Loved By God

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 some form of artistic mark 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 153-155.

Opening Thought: One of the challenges we face is coming to terms with the personal relationship between us a God. Often, I think people must come up to a barrier which tells them, well if there is a God, God is either distant, punishing, judgmental, or removed. I understand the history of the Church as a whole and intellectually understand why people may feel this way, but struggle with the experiential side of the issue. Thus I always return to the question, how can there be so many people who do not know the wonders of having a faith and relationship with the creator? When it comes down to it, like many false things in life, the misdirection  away from God comes from other people saying God is not there, not good, or not caring thus people just assume its true without really diving in to find out for themselves. So I start off by say this, if you are unsure about this whole God thing, ask God to come into your heart, to let His mercy and kindness guide and shape you, and begin that journey towards knowing God better. Let God tell you about Himself, don’t let others do it for Him.        

The devotional begins with: John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Second Thought:

The logos is a fascinating concept within God’s definition. It is the “word”, the “reason”, the “principle”, divine mind of God, the creative force of the Trinity, and embodied in Jesus, the human definition of the Trinity. There is so much scholarship on the logos that it is hard to sum it up without making things needlessly complicated for the lay reader. However, when you think of the love of God, their needs to be an awareness that God's love through the logos shaped the universe and you are included in that. That means that the very mind of God had you in mind when all of everything was formed. That is an amazing gift of knowledge, you are purposeful in the mind of God. Now the important part is this, God love you enough to give you “free will” (there is a large discussion around topics of free will and free choice but for simplicity sake I’ll only speak to one choice), and with that free will you can choose to have a relationship with God or not. Now God won’t force you, that would be like a person trying to force a relationship, (I’m thinking of the ladies with this one, have you ever had that guy that really likes you but you just want to be friends, if he really loved you and you had no interest and he forced you to stay with him and be with him, that would not be a just application of his love for you, he would have to set you free from his love, if that was what you wished.) God is the same, He made you with you in mind, hoping that with your heart you will love Him, but if you don’t, He wont force you either.        

Continual Work: Spend time thinking about your relationships and how the best and most healthy ones play out? What are the core characteristics of those relationship and how can reflecting on those help your understanding about what it means to hold a relationship with God?  

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: Like all people Rev. Jacob has a shadow side. Scandalous I know. I feel my shadow side most apparently when I feel put in a corner, where people or situations remove my ability to run my own life. I think many people are like this, I’m not alone in this for sure. Now the funny thing, when I feel that shadow demanding me  to reclaim my ownership of my life, the best thing I can do is remember that God has the ownership, I have no right to claim it. I am a steward to my own being. When I can remember that, I affirm that relationship and the shadow is cast out.

Scripture time: 2 Chronicles 7:14

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

If you take these words and look at them as characteristic of a person: humility, prayerful, steadfast towards goodness, and remorseful. God is really calling us to hold a good and honest relationship with him. These are the traits to build a wide variety of relationships. Sometimes I feel we over complicate the calling God offers us, but really it seem God just wants us to be in a healthy family with Him.  

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:  Fist Bumping God.

Painting by: Rev. Jacob Shaw