The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - What the Lord Requires of You

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Amidst the business of life, what does God require of us? Jeff Cavins looks to scripture to help us come back to the basics and focus on three things required of us according to Micah 6:8. We dive deeper into the meaning of justice, mercy, and humility and how we can apply these key principles to our daily lives. Snippet from the Show The way that we treat each other reflects on our walk with God. 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!

Hello, I'm Jeff Kavans. You know, since 2014, Ascension has been producing YouTube videos and podcasts, 18 of them a week. Now, while we are making all of those free to anybody around the world, making them is not free. And we'd like to encourage you to be a part of what we're doing. Obviously, something is happening right now in great proportions as God's word is going out throughout the world and want to give you an opportunity to partner with us. So, If you'd like to help us financially to get more videos out there and to create more free content, we invite you to go to ascensionpress.com slash support. And we would absolutely love to work with you.

God bless you. Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 401. what the Lord requires of you. Hey, welcome back, my friend. So glad you are tuning in this week where we can spend some time together

talking about the Lord and discipleship and all the things that are happening in the world. As usual, I look forward to it every week. You don't get that type of time in the busy world these days where you can just sort of carve out you know, half an hour and spend time together talking about the issues that really matter in our life, you know, the issues that that pay a dividend in terms of your own spiritual growth and

certainly your family, you know, your children. Hopefully the things that we're discussing with one another here will show up, you know, in the way that you raise your children or your activity at the local parish or, I mean, even voting. We're coming up now. It's just days away. Everything that we learn is informed by our faith or in everything we do, I should say, you know, all of the activity, whether it be at work or whether it be at home or in the neighborhood, it's all informed by our relationship with Jesus and what we have learned and how we've learned to live our lives. It's just a beautiful thing. So this technology is a big yay. You know, we can use it in a wonderful way. Hey, we're going to talk to together this week about what the Lord requires of

you. And I'm going to be bringing out a particular verse from the Old Testament, Micah chapter six and verse eight, which has always been for me, one of those verses that I can go to that kind of simplifies life, you know. I'm sure that you would agree with me that life has become so complex, so complex. And you would think that technology would have made things a lot easier. At least that's what was promised, you know, that life would be easier. But it's been that way all along American history. You know, I remember, you know, reading an article years ago about the inventions that came about. It used to be that you took a quill and you would write a letter and it was a long, long process where you'd have to dip the quill into the ink and then you would write half a line or so and

you'd have to pause and dip it in again and then write. And so you had to. And so you had to, time to think about what you were doing, the decisions you were making, the things you said, and the way that you were treating people. And then they came up with the fountain pen. And the ink is in there all automatically. You can just keep writing and writing and writing and writing. And some people said that it actually became more difficult to write because there was no rest between lines or, you know, an opportunity to think. And they said the same thing, believe it or not, about washing machines. Used to be that the ladies in town would all meet at the same place and do laundry and talk with each other.

Catch up on the news and how are the kids doing? And I heard that your husband had an accident at work. How's he doing? Do you need anything? And then they came up with this wonderful washing machine and people were like, wow, you can do this in the comfort of your own home any time you want. And then what we found out was that people left that once, maybe twice a week of meeting and doing laundry with all of their friends.

And they were doing laundry all day long, one load after another, after another. And so technology, while it promises a lot, it also takes a lot of energy away from us. It really does. And so we go to the topic we're talking about this week, and that is that in the midst of all of this busyness, in all the things that we are involved in,

let's break it down. What does the Lord really require of you? Now there's a lot of things we could say, but I do find it interesting that Micah the prophet said in Micah 6.8, three things that the Lord requires of you. And he brings these up at that time for a reason. And so I'd like to take a look at those three things briefly today, and maybe it'll give you some encouragement on refocusing your life right now in the midst of elections and so many busy things, right? Hey, by the way, if you do want the show notes, and I do have some scriptures for you today, all you've got to do is text my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, and you text it to the number 3377. That's 3377. And we'll get you on board. We'll give you the show notes every week.

And if for some reason it broke and you're not getting them anymore, just sign up again. We'll get you back on board with them. I've run into people before that have, well, 400 shows. that's a lot of shows, but they have received the notes for years on the shows and put them in a three-ring binder. You know, they'll, and they can go back and they can look at different topics and quotes and scriptures, and it can be a help, you know, something you can go back to and refer to once again. So that's, uh, the number is three, three, seven, seven, seven, just text my name, Jeff Kaven's

one word will get you on board. Hey, we, uh, we definitely are changing. We're going into the fall right now. Life changes. We're getting ready for the winter up here in the north. Deep in the woods is where I'm at right now, actually. The trees are changing. It's all brown now. The leaves have faded. They change colors. And now they've gone back into this earthy brown and everything's quiet waiting for the winter. And I like it, though. I like it out in the winter. Okay, Micah, Chapter 6 and verse 8. Here's what it says. He has showed you, oh man. is good and what the Lord requires of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. I love it. To do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. Now that's from the revised standard version Catholic edition, and there are other translations out there who have chosen to use different words that really mean basically the same thing, nuances.

And in one of them I really like. And in fact, it's one that I had committed to memory years ago. And it says this, he hath shown thee, O man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. And so it focuses on justice, mercy, and humility. And the RSV Catholic edition, Justice, kindness, instead of the word mercy, and walk humbly with God, the same thing in most of the translations. But in many of the translations, the word kindness is replaced with mercy. Now, what's interesting about that, you know, this idea of kindness and then some translations say,

mercy, is that when you go back to the Hebrew and you read from a translation like the New American Standard Bible, which is one I used years and years before I came back to the Catholic Church, in there it uses the word kindness. And when you look it up in the Hebrew, it's a very interesting word, and it's the word in Hebrew, Chesed, Chesed. You could say H-E-S-E-D, Chesed. And it has to do, this word Hesed has to do with covenant faithfulness, covenant faithfulness. And it can also be goodness or kindness. And I like that, you know, this idea of being faithful is tied to covenant and it is tied to mercy and kindness. And so when we talk about God's love and his faith is covenant faithfulness towards us, that's the word that's used.

H-E-S-E-D. So we could say this. We could say, he has showed you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love covenant faithfulness, kindness, mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Either way, you have three tremendous things to focus on. If you're going to really focus on just a few things, what does the Lord require of you today? Well, it's the three things and how often do we go week after month after year and not really think about these things a whole lot and yet god takes one verse in mica and says this is what the lord requires of you not this is what the lord wants you to think about or this is what the lord wants you to read up on this is what he requires of you which when you use the word require means there's going to be an

answering and we're going to be accountable for justice in our lives and covenant faithfulness mercy, kindness, and also humility to walk humbly with your God. We're going to be required to give an account of these things in our life. So let's take them one by one here. In the time that we have today, first of all, let's look at justice, okay? The Lord requires us to walk in justice. What is justice? Well, justice isn't giving people what they want necessarily.

You know, somebody says, well, I want this. Well, giving it to them is justice, no. Walking in justice is giving someone what they have coming to them, what they deserve, the respect that they deserve, and what they have coming to them. And so we could talk about walking justly with the Lord, and that is giving the Lord what he deserves, which is our obedience. It's our worship, our praise, our finances, our actions. All of this belongs to the Lord and to walk unjustly is to not give God what is rightly coming to him.

So when we talk about justice, there are different categories of this. One is justice toward God. We give God what God deserves. He purchased us with his blood, paid the price, and now we give him back our lives. We don't withhold ourselves from him. And so what does the Lord require of you? he requires you to walk justly with him give him what is his i'm reminded of that you know that story in the new testament where jesus he tells them to to get a coin and there's a coin in the fish's mouth

and there's an image on the coin and he says give to caesar what is caesars and give to god what is gods well there's an image of caesar on the coin that belongs to caesar pay your taxes that's just, but to give your life, since you're created in the image and likeness of God, to give your life to God, that's justice, right? And to withhold your life and say, I'm going to do my own thing. That's unjust towards God. So number one, towards God. Number two, justice towards others. And what's that? Well, everybody has a right to their name, looking at the Ten Commandments. Everyone has a right to their name, to reputation of their name, and everybody has a right for a fruitful marriage. And they have a right to own things. You know, just looking at the Ten Commandments. Those are the three things there that everybody has a right. And to withhold that right and take away that right is unjust. So you cannot take someone's name. You cannot speak evil of them. and ruin their name even though you might have thought well they had it coming to them and it's

the truth after all you didn't have a right to ruin a man's name at all and you don't have a right to steal a man's goods or his property he has a right there it's just to allow him to do that or marriage with his wife you cannot cause that family to split so that's justice towards others and then we have a kind of a third category which is a fight for justice it's a for justice for those who are disenfranchised, those who are marginalized, those who cannot fight for themselves. So I'm thinking there, obviously, of the unborn. It's justice towards the unborn is to fight for their life and to protect them while they're in the womb. That's just. It is not justice to take their life in the womb. That's not just. And so these are the things that

we are focused on. I remember, you know, back in 1963, and yes, I was alive then, and I was I was six at that time. Between two to 300,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to hear Dr. King deliver that very famous speech, I have a dream. It was very, very powerful. I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and the frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation

where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And that was a phenomenal speech. But you know, today nearly, what, four decades now, four or five, no, it's more than that. What is it? Six, five, six decades now, there still is a problem with injustice in the world. Now, I have always thought that we're really making progress on this. And I'm finding out in the last few years that not everybody thinks that we are,

but I thought we were making some very good progress in this area. but apparently we have more to learn and to grow in our relationship with other people in the area of justice. You know, to be prejudice is literally to prejudge. That's where the word comes from. To prejudge. And that's what we're called not to do, to prejudge a person based on the color of their skin, where they're from, their education, whatever it might be. And I remember that interview, a very famous interview, that Diane Sawyer had, with Billy Graham, Dr. Billy Graham, he was getting quite old at the time.

And she asked the question, if you could wave your hand and make one problem in this world go away, what would it be? And without having to give it even a single thought, a question he obviously had thought a lot about. You know what he said? He said, if I could wave my hand and one problem could go away, it would be racial division and strife. That's what he said. That's what it would be. Didn't even blink.

Now, wouldn't that be beautiful if racial division and strife went away? Well, that's what we do as Christians. We fight for justice. We work hard for justice. Why? Because God is just. God is just. But with that justice, we also balance mercy.

Because if you're going to go straight by justice and say, well, I want justice for my own life. Well, when it comes to eternal life and comes to mortal sin and original sin, no, you do not want justice. You want mercy because when we sin, the penalty for sin is death. You do not want justice there. You want God's mercy. I love it. You know, Micah says what's required of you, but to do justice and to love mercy. They go hand in hand, don't they?

It's that covenant faithfulness, chesed, kindness, mercy, so beautiful, very, very beautiful. So that's a little bit about justice, and it's amazing how often. We just go on our merry way and we don't think about these things anymore. You know, we don't really give it serious thought in the way we are doing our job at work or the way that we are interacting with people, whether it be extended family or in our neighborhood. And so today, number one, we need to focus on justice. God, it requires this of you to give God what is due him and to give fellow man what is due them, to give your husband, what is due him, your wife, your children.

we have to think about justice. All right, we've got two more coming up. We're going to take a look at those right after this. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Hi, I'm Father Michael Joseph Paris, and I am one of the hosts of Season 3 of Catholic Classics where we'll read and explain the story of a soul by St. Teresa of Liseu, doctor of the church, an incredible saint who has inspired millions of Catholics

with her life and teachings. To follow along, get the reading plan at ascensionpress.com slash Catholic Classics. Welcome back. Looking here today at Micah, one verse, that's all. Micah says he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. So he gave Justice a gander there.

Took a look at that when it comes to justice. Oh, by the way, because of time, I don't have the time to go into a lot of these things, but let me just say this. I'm going to put some scriptures in the notes for you. And so I'm going to put in Luke 9 about the Samaritans. Another one, Luke 10, about the good Samaritan. John 4, the woman at the well. Ephesians 2, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.

Oh, here's another one. Oh, yeah, this is good too. I'm going to put these in the show notes for you. So if you want to go a little bit deeper, you want to meditate on some of these scriptures dealing with justice, well, there they are. You know, why I remember one guy saying this, and I've kept it in my notes all these.

these years he said you fill in the blank you fill in the blank how would your circle of friends respond if they knew that you had lunch with a you fill in the blank that's prejudice that's prejudice what would be the response among relatives if they knew that your child was dating someone from a fill in the blank so we learn a little bit about ourselves there you know uh you might have thought about different ethnic groups country what side of town they were from But there are ways that we mark people and we prejudged people, right? Well, in Acts chapter 10, Peter met Cornelius. The two were never to meet, you know.

But now in the New Testament, Jesus says, do not call what is clean, unclean. I'll put that in the show notes for you too. Okay, so the next one now, what does he require of you? Well, the second thing is he wants mercy, kindness, mercy, and kindness. That's just so beautiful. or Hesed, Hesed, that's that covenant faithfulness. So when we talk about kindness, you know, we're not just talking about being nice. A kindness goes beyond being nice.

Kindness is a virtue. And it's the way we treat people with respect and that we recognize the inherent value and dignity of the human being. And so our response to them is not one of a harsh word or judgment or prejudging, but it is kindness. And kindness is when we extend the heart of God to people in various situations. And a lot of times the situations that we encounter can be combative, where somebody might be combative towards you at work or a family member. and your response could be in kind. You become combative with them and it ends up in a fight, you know, or an argument and you walk away and you're mad at each other.

Or you can choose to walk in kindness, and that is to treat them with respect and to treat them as a person who has dignity created in the image and likeness of God. So there are different audiences that we can exercise kindness towards. And I want to start with the first one here and really emphasize it because I don't think that it happens as readily as it does with the second and the third category that I'll talk about. The first is kindness towards your family. Kindness towards your family. Now, the reason I'm, I'm emphasizing that is because oftentimes we put on a show publicly and then when we come home, we let our hair down, so to speak, and we treat our family cold. We raise our voice. There's

judgment that takes place, and were anything but kind. I remember the story of a man and his wife were driving down the highway, and there was a car pulled over up ahead, and they slowed down to see what was going on, and sure enough, there was a lady all alone who had a flat tire, and she was a young, attractive, young lady. And the man said, well, you know, I think I need to do something here. I'm going to do a good deed. I'm going to pull over, and he got out of the car, and he came over to the lady, and he said, ma'am looks like you got a flat tire she says i do and i'm late to an appointment he said don't listen

don't you worry i'll take care of this for you it's going to be a good day don't you worry about it i'll just i'll do it for you here and and and he went and got the you know the equipment out of the trunk and the spare tire and he he changed the tire and the lady was so thankful she gave him a hug and he said no don't mention it you have a great day and he got back in the car and his wife looked over at him and she said, wow, that sure would be nice if you treated me that way. Talk about conviction, huh? Sure would be nice if you treated me like the way you treated that young pretty lady on the side of the road. Wow.

And I think that there's a message in it, you know, and that is that kindness starts with your family. It starts with your husband. It starts with your wife. It starts with your children. It's so often we bring the frustrations of work back to the home and we take it out on our family and we treat them very unkindly. And that's the first place to show kindness, to respect your wife and your husband and your children. The second is co-workers to treat them with kindness. What does the Lord require of you? He requires you to walk in kindness.

To treat people with with covenant faithfulness. Mercy, mercy, mercy, mercy. So that is one. and then just the people as a whole out there, others, out there, your neighbors at the mall to gas station, the guy who passes you and gives you a dirty look in the car, and you're tempted to give a dirty look back, no, what's required of you. What's required of you when a guy passes you and he's angry is not to give him gestures and yell, but to respond in kindness, kindness. And then the fourth, the first is family, second, co-workers, third, others, and then fourth, your enemies. Now, there's a category that we don't particularly like, right? Your enemies show kindness and mercy and covenant faithfulness towards even your enemies. Love your enemies. The Lord requires this of you.

So far we've got the Lord requires justice, and he requires kindness slash mercy, slash covenant faithfulness. Now the third one is that the Lord, let's go back to Micah for a second here and read it again. He says Micah 6-8, He has showed you, O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you,

but to do justice? Not just to like justice. Did you notice that right there? To do justice. Not just like it. Not to be in favor of it. Not to vote for it. Do justice.

And to love kindness. And then third, to walk humbly with your God. And so that's the third thing, to walk humbly with your God. Now, when you walk humbly with your God, it is also to walk in humility with one another, because the way that you treat each other reflects on your walk with God. That's why Jesus said, if you come to me with a gift and you have something against your brother, lay your gift down, go take care of it, and come back and you can give your gift to me. There's this relationship between you and God and you and your neighbor or whoever it might be. So now humility is not thinking less of yourself. That's silly,

right? It's thinking of yourself less. And that is that you're not all that in a bag of chips. You're not the center of everything. You know who you are in relationship to God. And you know who you are in relationship to one another. Now, St. Thomas said that the virtue of humility consists in keeping oneself within one's own balance, not reaching out to things above one, but submitting to one's superior. And so I like that. You know, I think it was St. Augustine, wasn't it? I think it was St. Augustine that said that without humility, there aren't other virtues.

and if there are, it's just in appearance because humility is the beginning of the development of virtue in your life. You cannot walk in virtue. You cannot learn something new if you are not going to be humble. And so we are required to walk in humility. Now, there's every aspect of Jesus' life. Every aspect of Jesus' life oozed humility. And Paul talked about humility. I'll get to Jesus here in just a second, but Paul said, and I'll put in the notes for you, Romans 12.3, for by the grace given to me, I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him. Isn't that beautiful? That's Romans 12.3. Now, when you look at the life

of Jesus, everything about him speaks of humility. So if you're required to walk in humility, it means that you're required to walk as Christ. So, for example, God sending his son to earth as a human was humility. As a baby in Bethlehem, that's humility. Number two is growing up, the silent years was a sign of humility. It says in the catechism in paragraph 5, 64, and I'll stick it in there for you. By his obedience to Mary and Joseph, as well as by his humble work during the long years in Nazareth, Jesus gives us the example of holiness in the daily life.

of family and work. Number three, certainly baptism. Jesus submitted to baptism right there in Matthew 3 at the Jordan River, which, by the way, is the lowest place, as far as topography, the lowest place on earth. Doesn't get any lower than that. That's humility. He came as a baby, but then he started his public ministry at the lowest place on earth.

Number four, the beginning of Jesus' ministry. The temptation in the desert shows Jesus, the humble Messiah who triumphs over Satan by his total adherence to the plan of salvation willed by the father. That's paragraph 56. Number five, Jesus taught that the greatest in the kingdom must humble themselves and become like children. And then number six, Jesus said an example by doing what? By washing the feet of his disciples in John chapter 13. So those are just some thoughts there, you know, about humility that I think are really important. I'm reminded of what St. John of the Cross said when he said to be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its

greatness, but on the greatness of its humility. And that's what God notices, right? I just ran into, I was looking through my notes here while I was talking to you, and I just ran into that St. Augustine quote, and I'll put it in the show notes for you. I'm going to stick that in there. And it's this, humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance humility ah we need it we need it don't we i think so he has showed you oh man what is good what does the lord require of you but to do justice to love kindness slash mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Today's a good day to focus on those three things.

Maybe write them down on a three-by-five index card, stick it in your back pocket, put it in your purse, put it in the mirror in the bathroom, and go into today this week saying, Lord, I'm going to give you what you require of me. I'm going to focus on this for a week, and I'm going to give it to you. Let's pray.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you so much. We thank you for speaking so boldly to us and right to the point. And I pray, Lord, that we this week would really respond to your word and give you justice and to walk in justice, to do justice, and to love kindness in all of our relationships, help us, Lord, with our own personalities, and to walk humbly with you. Lord, these are the three things we want to grow in this week. And we ask, for the prayers of our dear mother, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God. Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. Amen, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Now I'm going to take just a few minutes and enjoy all the beauty out here deep in the woods. God bless you. Have a great week.

Thank you.