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 8, 2023, 12:56 AM
Passage Read: Exodus 15-18
Meditation Verse: 16:8
Thought
It is not good to grumble against leaders or to blame them for our bad circumstances. God hears everything we say, and knows who we're really angry with. God was leading Moses and had led the people out into the wilderness, so any problem they blamed on Moses was a problem they had with God. Moses was just the messenger! But while they thought they were just complaining against Moses, that were really complaining against God. He heard and He was offended.
Dec 7, 2023, 12:58 AM
Passage Read: Exodus 11-14
Meditation Verses: 14:26-27
Thought
God commands Moses to stretch out his staff over the sea to part the waters, then again to close the waters on the Egyptians. God didn't need Moses or his staff to do this, but He insisted on doing it through Moses. He didn't open or close the waters without Moses raising his staff over them. In so doing, God exalted Moses in the sight of all the people. God was determined to make Moses look good and powerful, yet Moses was known as the most humble of men.
Dec 5, 2023, 12:59 AM
Passage Read: Exodus 7-10
Meditation Verses: 9:15-17
Thought
God could have wiped Egypt off the face of the earth at the very beginning. He could have simply called His people out from there, and the army of Egypt would have been powerless to stop them. But He determined to make the Israelites such a stench to the Egyptians that they drove them out of Egypt for good. He directed Moses to ask for a three day journey, but Pharaoh knew that if they left, they would never return. So he refused again and again, and God started easy on him, so that he would gain confidence to resist the Lord as things progressed, until he lost all reason and simply refused the Lord.
Dec 4, 2023, 1:00 AM
Passage Read: Exodus 3-6
Meditation Verses: 5:21-23
Thought
The Israelites have been groaning under their bondage, but it evidently wasn't so terrible. Moses speaks once with Pharaoh about letting God's people go and worship him, and Pharaoh makes their jobs harder. Now things get really hard for the people! And instead of asking God to hurry things along, they get angry at Moses and Aaron for making their lives worse! Do they want to stay or go? Apparently, God needs to make life in Egypt more miserable for His people so that they'll really want to leave!
Dec 3, 2023, 1:02 AM
Passage Read: Genesis 49 - Exodus 2
Meditation Verse: Exodus 2:14
Thought
God made Moses a prince and judge over the Israelites, but they didn't recognize it. It's interesting that it's not until Moses is gone from Egypt and the king dies that the Israelites cry out for help because of their bondage. When Moses was still in Egypt, things weren't bad enough for the Israelites to see their need. But Moses was a deliverer, even when he showed up in Midian, he delivered Jethro's daughters from the other shepherds who bullied them. Moses was built with a heart to help the weak, though not everyone could see and understand that.
Dec 2, 2023, 12:52 AM
Passage Read: Genesis 45-48
Meditation Verse: 48:11
Thought
No one ever tells Jacob how Joseph really got to Egypt. Joseph and his brothers know, and his brothers probably live in fear that Joseph will tell on them, but he never does. It hangs over Joseph's brothers like a heavy cloud, but Joseph never seemed to use it against them. He is fully convinced that all was done by the hand of God for the saving of everyone's life. Yet they never come to him and ask forgiveness either, until after the death of their father, and even then they present it like a command from Jacob. And then Joseph again assures them that he holds no grudge.
Dec 1, 2023, 12:54 AM
Passage Read: Genesis 41-44
Meditation Verses: 42:21-22
Thought
It is no small thing to hate a brother so much you'd consider killing him, even though in the end you only sold him into slavery. Who knows what would become of the brother you sell into slavery? Joseph was protected by God, though a slave for many years in a powerful man's house, then imprisoned for at least two years in a prison for high level offenders. All things considered, he had it pretty good. But his brothers didn't know that.