pay it all off yourself. And Jesus said, that's what my heavenly father

is going to do to every one of you. If you do not forgive your brother from your heart, again, do you believe that? man, I got to think about that. If that's true, I've got to make some adjustments. The communion of the Trinity is the source and the criteria of truth in every relationship. Number six, and lead us not into temptation. Isn't it something there's so much in this Lord's Prayer?

I started the show off thinking, well, I'm going to talk about prayer, and I'm going to talk about the Eucharist, I'm going to talk about the Blessed Mother, and suddenly I'm realizing, I need to focus on prayer right now in my life and find out, do I really believe in prayer? Do I believe that God hears me? Do I believe that I hear God? Do I believe there's a relationship and that when I speak to God, according to his will, that he hears me and will answer? If I believe it, maybe I should do it more often. And I'm not clowning with you here when I say this. There's a lot of self-examination going on here with myself.

As it came out of the discussion over tea with my wife over the last couple mornings when we were reading scripture and talking, man, do I believe this if I believe it? I've got to make some adjustments today. Number six, and lead us not into temptation. The Greek verb is used in two ways. Do not allow us to enter into. temptation. That's a good prayer, isn't it, on a daily basis? Are you struggling with temptation in your

life? Sometimes I do. And I realize, you know, wow, I don't know. I honestly can't remember, sometimes I'm saying. I can't honestly remember when the last time I prayed lead us not into temptation except for the Lord's prayer, but I wasn't conscious of it when I was reading it because it is a prayer that we all say and sometimes don't pay attention to. Do not allow us enter into temptation. Second, a Greek verb is used in this way, and do not let us yield to temptation. Because we are engaged in a battle between flesh and spirit, this petition asks for discernment and strength in daily living. Again, do you believe this? I mean, if you really believe this, should we pray more often? The Holy Spirit will help us discern between trials which are necessary,

for spiritual growth and temptations which lead to sin and death. And by praying this prayer, this simple prayer that we all learned when we were kids, I remember my mom making us kneel down next to the bed and praying the Lord's prayer at night, along with the Hail Mary, the Holy Spirit will unmask the lie of temptation whose object appears to be good when in reality its end is death. and the battles we face can only be overcome in prayer. And the seventh petition, but deliver us from evil. Jesus prays in the gospel of John that we would not be taken out of the world.

No, we're not going to run away from this, but that we would be protected from the evil one, John 17.5. In this petition, we are reminded that sin is not an abstract, and not an abstraction. But sin is a reality with which we. must battle and contend. In fact, I'm going to do a show in the future here on the DNA of sin. I've been studying that a lot and thinking through that a lot lately. When we pray this petition but deliver us from evil, we're asking to be freed from all evils, present, past, and in the future. Do you believe in prayer? Seriously, if we took Christianity seriously,

Just these seven petitions would give us enough to think about for quite some time. The doxology of the Lord's Prayer for the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever, amen, takes up again the three petitions to our Father in a final proclamation of adoration and utter Thanksgiving. So I want to end the show this week by just asking again, Do you believe in prayer? I do. And I make mental assent. I make mental assent, but you know what? I got to go beyond that. I got to go beyond mental assent. And I have to personally entrust myself to God by entering into these seven petitions. And I would suggest every single day. And that is what I'm challenged with in this message today is that I'm, I need to do this in such a big way. And I would guess that you probably need to as well, right? Well, I'm going to do more of these in the future.

If we took Christianity seriously, I've got so many topics I'd like to talk to, and we'll sprinkle them out throughout the shows. But as you know, topics come up, life happens, and we talk about other things from time to time. Hey, I remember to pray for you. will you pray for me? And if you want to get in touch with me, you know, I was going to say, call me. I don't think that's going to work. Email me at the Ascension, or the Jeff Kaven show, email me at the Jeff Kaven Show at ascensionpress.com. By the way, the new Bible is out. Unreal the response. Whereas I think we're sold out. The first printing was thousands and thousands

of Bibles. And people are saying, I want the word of God. I want to know how to read it. The Great Adventure Bible at ascensionpress.com, and the new printings, I think even printing two or three, two is underway. It's coming in soon, so your Bibles will be here. But what's happening with this new Great Adventure Bible is unreal. And I'm doing interviews around the country and hearing from people and just incredibly pleased. I want to give a big shout out to Dr. Mary Healey, Dr. Peter Williamson, Dr. Andrew Swofford, John Harden over at Ascension Press, and the whole crew that put this Bible together, it is amazing. It's a Bible that will teach you how to read the Bible right within itself, color-coded with the Bible timeline system. Go to ascensionpress.com. Get on the list to get your copy. They're going to be coming in soon. Let's pray. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I thank you today. for this whole issue of prayer where you've come to us as a father speaking to his children and you want a relationship with us. Lord, we believe in prayer. We believe what you have taught.

Help us, Lord, to actuate this. Help us to become activated disciples and to put this into practice. In Jesus' name, amen. P.S., my friends, my new book, The Activated Disciple goes to print. today. And that will be out in about three weeks. Really excited about the activated disciple. Bringing your faith or bringing your faith to the next level, stepping it up to the next level, really excited about it. Hey, you have a good week. And I can't wait to be back with you next week already to talk about more things related to becoming a real activated disciple. God bless you.