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
Jun 10, 2022, 8:42 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 24-27
Meditation Verse: 25:3
Thought
Though the Lord was forced to punish His people, yet He does not take kindly to the pagans who rejoice over the destruction He brings on His people. He is still jealous for His people, He has not abandoned them or grown to utterly despise them. They have been unfaithful, but He wants their heart back. His discipline is intended to bring them to repentance so He can restore them to His favor!
Jun 9, 2022, 8:43 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 20-23
Meditation Verse: 20:49
Thought
Wow! This is how people write off the Word of the Lord! If it is parables, then they have an excuse why they can't understand it, but if it is plain language and exactly what it says, then they have no excuse! They would rather feign ignorance so they can go on in their way and believe they are innocent. How can the Lord judge them for something He wasn't clear about? But He is not speaking in parables and He knows their treachery.
Jun 8, 2022, 8:44 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 16-19
Meditation Verse: 18:24
Thought
If the righteous lives by faith, then his faith must produce righteousness. And if he turns from his righteousness, then something has gone wrong with his faith! How can he who fears the Lord and believes in Him such that he is compelled to do what is just and right (and which of the things listed above are really that hard?) later turn away from his life of righteousness and do wrong? Obviously, he has decided to reject the Lord, to no longer fear Him, but to do what he knows is wrong!
Jun 7, 2022, 8:46 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 12-15
Meditation Verse: 13:22
Thought
The false prophets make sad the righteous, though God has not brought pain on them, because by their lies they strengthen the hands of those who do wrong so that they won't repent and live. The righteous hear the false promises of the false prophets and are grieved, because they know the rest of the people aren't doing right and God is not pleased with them and will punish them because they need to repent.
Jun 6, 2022, 8:47 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 8-11
Meditation Verses: 11:17-20
Thought
Those who remained in Jerusalem looked on the exiles as lost and hopeless, and they rejected them, as if they themselves were the better, were chosen, the favored of God. But God says of the exiles that it is those He will bring back to Jerusalem after it is destroyed, and they will return and cleanse the city of its hateful things and abominations. And He will give them a new heart of flesh and remove their heart of stone, so that they may walk in obedience to His statutes and judgments.
Jun 5, 2022, 8:48 AM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 4-7
Meditation Verse: 6:9
Thought
The Israelites have no understanding of how they have hurt and offended the Lord by their disloyalty, by their whoring after other gods that are just idols. They have broken His heart but don't understand. He is God, how can He have feelings like a mere man? How can He care whether His people are faithful to Him alone or worship other gods too? Why should it even matter? They offer incense to Him too, what wrong with worshiping other gods too?
Jun 4, 2022, 8:49 AM
Passage Read: Lamentations 5 - Ezekiel 3
Meditation Verses: Ezekiel 3:5-7
Thought
If he had been sent to foreigners, they would have listened to Ezekiel, but he was sent to his own people, and they would not listen to him. Though he spoke the Word of God to them, not his own ideas, they would not listen to him, because they refused to listen to the Lord Himself. What a tragedy! What an impossible mission! Why are God's own people so hard-hearted, unwilling to hear from Him or from those He sends? What about me?
Jun 3, 2022, 8:51 AM
Passage Read: Lamentations 1-4
Meditation Verses: 3:58-62
Thought
Jeremiah goes from how good it is for a man to bear the yoke while he is young, how good it is for him to sit in silence because the Lord has done this, to the Lord seeing the judgment poured out and rising to defend and deliver His people. They deserved their punishment, they did wrong and received the due penalty. They should accept it, endure it, learn from it.
Jun 2, 2022, 6:52 AM
Passage Read: Jeremiah 49-52
Meditation Verse: 51:6
Thought
This same thing is said of the future Babylon, that the Lord's people should flee from it. This Babylon will never be rebuilt because the destruction of it was so complete, and God promised it would never rise again. But it is used as a symbol of another Babylon rising in the future at the end of days, and believers are once again called to flee from it. It will be overthrown as completely as this Babylon of old, no one will survive its destruction, so God's people being warned shouldn't remain in it.
Jun 1, 2022, 6:53 AM
Passage Read: Jeremiah 45-48
Meditation Verse: 46:28
Thought
Because God's people do not walk faithfully in His ways, He must discipline them. He will scatter them among the nations, sending them into exile, so it will not be a light discipline. He will discipline them with justice. Many will not survive, but a remnant will, and He will bring them back to their land. It will not be a painless discipline. But for all that, He will make a full end of the nations among which He scatters His people.
- ← Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3 (current)
- Next →