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
Apr 10, 2023, 1:56 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 115-118
Meditation Verses: 118:8-9
Thought
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in men, even in princes and powerful people. It is easy to turn to those we can see, those who have authority or influence, but the Lord has all that and more.
Apr 9, 2023, 1:57 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 111-114
Meditation Verses: 113:5-7
Thought
Who is like the Lord, who sits on high, who stoops down to look at the heavens and the earth, who raises the poor from the ash heap? The Lord has to stoop down to see the earth and heavens because He is so high and exalted, yet He reaches down to the poor and needy of earth and raises them up to sit with princes. He is not so high and mighty that He doesn't care for the least of us. And He makes the high and mighty of earth sit with these low ones whom He has raised up.
Apr 8, 2023, 1:58 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 107-110
Meditation Verses: 109:25-27
Thought
When Jesus returns, all this prayer will be answered, but that's not what the psalmist is asking for. He wants justification in this life, in these days. He wants the evil man to suffer and the innocent to be protected, and all of it to be obvious to everyone that the Lord has done it. For the Lord praise, for the rebuke of any who delights in evil, and for the deliverance of any who trust in the Lord and do good. He wants the wicked to be warned, the righteous to be comforted and the Lord to get the glory.
Apr 7, 2023, 2:00 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 103-106
Meditation Verses: 105:43-45
Thought
The Lord did good to Israel in accordance with His promise to Abraham, and He did it so that they would obey Him and follow His laws. Interestingly, the next psalm then details the sins of the people and how the Lord punished them and sent them into captivity. The right response to God's mercy and grace are greater obedience, honor towards the Lord by doing all His holy will. The wrong response to His goodness is going our own way, doing as we see fit, according to what we think is good and right.
Apr 6, 2023, 2:01 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 99-102
Meditation Verse: 99:8
Thought
The Lord loves those who are His. He loves them enough not to leave them in their sins, as objects of wrath. He determines to train them to walk in His ways, and that requires rebuke and even discipline, punishment. But because His goal is reform rather than rejection, He stands ready to forgive any sin His people commit, when they are ready to choose and renounce what He has pointed out. His goal is forgiveness and restoration of relationship, not destruction.
Apr 5, 2023, 1:45 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 95-98
Meditation Verses: 95:7-11
Thought
"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." The Israelites heard His voice once directly, from fire above the mountain, all the rest of the time was through Moses, with multiple confirmations that the Lord was speaking to and through him. So God expected them to obey Him from His words through Moses and through any other prophet or through the words already recorded. He expected His people to respond quickly and from the heart, otherwise, they were people who didn't know His ways, and would be kept out of His rest.
Apr 4, 2023, 1:47 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 91-94
Meditation Verse: 94:23
Thought
The Lord desires all men to be saved, but they must repent of their sins and submit in faith to Jesus Christ. Those who will not believe and obey the Son will be marked for destruction. Though they seem to prosper today, they will be destroyed. They are not the people I want to ally myself with, nor do I want to fear them, be intimidated by them into agreeing with their agenda. They will not succeed for long.
Apr 3, 2023, 1:48 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 87-90
Meditation Verses: 90:9-15
Thought
Putting this psalm in the context of Moses' life makes it hit with more weight. For forty years, he enjoyed the pleasures and treasures of Egypt; for forty years, he enjoyed (?) the solitude and simplicity of a shepherd's life; and for forty years, he met with God face-to-face and led a nation through the wilderness, a nation known more by its stubbornness and rebellion than by its humility and obedience. I wonder, did he ever regret leaving any of those previous states?
Apr 2, 2023, 1:49 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 83-86
Meditation Verse: 86:17
Thought
One psalm ends with a plea that the Lord would cover the writer's enemies with shame that they would seek the Lord, this one ends with a plea that the Lord would give him a sign of His goodness that his enemies would see and be put to shame. Today men are casting off all shame. What once was considered shameful behavior, men are declaring today with pride, and putting it on public display. And others are coming to watch and celebrate.
Apr 1, 2023, 1:52 PM
Passage Read: Psalm 79-82
Meditation Verses: 81:10-14
Thought
It is interesting that in the previous psalm, the writer pleads with God to strengthen the king, then the people will follow the Lord, restore them, then they would worship Him. But in this psalm, the Lord says to the people that if they would but listen to Him, obey Him, then He would so quickly cause their enemies to bow down to them. It is because they haven't obeyed Him that He gave them over to their own stubborn hearts, which led them into the hands of their enemies.