The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - You and God in the Secret Place

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

Jesus tells us to pray, fast, and give alms in secret because the Father who sees in secret will repay us. Jeff expands on this fascinating teaching and invites us to think about our secret places where we meet God and encounter his love. Snippet from the Show "Your Father who sees in secret will repay you."- Matthew 6:4 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 ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show, episode 2.45, you and God, in the Secret Place. 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. And a good welcome to you. Thanks for joining me on the show. show this week, kind of a secret place here, you know, just you and me talking here every week like we do. I so look forward to it. Whether I'm walking with you along the lake or driving in the car, it's just good to be with one another. It's the body of Christ. Well, today I want to talk to you

about a theme that I've been thinking about quite a bit. I've been doing a lot of reading, and particularly the reading of Abraham Joshua Heschel. He is a Jewish philosopher, just an amazing writer. And he was actually quoted in Fides at Ratzio, the encyclical, the Pope John Paul the 2nd made, just a brilliant mind. And obviously, John Paul II was a student of Abraham Joshua Heschel when it came to philosophy and modern thinking. Anyway, I've got a few quotes I want to share from Abraham Joshua Heschel today.

But what's been really on my heart is this whole idea of you and God in the secret place. The secret place. Do you have a secret place where you meet God? Well, when I was growing up in Bloomington, Minnesota, in the Burbs, I was really big into creating secret places. And in our home, there was underneath the kitchen. a crawl space. And there was, I don't know, probably two feet high, something like that, filled in with dirt. And if you went downstairs, if you remove the picture on the wall, the picture on the wall,

you could take a little ladder, climb up, and go into the crawl space. It was, for me, a secret place. And I figured out how to put the picture back up at times, you know, it didn't look like anybody was up there. But I liked that secret place. I went up there and I rigged up an extension cord and brought a light up into that secret place. That was one of my secret places. I had also a secret place that was outside where we built a great big ditch on the side of a hill. And it was about six feet deep, six feet square.

And then we put plywood over it and filled it over the top. with dirt, and we knew where the entrance was. And for me and my friends, it was our secret place. Now, there was another secret place, and that was underneath the stairs in the same home. Back then, you had to get on a phone to talk to people, and we had a party line, so you have to make sure you're the only one on there. But once you end up on the phone, if you have a phone up in the kitchen, your parents can hear everything you say to that girl you like. And so I figured out how to have a cord like 20 feet long downstairs and it wrapped around underneath the stairway and I built a secret place right there. Well, you probably have built secret places too.

Tell me about them. You know, give me a shout with an email or make some comments on this on Apple or Google Play. Love to know where your secret place was. I think a secret place is as a powerful metaphor for meeting with God to have a place where you can meet with God. It was Blaise Pascal who said in the 17th century, he said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Isn't that? That is amazing. And there's a lot of truth to that, I think. And that is that as Abraham Joshua Heschel had once said, he talked about how one of the biggest problems that we have is that we don't know what to do with silence. You know, we can't handle silence very well. We've got to fill that silence with something. And that goes for the secret place, the secret place. We don't like to be

alone. We don't like to be alone. Turn the radio on. Turn your songs on. Turn the television on in the background, whatever it might be. But I have found in recent months that there are a couple of different places that are secret places for me. The secret place certainly can be physically a secret place where you would meet with God on a regular basis. It could be in your kitchen, on the back porch, in the garage, in the car, wherever. But there is this secret place where nobody seems to know where you're at, but you know where you're at. You're with God. You're in that secret place. And you meet the Lord there, the secret place from time to time. And then there is a place to go to be alone for whatever reason. So you've got the physical secret place, but there's also a

secret place within, within you. There is that place where you go to meet with God, and it is cut off from all activity around you, it's peaceful, you're alone, and you can meet with God. And it's not dependent upon a physical location. In other words, you don't necessarily have to go five miles down the road to that one church. There is a secret place within. And God wants to meet you there. He wants to meet you there. I've also found out a third one, and that is the Sabbath. The Sabbath, for us is Sunday. For the Jews, it's Saturday. It's Sunday for us because of the resurrection of Jesus and the early church said, this is the place of rest. In the finished work of Christ, the resurrection of the Lord, this is the place where we are going to rest. And the Sabbath for Sunday, us is that place that is different than any other day of the week. It is different. It's the Sabbath. We have entered in, to the finished work of Jesus. And you know, I really believe, with all of my heart,

that we need a Sabbath. We need to take a day every week where we cease from work, we stop thinking about how to get ahead, or we stop thinking about work, and what do we do? We enter the secret place and meet with God throughout the day.

Now, I know enough about Catholicism in the United States to know that many people, I won't say most, but many people have really no concept of the Sabbath anymore. When I was a kid growing up, you might remember this, you know, depending on when you graduated from high school, but I can remember growing up when Sunday was shut down. Stores simply weren't open. Liquor stores were closed. All of the businesses shut down. It was, it felt different. When Saturday ended, and you know that Sunday was right around the corner, it was like in a holy eerie way in a way. You know, it's like, well, nothing's going to happen until

Monday. Everything's going to shut down. But then we started to kind of fudge on that in stores started opening, and then malls started opening in liquor stores and everything else. And to be honest with you, a lot of places, particularly retail, don't look really any different than Monday through Saturday. And so we have as a country sort of lost this sense of the Sabbath. We've lost it. I love this beautiful quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I mentioned to you that I was doing some reading of Heschel. And he said in his book called the Sabbath, he says, to gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space, we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. He says, there is a realm of

time where the goal is not to have, but to be, not to own, but to give, not to control, but to share, not to subdue, but to be in accord. He goes on and he says, life goes wrong, when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern. Isn't that something? Listen to what he said again. He said, life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space becomes our sole concern. And when we are alone and we have nothing to acquire, no things to us,

acquire for the space, we can go crazy practically. We don't know how to deal with this being alone. This secret place is a place where you can meet God. And I'm going to challenge you this week to think about where that secret place is for you and what happens in the secret place. I would argue that there is a physical secret place that we could go for sure, but I would also argue that internally within our heart, our mind, there is a secret place where we can meet with God and things really happen. There can be a Sabbath rest to be sure, but you can enter, get this, you can enter the secret place in a very busy schedule during a very busy day. I really believe that, that you can find that secret place.

And that's what I want to talk to you about right after this. You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. If you enjoyed the rejoice Advent resources in the past Advent, you know firsthand how God can use this season of Advent to foster a personal encounter with him so that you are ready for the person of Jesus Christ at Christ. My name is Father Mark Toops, author of the Rejoice Advent Meditation series, and I'm excited about this year as we invite you on a pilgrimage as we learn more about the places, people, and events of the very first Advent.

I am humbled with all of you who have celebrated with me the gift of Advent. Over 100,000 people have been a part of the Rejoice resource in the past. It's been a humble privilege for me to walk with you, and I'm excited. about this year's pilgrimage as we learn more about those places, people, and events of the very first Advent. To learn more and to go on the pilgrimage with us, go to rejoice program.com and until we see it in this Advent journey. God bless you. And my assignment for you this week, kidding about that, but kind of an assignment, is to think about, do you have a secret place where you go to meet God physically and internally?

Do you have those times throughout the day where you withdraw from the busyness of the world and you go to that secret place to the Lord? Now, you might be saying to yourself, well, is this scriptural? Is this scriptural? It is so scriptural. And, in fact, I'm going to share that with you, three different states. sets of scriptures, one in the old and two in the new that really illustrate this idea of combating things in life by going to that secret place and doing work, the work of our

heart in that secret place. Hey, before I go on, I've got to tell you this. I wanted to tell you this. I've got a new daily show on Hello app, and it's Daily Reflections with me and Jonathan Rumi. He plays Jesus on the series The Chosen, and he is incredible. I mean, this guy is an actor, and he is incredible. And the two of us have partnered up with Hallow to read the gospel of the day. And then he'll read the gospel of the day. You've got to hear this guy read. He'll read the gospel of the day. And then what am I going to do? I'm going to give a devotion, about a four to five minute thought on that. scripture that day. And someone asked me, and they heard about, they said, oh, you're going to do that

every Sunday? And I said, no, we're going to do it every day. 365 a year. We're going to go through the gospel reading in the liturgy for that day. If you're interested in joining me, it's kind of an extension of what I'm doing here, and you can join me at hallow.com forward slash partner dash Jeff Kavens. I'll put that in the show notes. And the reason I mention it there, is that from what I understand, you can have three months free. Check it out. That's hallow, and we're really excited to work with them. Okay, now, we're talking about that secret place where you meet God. Now, I want to talk, as I show you this, I want to, I want to talk about three major problems that we all struggle with.

to one degree or another. And, you know, stick with me here because I'm going to show you how the secret place can deal with the problems that you might be facing. In Genesis chapter three, and you know I go back here quite a bit, you know, because after all, the beginning of the Bible kind of sets the stage and the plot. But in chapter three of Genesis, we see that Adam and Eve were not allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they ate it, they would surely die, right? And the enemy comes, the serpent comes to Eve and says, did God say you shall not eat of the tree? Says, oh, we can, we can eat of the tree, but not the one that's in the middle of the garden. We can't even touch that one lest we die. And the enemy comes back in Genesis 3,4,

and says to the woman, you will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, in verse six, Eve notices three things about the fruit on the tree. She says, number one, it's good for food. Number two, it's a delight to the eyes. It's beautiful. Wow. Number three, it is desired to make one wise.

Now, what is not to like about that? I mean, those are three things. Well, the problem is that she chose the creation rather than the creator. The creator gave her everything and said, don't eat from that tree. but the enemy fooled her and she wanted to be like God knowing good and evil and what did she do she lost her trust in God and she reached out and she not only touched the fruit but she ate the fruit you see the sin that got us into trouble is idolatry it is going after the creation grabbing and apprehending and grasping the the creation rather than the creator now that's at the

very beginning of the Bible. Now, at the very end of the Bible, in, let's see here, in 1 John, the first letter of John chapter 2, he, John, remembers those three things at the very beginning. Delight to the eyes, make one wise, good for food, all that. When he says in 1 John chapter 2 and verse 15, do not love the world, and I'll put this in the show notes for you. and I'll share with you at the end of the show, how to get the show notes. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world.

And the world passes away and the lust thereof. Whoa. Those are the three things that were back in Genesis, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. In comes Jesus, right in the middle here. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6, it's right in the middle of the sermon on the Mount. And right there, in the middle of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus, he starts talking about piety. I've never liked that word. I don't know what it is about that word.

Do you like that? I mean, maybe it's because I grew up thinking, oh, he's so pious, you know? and I associated that word pious, you know, with piety. And, but I'm growing to accept it. It's in my Bible. And so right in the middle of the sermon on the Mount, Jesus is going to mention three disciplines, three forms of piety,

and he is going to tell you the wrong way to do it, and he's going to tell you the right way to do it. and the right way to do it, all three, is this, catch it, is to go to your father who is in secret. Go to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. You know what that means? We talked about the Sabbath, duh, right? But what this means now is that you can go into a secret place. with your father, even in the midst of a busy day, schedule hour, in the midst of dealing with

the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, there is a secret place for you to go. And so what we see here, and I'll put this in the show notes for you, because it can sound a little bit complicated, but we see that there was the problem in Genesis, the delight to the eyes and then in John 2, 1 John 2, we have the lust of the eyes. And the question is, how do we deal with that? How do we deal with it? And we deal with it in the sermon on the Mount with the very first form of piety that Jesus mentions. He says, beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in heaven. Then he says, Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues

and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Then he says, truly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret. So the way that we deal with the lust of the eyes, You know what that means, right, the lust of the eyes. Go to a mall, go to, go downtown, go anywhere. You go to television, cables, internet.

People really have a problem with the lust of the eyes. And what, how do you deal with the lust of the eyes? We want something. We want something. Almsgiving. That's right. Divest yourself from that which has a hold on you. And here's what Jesus says when he's talking about when you do alms giving, which is the way that we deal with this lust of the eyes.

He says, but when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your alms may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you. So here we see that there is a secret place with the father that you can over. overcome the lust of the eyes. This is brilliant. This is absolutely brilliant, Jesus. He has given you a way to deal with the lust of the eyes. And the key is to go to the secret place with your father. Divest yourself of what has a hold of you.

Give it away. Give it away. Give it away. Give it away. Give it away. Alms giving. But don't make a fanfare of it. don't blow a trumpet don't put it on instagram don't put it on twitter hey everybody trending jeff kavens is making a sacrifice here he's giving alms again no that's not what we're talking about and i've never done that so the idea is go to the secret place where your father sees in secret that's where you're going to give that that's why i'm saying you can go to a secret place with a father in of the day, the middle of the day. It's great. And then the second one that we see, which was a problem back in the Old Testament in Genesis, is that she saw that the fruit, Eve saw that the fruit

was good for the taste. It was good for food. It was good. It tasted good. Who doesn't like a good fillet mignon steak you know or if you're a vegan who doesn't who doesn't enjoy good lettuce you know we we are attracted by things that that tastes good right the lust the lust for food and and there is the lust of the flesh and first john talks about it he talks about the lust of the eyes the pride of life and the lust of the flesh. And so when we talk about the language that's used in Genesis 3-6, good for food, tasty, we know that at the end of the Bible talks about the lust of the flesh, how do we deal with that? Again, the key is the secret place, the secret place.

Because it says in Matthew chapter 6 and verse 16 through 18, it says that we're We have the key now for dealing with the lust of the flesh. We have the key. And so this is dealing with fasting. So how do you deal with this lust of the flesh, this lust for the food? It's tasty and you can't get enough of that. Have you ever found yourself in that kind of a situation where you're just indulging just a bit too much, you know, and whether it's food or drink or whatever?

and Jesus has the solution right here. And it's related to going into the secret place with your father. And here's what it says about fasting. And fasting, of course, is going without. It says in Matthew 16, and when you fast, do not look dismal like the hypocrites. For they disfigure their faces and their fasting so that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward.

Yeah, they got it. People saw them. Yay. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face. That your fasting may not be seen by men, but by your father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. Isn't that beautiful? Again, yea, Jesus.

He's given us. given us these marvelous gifts of piety that can be done in the secret place with our father and something can happen in our heart. We can grow. We can mature in our faith. But it doesn't typically happen by running around us in malls and yelling and screaming and celebrating everything else. You've got to go to the secret place. Whether it's a Sabbath or whether it's a place or whether it's something within you, you go to that secret place. Now the third one, the The problem in Genesis 3 was Eve saw that the fruit would make one wise. What's their not to like about being wise?

Well, First John, he kind of figured that out, and he called it the pride of life. Hey, look at me. Look at what I've done. I am really something. I've accomplished this. I own that. My investments have done this. And the pride of life.

I'm an American. I don't need anybody. You know, I pull myself up by the bootstraps. I'm a man's man, you know. pride of life. So in Genesis it said make one wise. The fruit would make one wise in 1 John, pride of life. How in the world do you deal with this? Again, it goes back to the father's secret place, to the secret place with the father. And it is prayer. That is in Matthew 6, 5 through 15. And listen to what it says. Again, it has to do with the secret place.

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward, but when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who sees in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. isn't that beautiful so he's he's not telling us to do nothing you know for this secret place he's saying in the secret place you can give in the secret place you can fast in the secret place you can pray your father who's in the secret place he sees in secret and he will reward you oh that is good i love this

And, you know, I remember the first time I really caught a hold of this wonderful teaching, you know, that Jesus gives us in this sermon on the Mount. I really love it. And I can see how it really flows from his life. You know, in Mark 135, and I'll put it in the show notes, we see that in the morning, a great while before day, Jesus rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed. Jesus found the Father's lonely place, this secret place. And it wasn't really so secret because everybody knew he was doing it. I mean, they knew he was going up there, but it was his secret place with the father physically and internally. Like Mark 631, Jesus even invited the disciples, and he said to them, in Mark 631, he said to them, come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while.

For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And so Jesus is like, let's go away to a secret place. Well, that was dealing with food, you know, regular food, but what about the food for your soul? What about the nurturing of your soul? Feeding your heart. Come away with me, the Father says. Come away.

Come away with me to the secret place. I want to feed you. I want to comfort you. I want you to recollect and do the examine. I want you to do Lexio-Divina. I want you to see yourself the way I see you. come away with me to the secret place. Isn't that beautiful?

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, and I'll end with this as a quote. He said, the higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. Isn't that beautiful? The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information. That's not what spiritual living is all about, but to face sacred moments. That's where spiritual living is.

And sacred moments, my friend, that's the secret place with the Father. And so this week, I would encourage you, I would encourage you this week to seek God. I want to invite you to go ahead and text me, my name Jeff Kavens, J-E-F-F-F-C-A-V-N-S, text my name to the number 3-3, 777. If you do that, we're going to send you the weekly notes for this show. Every week I try to come up with something that I think will be beneficial for you and me. And I also like to provide a lot of good notes, the quotes that I use, and the verses from the Bible and the paragraphs from the catechism. And I know that it'll be helpful for you to get more out of these podcasts. And so

thank God that ascension press is doing such a great job of putting these together and making them available to you. That's Jeff Kaven's and the number is 3377 and if for some reason you are not getting the notes and you once signed up, sign up again. We'll make sure we get them going once again. Allow me to pray with you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Jesus, I thank you so much for not only laying your life down for us. giving us eternity but even here on earth inviting us to come away to the secret place to go away to a lonely place with you where you can work on our hearts you can help us in the area of the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life oh jesus we can see now that

we need this more more than ever we need to be alone with you help us to create the secret place physically, internally, and certainly the Sabbath on Sunday, may it be a secret place, a day like none other. We thank you for this in Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. I love you, my friend. I look forward to seeing you next week, and God bless you.