Devotional Time with Rev. Jacob

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 30: The Value of Something Opening Thought: In my last post, I spoke to you about the story of Cain and Abel, and I challenged you to see yourself, in that story, as Cain himself. To ask someone to see themselves as someone who has a capacity to commit murder, an extreme expression of sin and evil, is no little task. So, if you did attempt that challenge, I hope you took it with seriousness. A challenge like that, at least ...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 29: Rearranging the Furniture Opening Thought: The story of Cain and Abel, found in Genesis, keeps finding its way to my attention this month. I can honestly say that I have not sought out the story, but it just seems to return to the forefront of my attention again and again. I find this is often how God will speak to me, if there is something I am to understand or focus on, God will repeatedly put it in my path. The story...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 28: The Spirit of Prayer Opening Thought: I want to begin today by quoting a statement that Zacharias also quotes in this chapters reading. Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by the clouds, a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a thousand blessings… The potency of prayer hath subdued the strength of fire, it ...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 27: Does Prayer Matter? Opening Thought: I found the reading from Zacharias’ chapter revealing. Zacharias speaks to his reader about prayer, and he tells a story about a time he came along a man who had lost faith in God because none of the man’s prayers had been answered. It would have seemed to this man that his trajectory in life had left him in circumstances that were painfully different than what he prayed for, thus he...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 26: All Things New Opening Thought: There are two points that I found intriguing in this reading, points that I have pondered before, but I was good to return to them today. The first was an argument from the atheist side of things, a common position, if there is evil in the world and God exists, why doesn’t God do anything to stop the evil? Their conclusion is either God is evil or God doesn’t exist. The are a few problems...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 25: A Bigger Story Opening Thought: I felt, in today reading from Zacharias’ text, that he was trying to show the tension between faith and the desire for proof. Zacharias used a metaphor about water in glasses to articulate his point, but unlike most of his writing, I found that he could have derived his point in a more simplistic manor. Regardless, the point remains the same when we look at the world it appears created. I...

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: Zacharias, Ravi.  The Logic of God: 52 Christian Essentials for the Heart and Mind . Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. [E-Book] Chapter 24: From Proximate to Personal Opening Thought: I begin today by quoting Zacharias, “He [Christ] moved her from the abstract to the concrete, from the concrete to the proximate, from the proximate to the personal. She had come to find water for the thirst of her body. He fulfilled a greater thirst, that of her soul.” This is a clear reference to the biblical story of the woman at the well. The woman at the well, could be se...