Devotions from September 2022

Passage Read: Acts 26-27 Meditation Verses: 27:21-22 Without God's grace and intervention, there would have been loss of life along with all of the ship and everything in it. That was the track they were on if they sailed from Fair Havens against God's instruction.

Passage Read: Acts 28 - Romans 1 Meditation Verse: Romans 1:21 It is a dangerous thing to acknowledge God but not allow Him to be God. Men who know God but do not glorify Him as God by submitting to His every decree are taking…

Passage Read: Romans 2-3 Meditation Verse: 2:25 The problem with trusting in signs and marks is that we don't bother to walk in the way we are called to, we think the mark we have received guarantees our acceptance. So it was with the Jews…

Passage Read: Romans 4-5 Meditation Verses: 5:3-5 Afflictions produce patience, patience produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Because we must endure affliction and can't do much to change it, we have to learn endurance and patience. Though we might be in a hurry…

Passage Read: Romans 6-7 Meditation Verse: 7:8 "Apart from Law, sin is dead." This cannot mean that there was no sin before the Law, because he's already said sin was in the world before the Law, but it was not imputed without the Law. God…

Passage Read: Romans 8-9 Meditation Verses: 8:35-39 This was such a happy chapter up till this point. God won't withhold anything from us, we should be so happy! He wants to give us everything! He gave His own Son, how will He not freely give…

Passage Read: Romans 10-11 Meditation Verses: 11:19-23 Salvation by faith is not a once-for-all guarantee of salvation. Faith is only good for as long as it lasts. If someone should abandon faith, they will be lost. That is the point of Paul's letter to the…

Passage Read: Romans 12-13 Meditation Verse: 12:16 I need to be careful not to pay special attention to some and less attention to others. Not to be arrogant but to be humble, and not to give special treatment to the mighty or the powerful, but…

Passage Read: Romans 14-15 Meditation Verses: 14:20-21 There are those who believe certain foods to be wrong to eat, like the Hindus. If they were to come to Christ, they might have a difficult time accepting those who eat meat, especially cows. In sensitivity to…

Passage Read: Romans 16 - 1 Corinthians 1 Meditation Verses: Romans 16:17-18 Anyone who teaches doctrine contrary to what Paul taught needs to be avoided. Such men are not serving the Lord or the church, but their own bellies. They are seeking to gain leadership…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 2-3 Meditation Verses: 3:17-18 Paul affirms the inclusion of the Corinthians in Christ, but also warns and corrects them. Right here he says that they are the sanctuary of God, then in the next sentence warns that anyone who thinks he…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 4-5 Meditation Verses: 5:11-13 There's all this talk of Christians shooting their wounded whenever we call out a sinner, especially one who's been concealing their sin for a while. Yet were actually supposed to call out unrepentant sinners. We're supposed to…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 6-7 Meditation Verse: 7:19 Circumcision and other rituals that we use to include people as Christians don't matter. What matters is keeping God's commands, walking in His ways. We are not a Christian because we performed some ritual, we are a…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 8-9 Meditation Verses: 9:24-27 Paul is in effect challenging every believer to compete with each other, so as to be the one victor. The implication is that we each should be working at greater self-control than the next believer, greater godliness…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 10-11 Meditation Verses: 11:29-31 Communion is not a simple eating and drinking a little bread and juice in remembrance of the Lord, it is powerful under the guidance of the Spirit. Those who eat and drink without examining themselves, without recognizing…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 12-13 Meditation Verse: 13:11 Paul was an apostle, which he lists as the first among spiritual gifts. He didn't lay aside that gift as he grew in his understanding and practice of love, but neither did he promote his exercise of…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 14-15 Meditation Verses: 14:36-38 Everything Paul has written here, concerning spiritual gifts and women in the assembly, perhaps even all the book of Corinthians, all these things are commands of God, not just of Paul. For any church or group to…

Passage Read: 1 Corinthians 16 - 2 Corinthians 1 Meditation Verses: 2 Corinthians 1:23-24 There is great joy in fellowshipping with those who walk in obedience, with those who are teachable. But there is much grief in meeting together with those who resist sound doctrine.

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 2-3 Meditation Verse: 2:4 True correction comes from love, and true love corrects those it loves, when they are wrong. Paul says he wrote things that grieved them out of his own grief over them, over their sins. He wrote them…

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 4-5 Meditation Verses: 4:2-4 Knowing that he has received a ministry from God, Paul speaks only what God has revealed. He had no need to deceit or deception or to change the Truth of God to be more acceptable to men.

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 6-7 Meditation Verse: 7:3 It is sad that Paul always has to defend himself. The Church has fallen into error and he teaches and corrects them, and still he has to remind them that it is out of love that he…

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 8-9 Meditation Verses: 8:12-14 Giving is not a competition that we should see who can give the most. Nor is it something to go into debt over. But it is simply an expression of the love and care we have for…

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 10-11 Meditation Verses: 11:26-27 Paul suffered all kinds of things for the sake of Christ, His Gospel and people who had not yet heard it. Why should I think things should be easy for me, if I really want to follow…

Passage Read: 2 Corinthians 12-13 Meditation Verses: 13:2-4 There is a power in Christ, an authority that men sent by Him have access to. It is the same power to discipline that the Lord has and exercised through all His appointed leaders of the past.

Passage Read: Galatians 1-2 Meditation Verse: 2:20 If I died and now the life I live is Christ's, how can I think of my life as being my own in any way? Am I not all the more a slave of Jesus Christ? And if…

Passage Read: Galatians 3-4 Meditation Verses: 3:23-26 Is Paul speaking to Jews or to people heavily influenced by Jews? Who was locked up under Law but the Jews? The Gentiles didn't grow up under the Law, it is something we likely wouldn't even know about…

Passage Read: Galatians 5-6 Meditation Verses: 5:2-4 Paul is making this a very big deal! It is either Christ alone or nothing! But keeping the Law provides a measure of security and comfort--except that no one can keep the Law perfectly, so in that sense,…

Passage Read: Ephesians 1-2 Meditation Verses: 2:8-10 Interesting, Paul makes it clear in this chapter that we are not saved by our good works. We were dead in our sins and trespasses, we were children of wrath, we were separated and hopeless, doomed to destruction.

Passage Read: Ephesians 3-4 Meditation Verse: 4:25 Because we belong to one another, so we must be honest with each other and speak the truth to each other. We must not deceive one another and we must not be fake with one another. We belong…

Passage Read: Ephesians 5-6 Meditation Verse: 5:11 As Christians, we are called not merely to step out and away from the fruitless deeds of darkness, but we're also to reprove them! We're not just to stop doing them, but to point out that they are…