Make Your Break!

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 92-95.

Opening Thought: Today’s devotional reading was about putting yourself in the situation you need for success. This is a sound business practice, if you wish to sell basketball memorabilia and collectables setting up your sales booth at the opera is not likely your best option. We must think about where God is calling us and use the gifts God has given us to help position ourselves in the best possible way to give us the finest opportunity to live our God’s will.   

The devotional begins with: 
Proverbs 16:16-22 (NIV)
How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!
The highway of the upright avoids evil; those who guard their ways preserve their lives.
Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.
Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.
The wise in heart are called discerning, and gracious words promote instruction.
Prudence is a fountain of life to the prudent, but folly brings punishment to fools.. 

Second Thought: There is caution in these words of scripture. We need to remember we are creatures in the world, but as Christian we belong to God’s kingdom which is the Kingdom of the Spirit, which will in turn rebirth the world as we know it to something new. We can have goals for our personal lives: business ventures, recreational aspirations, and the like, but we need to remember that our truest self belongs to God and thus in all we do, and in all we strive for, we should ultimately bring glory to God and serve God’s will.       

Continual Work: What is your life, right now, today, can you say serves God? Ask yourself this question! If you do, it should raise a lot of other questions, because being in relationship with God is coming to terms with the fact that we have a responsibility to the love that is given to us.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: When I approach creating programming for the church, I try to ask, “how is this serving God?” For example, when we first created the beer and bible program, many people asked me that very question in various forms, “how can beer be involved with a church program.” There were a number of reasons I found that program serving God and His will: 1) it encouraged people to gather together to speak about faith and community, 2) it developed productive conversation about church life and strategies in a calm and relaxed approach as compared to formal meetings, 3) it showed people in the wider communities who happened to witness us, that Christians are regular folks who are approachable, 4) it gave a platform for people to ask the hard questions, 5) it gave a nice social and bonding element to help solidify the community (especially one that is so wide spread.) There were lot of reasons. Now there could come a point where that beer and bible program would no longer serve God, if the gatherings became just about the availability of alcohol, the food and the company, as great or not-so-great as some of those things are, their presence in the program was to help facilitate work towards God, not be the sole value in themselves. I aim to continue to ask this question in my ministry.  

Scripture time: Luke 14:28

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?” (NIV)

I am repeating this scripture again, because as we aim to position ourselves in a way to best serve God, we need to fall upon wisdom to help guide us. Particularly a wisdom that is in continual prayerful conversation with God. We must be willing to listen to where God is calling us, because sometimes God calls us into an area where it is not going to be easy. Maybe God calls us to venture to be the critic, to be the objective voice, to be the poor and the humbled. The call of God all sounds great when it means worldly success, but sometimes God calls us to something far beyond worldly success, spiritual success, and this is more often the case. What you are building in life has two folds to it: the worldly and the Godly, the Godly takes priority.    

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: Here is a picture of the Tower of Babel. When we build up in life, we must ask ourselves the question of why and for what purpose. Although the tower looked to be pointed towards the heavens, what were the real motivations behind their endeavors?

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons