The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Living in the Moment

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the busyness of the holiday season? Jeff emphasizes the importance of living in the moment as disciples of Jesus, especially during this hectic time. He shares four key areas to focus on each day: being a witness, the power of prayer, the significance of praise, and the necessity of wisdom. These essentials help us cultivate a deeper and more intentional relationship with Christ amidst life's distractions. Snippet from the Show Prayer helps us become aware of the presence of God in our daily routines. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 408, Living in the Moment. Welcome, my friend, Christmas right around the corner, and I know it's a busy time of year, and sometimes. we just get going on autopilot, particularly with all the buying and all the preparing and all the travel and everything else. But in the meantime, we are disciples of Jesus and we have to pay attention to what we have to pay attention to. And that's what I want to talk about. Today is living in the moment, living in the moment every day, every moment of the day. Walking like Jesus is with you 24-7 because it's not like it is real. He really is. He's with you 24-7. So,

I'm going to share with you today four things to think about every day, four things to focus on every day. There are more, to be sure, there are many, many more. But these are the four that were on my heart today to share with you. In fact, I think it was about a week ago, week and a half ago, something like that. I started thinking about this topic. And then you came to mind. And I thought, oh, I'd like to share this with you. Because these are the four things that, at least right now in my life, I'm trying to tend to on a daily basis and not lose sight of, you know, not to go on automatic pilot and just live out my life and forget totally about this relationship with the Lord and the things that I am asked to pay attention to.

So, by the way, if you're new to the show, we do have very good show notes. One of the best. We've got a great crew. And I share all that I'm talking about as far as scriptures and quotes and citations from the catechism and all that. And if you'd like the notes automatically for every show, all you've got to know is my name, Jeff Kavens, one word, Jeff Kavins. And you text my name to the number 3377. That's 3377.

And we'll put you on the list. And we'll get you those notes every week. By the way, and I'm going to be talking about this coming in the coming year here, a new Bible, new big Bible for the great adventure. Wow. Wow. We have a new premium Bible of The Great Adventure, and is it beautiful? It's a Bible that, to be honest with you, it's a lifetime Bible. It's one of those Bibles that will be with you for the rest of your life. It won't fall apart. And, you know, it's meant to be a life Bible. In fact, it's a legacy Bible in that you can pass it on to the next generation. Beautiful. Goat, skin, cover. Wow. And we've got some other new Great Adventure Bibles available. I'll put that in the notes for you. Go ahead and order your great adventure Bible. I have mine right here. You cannot see it, but I have the new premium Bible with me, and it's going to be my daily driver now. And I need a daily driver that can stay together because I'm doing so much with this. But anyway, I'm really glad

about it. I will be talking about that in a few years, not too long from now. So stay with me, but I'll put the link in the notes for you. If you want to go ahead and order ahead your premium Bible and some of the other great adventure bibles that have just come out there's a large print there's a note-taking one there's the regular blue one but listen to this and there's a paperback but listen to this there's some things in this new one that i'm going to go through with you incredible there's such a blending of the catechism with this new one that it's it's seamless in working together with the catechism and that in itself is worth the the price of admission right there so i'm looking forward to the show, practically did one right now, but I'm really looking forward to talking to you

about it. Back to our theme this week, and that is living in the moment, living in the moment, you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes we wake up in the morning. We go on automatic pilot, and before you know it, it's two in the afternoon, and you're getting tired and you need a cup of coffee, you need some sugar and whatever, and you're thinking, oh, what am I going to have for dinner tonight? And there you are. You're back home, and it kind of just happens day after day after day. But If you're a disciple of the Lord, you should be thinking about things throughout the day, things that are important to the life of a disciple, things that when you see the opportunity, you just do them. So I've got four of them here. And the idea behind this and sharing them with you is that in the life of a disciple, these are things I'm going to share with you that you really have to cultivate and you have to grow in your understanding of these four.

things and and start to put together sort of a library, a heart library of opportunities and examples of how you can do the four things that I'm talking about. So, Jeff, stop talking and let's get to the four, okay? Number one, throughout the day, you need to constantly think about the fact that you are a disciple who is a witness. You are a witness. Now, when I say that, you might automatically think, oh, I've heard talks about witnessing. Oh, I've heard talks about the new evangelization. Oh, I know about that. No, we forget these things, don't we?

I do. I've got to be reminded myself. Let me give you a scripture. In fact, I'll give you a scripture for all four of them. But this first one is at the end of Matthew's Gospel, and it's really the last charge that he gives us. It's the last to-dos that he wants to give us. So listen to what it says. Then Jesus, and this is, by the way, for a note,

takers, it's Matthew 28, 18 through 20. Then Jesus approached and said to them, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me, go therefore, and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And here it comes. Ready? Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always until the end of the world. Now notice what Jesus says there. You and I, if you're baptized, you've been confirmed. you confess Christ is Lord, you read your Bible, you go to Mass, you are a prayer warrior, whatever you are. You have a responsibility to open your eyes and make disciples. You have a responsibility. I have a responsibility. It's not something that I can just kind of

whitewash over and say, wow, that's not my gift or whatever. Every one of us has a responsibility to make disciples. And I made an agreement with the Lord a few years of ago. And that was that every year I would try as much as I can to be a sponsor of one person coming into the church every year. Now, I hope that I have a bigger impact just in conversations with people, and you do too, but I want to formally in the earth now, in the natural, in the flesh. I want to be a sponsor. I want to make disciples. And so I got it. I got one this year. Wonderful man, a wonderful man. And met with him and talking and looking. forward to being his sponsor coming into the church.

Who knows? Maybe you'll be on this show someday. You never know. So we're called to make disciples. Now what is a disciple? Well, a disciple is a disciplined follower of Christ. It is in Hebrew, we would say a Talmede, T-A-L-M-I-D. Tal-M-I-D. Here, I'll just put that in the notes right now for you. You are hearing a note being written. There it is. It's in the notes. Tal-Mid. So a Tal-Mid, or a plural Tommy Deem are people who follow Jesus with the idea that they want to learn from him and they want to act like him. They want to be identified with him. They want to deal with life the way he deals with life. They want to walk the way he does as far as his wisdom and knowledge and

everything else. But in order to do that, you've got to cultivate that relationship on a daily basis. But I hope you're doing that. But what I'm talking about today is getting up in the morning and having your eggs and so forth, getting in the car and going to work with this on your mind. That throughout the day I'm constantly reminded that I have a to-do from the Lord to make disciples. So I've got to start looking out for people. Who could I talk to?

Who am I developing a relationship with? Who could I invite to church? Who could I explain what the OCIA is? This is the opportunity to come into the church and learn about the church and then be received on Easter Vigil. And your job as a sponsor is to walk with him or her and to stand up with them when they come into the church. So now, the fact that I brought this up today and said that we should be constantly carrying this in the moment, the living in the moment, every day knowing that we're called to make disciples, let me ask you, have you been doing that? do you recall over the last week, month, six months, year, being aware of this or or keeping this in mind in all of your discussions that there are people who need the Eucharist, there are people who desire to be led by God, there are people that are craving the wisdom from heaven, and you, well, you're the contact. And so every single day we live with that.

Number two. Number two, this is something that I think we all need to live in the moment every single day. And that is this. Prayer works. Prayer works. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is effective. Prayer is working with God in his creative process, continuing on the work in the people's lives and forming them and watching Jesus. be manifest to so many people. Prayer works. Now, you know, if you're like me, and I'm just, this is, I guess, confession time, but there have been times in my life where I lost sight of what prayer really was. I didn't continue to think of prayer as an ongoing relationship with God for his purposes and lifting people up to him and asking God to intervene in situations. Yes, he created the earth. Yes, he created your brother. Yes, he created your wife. Yes, he created your boss.

But God's not done with him yet. And he, in his wisdom, has extended his creative power to prayer through you. That's amazing. So when you pray in his will, God moves in wonderful ways. I think that sometimes we look at prayer is, well, it's just something I'm going to kind of say I do. You know, someone says, oh, I'm really having a hard time, you know, in my marriage lately. I'm really having a hard time raising the kids, whatever it is. Oh, well, you know, God love you.

I'll pray for you. Really? Well, did you pray for him? God love you. We'll pray for you. You're going to be in my prayers. Well, did we pray? And if we prayed, did we pray like it was going to happen?

That God was going to intervene in his or her life? I love what Paul said to the Thessalonians, and I'll stick this in the notes. Pray without ceasing. What does that mean? It means live in the moment. It means your life is a beautiful poem of prayer 24-7. You are in relationship with Jesus. And when you see work that needs to be done,

you can offer this up and say, Jesus, I'm praying that you will do this in my child's life or my boss's life or whoever it might be or in my life. Continue your creation. Continue your formation in my life and in my friend's life. So not only are we called to be a disciple and witness to people, but we are also called to be people of prayer. We believe in the power of prayer. We're not guessing.

We're not rolling the dice. We're not flipping a coin. We are asking God to move in the lives of people according to his will. That's powerful. I'm going to take a break when I come back. I'm going to share with you the other two things that we need to constantly remember every single day. if we're going to truly live in the moment, or what I would say is living in the Spirit, living in the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. I'm Father Mark Mary Ames with the Franciscan friars with the renewal. My brother and sisters at the service of becoming saints and falling in love with Jesus and Mary in the Most Holy Rosary, the team here at Ascension Press have put together the Rosary in a year podcast. Each day, we're going to have a 10 to 15 minute episode where we're just going to work through the basics of the rosary. Who is Jesus? How do we encounter Jesus? Who is our lady? What does that mean for us to be in a relationship to her? We're going to go through the Hail Mary, the Our Father,

each of the different mysteries. And then we're going to bring in some saint writings on the mysteries and some sacred art that speaks on the mysteries and all of this to help enrich our prayer, to renew our prayer, to help us fall in love with Jesus and Mary and to fall in love with the rosary again. If you want to join us in this journey, you can begin by going to a suchimpress.com forward slash rosary in a year to download the prayer plan and by listening and praying with us through the Rosary in a Year podcast. All right. Look forward to the journey with you. Welcome back talking about living in the moment, talking about what we are aware of throughout the day that we don't lose sight of God. We don't break the relationship with God. We continue

on every day with certain things in our mind. And I can tell you right now, if I'm probably going to do it, there's four more I could give you. And that just this might be another show. We'll see how this goes. But there's a lot of things that you can think about on a daily basis. And we have to develop that. It doesn't just happen, you know, automatically. We've got to practice the presence of Jesus in living in the moment. So the first two were remembering that we are witnesses. The first one, that's that witnesses. The second one is prayer power. When we pray, we pray according to the will of God and God is doing amazing things. And we believe that. Number three, praise. He's thinking, oh, man, Jeff, I thought you were going to say, you know, finding out the powerball numbers or something. No, this is better. Praise. Praise. All day long, we should have a song of praise in our heart to God when we see beautiful things and we come and meet people and we think about the truth of God's word. And we're just filled with praise. Praise is confessing who he is and what he's done.

You know, we praise him for who he is. And we praise him for his mighty works in the world and in your life as well. You know, praise is not some kind of like just magic phrase. Oh, praise your Lord, glory to God. Hallelujah, alleluia, hallelujah, Maranatha, glory to God. Thank you, Jesus. You can say all that. You can.

And that is a form of worship and praise, to be sure. but praise has a vocabulary and the more you stay in the word of God and the more you commune with Jesus in the Eucharist and prayer the more you have to say when you praise God if you want to know what's a great way to study this then pray the Psalms because the Psalms are prayers and they are praise I love what Isaiah said in Isaiah 61.3 this is so big beautiful. Listen to this. Isaiah the Prophet said that God has given you a garment of praise. Now think about that. He's given you a garment of praise. Now, a garment is something you have to put on. A garment is something that covers you. A garment is something that envelopes you. And God has given you a garment of praise.

When you get up in the morning, is it just a, oh, man, I can't believe we've got this meeting today. I'm going to have to, I got to go out lunch with so and so. Or do you get up in the morning and just begin to praise God at the beginning of your day? Certainly, you get up and you probably have a smoothie and you got your vitamins and you got everything else and maybe you work out a little bit. Why wake up with a bad attitude? Why not wake up and begin praising God for who he is and what he's done and what he's provided in your life?

Now, when Isaiah, the prophet said in Isaiah 61.3, it'll be in the notes, when he said, God has given you a garment of praise, then he says something else. He says, instead of, God is giving you a garment of praise, which you have to put on. He's given you a garment of praise instead of something. What do you think that is? What do you think instead of what? Instead of a denim shirt? No.

He's given you a garment of praise instead of cheap clothing? No. He's given you a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. God has given you a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness, a spirit of despair, a spirit of depression and anxiety. God has given you a garment of praise. You wake up in the morning and you start to go down the alley of depression and despair and oh, stop. Go back to your spiritual closet and grab that garment of praise and put it on. You have no business going to work without that garment.

You have no business coming home at the end of the day without that garment. Put it on. It doesn't belong on a hanger in your theological closet. Not at all. It's something you wear. It's something you put on every day. Even when you don't feel like it, some people say, I don't feel like it early in the morning, Jeff.

Who said anything about your feelings? Your feelings don't matter here. Your feelings don't keep you from praising God. What are you going to do? Look at a God and say, I was going to praise you because you created the earth and me and you did all these other things. But I'd be honest with you, God. I just didn't feel like it. I didn't feel like it.

No, praise is something that you do. Did you know that the word hallelujah is actually a command? It's not just a praise word, hallelujah, hallelujah. Glory to God. Maranatha. Hallelujah. Jesus. No. Hallelujah is a praise. Praise God. Hallelujah. Praise God. So get up in the morning. Put that garment of praise on. And again, you get four miles down the street. You haven't done it. Go back. Go back to your spiritual closet. Get that garment off of that hanger and put it on. Psalm 22.3 says that God is enthroned on the praises of Israel. That's right. You're all mixed up and all out of sorts and worried and everything. You look to God,

whereas God, well, God is on the throne of power and authority. God is enthroned on the praises of Israel. See, when you begin to praise God, God doesn't change, not at all. You do. You do when you begin to praise him. It has a way of working on your soul, on your brain, on what you say and don't say, what you confess. Very important. And, you know, Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, remember earlier I mentioned prayer,

power prayer is power pray without ceasing first thessalonians 517 well the very the very verse before that is verse 16 first thecelonians 516 you know what that says rejoice always again rejoicing isn't just a the fruit of feelings i don't feel like rejoicing i don't feel like praising there's nothing to do with it so you don't i don't feel like breathing breathing has nothing to do with your feelings it's something you do it's something you do it's something you do it's something that you need. I don't feel like going home tonight. Well, you better. You want to face your wife or your husband or your parents. So you see, sometimes we look at these things as I'll do them when I feel like it. Wow. Adam and Eve all over again, isn't it? The fourth one is this one.

I love this one. You know what it is? All day long, living in the moment, every single day, we need wisdom. Wisdom. We need it. If you're going to be a disciple of Jesus, then you're going to need his wisdom and insight in the situations that you are navigating today. And I would encourage you to make a point out of every week, grab two or three scriptures from Proverbs, Syrac, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, James in the New Testament, grab some verses and write them down and put them in your pocket. it, put them in your purse, whatever, and focus on them. Gain wisdom, gain wisdom. The beginning of wisdom is wisdom. It's gain it.

Ask for it. Ask for wisdom. God will give you wisdom. I believe that with all of my heart. Now, all wisdom is contained in Jesus, isn't it? Paul wrote that to the Colossians in chapter two. It's in the notes. Chapter 2 verses 1 through 4.

I'll give you a part of it right here. He said, for I want you to know how greatly I strive for you. and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged as they are knit together in love to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ. I get this, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Bingo! I love that. I say this in order that no one may delusion.

you with beguiling speech. Don't be deluded. With beguiling speech, no Christ. All wisdom and understanding and knowledge are in Jesus. It says they are hid in Jesus. That means

you have to go for them. It means you have to dig through and find that wisdom and then apply it to your life. But that should be something that's on your mind all day long. You say you've got three meetings today. You need wisdom. You might look into proverbs for a moment. You know, someone once told me there's 31 chapters in

proverbs and the long months have 31 days. And so you do actually have a built-in schedule to read a chapter of the Proverbs every day if you want to. If you don't want to, you don't have to. But I would suggest it, particularly if you've got three meetings. Oh, I got so many meetings, Jeff. I don't know if I have the time to that. Oh, listen, you have three meetings? You can't afford not to. You cannot afford not to go into those meetings without wisdom. As my father used to say to me, don't be dumb. Be smart.

Okay. I need wisdom. So there it is. It's every day we've got in the presence in our mind in the moment, living in the moment, that I am a disciple who witnesses. Number one. Number two, I believe in prayer power. That is not only praying for people, but praying with people. number three praise i'm a man of praise you're a man you're a woman of praise and i will praise

god praise will be the theme of the song in my heart throughout the entire day and number four wisdom i can't do this by myself i am not that deep i am not that educated i only i only know one language i'm new to the city new to this company oh got children i've never had that before what do i do now you need wisdom you need wisdom you need wisdom those are the four a disciple who witnesses prayer power praise and wisdom every single day you know what because i'm out of time i just might put together more because as i'm sharing this with you i'm thinking but wait a minute there's more too to think about now that that doesn't mean that i'm doing these things every other minute but it means i'm aware of it and if it's a time to praise god i'm in a situation

where i feel trapped or i don't know what to do i can begin to praise him because of God is enthroned on the praises of Israel. I can begin to praise him because he's given me a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness. Let me pray for you. My friend, love being with you every week. I really do. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Lord Jesus, I lift up my friend to you right now in this weekly get-together that we have. I thank you for them and I thank you for their faithfulness and their friendship. I lift them up to you, Lord, and myself as well and ask you to help us to live in the moment, to be ever made present, that we would know that your presence is with us,

that we would always be aware of this, the fact that we know you, you have revealed yourself to you, you are Emmanuel, you're with us, and that we are witnesses, we are called to pray, we are called to praise, and we are called to seek wisdom and live by it.

Lord, I pray that you really stir our hearts up in this area, and give us, Lord, the tenacity and the first focus to do this in the days going forward. Lord, maybe there's a new habit in our life you're trying to develop. We hear you and we want you and we will change. In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. I love you as always. And I'll put that note for the new Great Adventure Bibles in the show notes for you. God bless. Thank you.