Personal Devotions
Notes from Mark's personal Bible reading and meditation
With a goal to apply one truth from each day's reading to my life that day
Dec 9, 2025, 8:37 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 17-18
Meditation Verses: 18:19-20
Thought
The sea captains and sailors and all who make their living from the sea understand what has happened when Babylon the Great is destroyed. They knew all the evil that the city was committing, they enabled it and they profited from it. And they recognize that the destruction of the city is God's just judgment on behalf of the saints and prophets and apostles.
Dec 8, 2025, 7:01 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 15-16
Meditation Verses: 15:2-4
Thought
The only way to be victorious over the beast and his image and his mark is by submitting to death at their hands or by enduring until the rapture. Either way, it doesn't go easy for the faithful. But in the end, they're not bitter or complaining or emotionally scarred. Rather they celebrate the victory and glory of God!
Dec 7, 2025, 10:10 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 13-14
Meditation Verses: 13:7-10
Thought
The will be no place where the saints will find safe refuge. Authority over all the nations and peoples will be given to the Antichrist, and all those on the earth who are not chosen by God will worship him. There will be those who fear His power and they will do as he requires, and there will be those who stand in awe of him and gladly do whatever he asks in their delight and devotion to him.
Dec 6, 2025, 12:06 PM
Passage Read: Revelation 11-12
Meditation Verse: 12:11
Thought
The devil is enraged and labors to lead the whole world astray, even before he is cast down out of heaven! He is at war with all who belong to Jesus. He is trying to deceive everyone, especially those who are seeking to know God. If he can't deceive us, he will attack us in any and every way possible, whether financial or social or philosophical or moral or physical or any number of other ways.
Dec 5, 2025, 6:47 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 9-10
Meditation Verses: 9:14-15
Thought
I am glad these are things I will not see in person, yet it still amazes me that these four angels and apparently their mounted troops were created for only one thing, and they have been waiting since their creation for this moment. In fact, they're bound in place so that they cannot go out early and torment men before the appointed time, as if they're chomping at the bit to do their deed.
Dec 4, 2025, 7:22 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 7-8
Meditation Verses: 7:14-15
Thought
This last generation of believers who must endure the great tribulation are given what seems to be special status and reward: They are like the priests of old who stand in the presence of God forever, who never leave His sight, who serve the Lord most closely and dwell in His own house forever.
Dec 3, 2025, 6:48 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:15-17
Thought
One day, the wrath of God will be poured out on all the wicked of the earth, rich and poor, powerful and insignificant, everyone who didn't think it worthwhile to believe and obey the Son of God. And that's after God sends a conqueror to conquer, murderous rage between peoples, famine and death and plague and wild beasts that will kill a fourth of the world!
Dec 2, 2025, 12:52 PM
Passage Read: Revelation 3-4
Meditation Verses: 3:3-5
Thought
The church in Sardis is not like the church in Laodicea. In Laodicea, they were proud and self-sufficient and not learning from the Lord, because they were so materially prosperous. In Sardis, they had just grown lazy and uncaring. They seemed alive but most were asleep. God expected then to have more righteous deeds.
Dec 1, 2025, 6:56 AM
Passage Read: Revelation 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:24-25
Thought
There are a number of different false teachers mentioned in this chapter, but they all seem to have one thing in common: They justify sexual immorality and lead the church into this sin. They bring some new teaching, here called "Satan's so-called deep secrets," some supposedly hidden knowledge that turns all the rest of God's Word on its head.
Nov 30, 2025, 8:44 AM
Passage Read: 3 John 1 - Jude 1
Meditation Verse: Jude 1:10
Thought
The are many things, events and commands in Scripture that I don't understand. Here is a warning that if I speak against these things, if I dare to criticize or condemn or argue against them, I am more like these false teachers marked for destruction than a true believer in Jesus. If I insist on submitting only to those things I do understand, more often than not, those things are things of the world and the flesh that I naturally and in my natural man understand.