Are you ever frustrated due to a lack of growth in your faith? There may be many reasons for why you are struggling to grow in your faith. In this episode, Jeff Cavins focuses on five obstacles to grace that could be inhibiting your growth in faith. He offers Scripture quotations to help explain these obstacles and why it is important to overcome them.

Snippet from the Show
We can overcome sin and obstacles to grace. However, we can’t do it alone. To break free from sin involves two things: God’s power and our choice.

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Shownotes

Obstacle 1: Lack of Knowledge

Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge.”

Obstacle 2: Traditions and Ruts

Matthew 15:6 “. . .you nullify the word of God for the sake of your traditions.”

In other words, you do what you do just because that’s the way it has always been done. You don’t question your life. A man once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Obstacle 3: Disobedience

Hebrews 4:6-7 ” Since therefore it remains open for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he sets a certain day—‘today’—saying through David much later, in the words already quoted, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’”

2 Peter 2:19-22 “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity–for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them, the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit” and “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”

Obstacle 4: Time

Ephesians 5:15 “Be very careful, then, how you live not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because. The days are evil.  Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what. the Lord’s will is.”

Obstacle 5: Pride

Proverbs 29:23 “A man’s pride brings him low.”  

Galatians 3:1-3 “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.  I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”

We Can Overcome Sin Through His Power

Ephesians 3:20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.”

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Resources 

• Email us at thejeffcavinsshow@ascensionpress.com 
• Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get added to Jeff’s shownotes email list
• Visit Jeff’s website at www.jeffcavins.com
• The Great Adventure Bible 
• Listen to The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
• Pilgrimages with Jeff
• Jeff’s Daily Gospel Reflections with Jonathan Roumie: www.hallow.com/jeffcavins

Ascension is pleased to offer our new and improved online bible study programs and sacramental preparation programs digitally to help you minister with flexibility. Go to ascensionpress.com to view all our offerings.

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