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
Feb 28, 2022, 8:45 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 8-11
Meditation Verse: 9:26
Thought
The prophets testified against the people in order to turn them back to the Lord. But of course the people hated that, and worked to silence the prophets, even killing them. No one wants to be told what they're doing wrong, because no one wants to change, no one wants to think that they're doing wrong. People only want to hear that they're doing right and good. But that doesn't make the prophets wrong!
Feb 27, 2022, 8:46 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 4-7
Meditation Verses: 6:10-11
Thought
Nehemiah was leading this great work, for the good of the people and of the city. If he showed fear, fear would overwhelm the people and they would be discouraged. If he sought to save his own life at such a threat, the people would lose trust in him because he cared so much for his own life. He was actually so close to finishing the wall that he didn't have much to fear, and could easily see through the deceptions of these "friends" and false prophets.
Feb 26, 2022, 8:47 AM
Passage Read: Ezra 10 - Nehemiah 3
Meditation Verses: Ezra 10:10-12
Thought
Those commands to not intermarry with foreigners actually reveals a couple things about life long ago: It shows that many father's didn't actually oversee their own homes and exercise real dominion there. They left so much to their wives, especially the training of the children. Fathers might have been faithful to train their sons to work alongside them, but they didn't take full responsibility for their spiritual training! So much like today!
Feb 25, 2022, 8:48 AM
Passage Read: Ezra 6-9
Meditation Verses: 9:13-14
Thought
There is such a danger to misunderstand the grace and kindness of God. When He punishes His people, He holds back part of His wrath so as not to completely destroy us. But we can misunderstand that and miss that we were suffering punishment, that God was displeased with a certain behavior. And then we go right back into it when the trouble passes. God doesn't make it hard to understand what behavior He hates and what He desires.
Feb 24, 2022, 8:50 AM
Passage Read: Ezra 2-5
Meditation Verses: 4:1-3
Thought
Ezra calls these people enemies of Israel, but is that because of their reaction to the Jews' refusal to let them help or because they actually did come deceptively? Did they just want to seek the Lord or just cause trouble? If they really wanted to seek the Lord, the Jews could have explained that they would be welcome to worship the Lord, but God allowed only certain people to build His house. If they came to cause trouble, then no answer would satisfy them, and they were truly enemies.
Feb 23, 2022, 11:07 AM
Passage Read: 2 Chronicles 34 - Ezra 1
Meditation Verses: 2 Chronicles 36:15-16
Thought
This is what it will be like in the last days, before the Lord brings His final judgment on the earth. There will be prophets calling for repentance, but the people will mock them. The people will be unwilling to repent, they will scoff, they will despise the word of the Lord. There will still be a few, some who believe and obey, but by and large people everywhere will reject the word of the Lord. It is already beginning. In places where the Gospel was once welcome, people more and more mock it and want nothing to do with it.
Feb 22, 2022, 11:08 AM
Passage Read: 2 Chronicles 30-33
Meditation Verse: 32:1
Thought
Hezekiah brought Judah back to the Lord in great ways. He was faithful to the Lord and trusted in Him and made all kinds of great reforms to turn the people back to the Lord. But when all seemed to be going so well and Hezekiah was succeeding in all his reforms, then came a huge test in the form of Sennacherib. God didn't protect them from this outside threat, He didn't keep them from danger. In fact, this threat was overwhelming!
Feb 21, 2022, 11:09 AM
Passage Read: 2 Chronicles 26-29
Meditation Verses: 29:5-8
Thought
Hezekiah understood that the trouble that had come upon the nation was because his father and that generation had turned against the Lord. When things went from bad to worse, his father turned to the gods that had conquered him and shut the doors of the Lord's temple. He didn't understand or refused to understand that all his trouble was because he wasn't worshiping the Lord and walking in His ways.
Feb 20, 2022, 11:10 AM
Passage Read: 2 Chronicles 22-25
Meditation Verse: 25:27
Thought
How many generations of Jehoshaphat's family suffered because of his partnership with the house of Ahab? Is this three generations now or four? It seemed like such a good thing to Jehoshaphat to ally himself with the other clans of Israel; they were after all from one father, they were one family. But the northern tribes had turned away from the Lord. Jehoshaphat, whatever his motivation, was wrong to try to tie their families together again, without the northern kingdom first returning in faithfulness to the Lord.
Feb 19, 2022, 11:11 AM
Passage Read: 2 Chronicles 18-21
Meditation Verses: 20:35-37
Thought
Jehoshaphat is like many Christians today, who think that God's love requires or at least allows for partnerships with unbelievers. Yet God rebuked him twice, directly and clearly for partnering with Ahab and his son. And his family suffered terrible tragedy because of his choice to align with Ahab by marriage. That daughter of Ahab led his chosen successor to murder all his other sons and to undo all the reforms he had done.