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
May 31, 2025, 11:41 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 11-14
Meditation Verses: 14:1-2
Thought
No one can stop what the Lord has in mind. He will one day establish Israel as the chief of the nations, when Jesus comes to rule. In that day, there will be aliens who have joined themselves to the people of Israel, which likely refers to Gentiles who embrace the God of Jacob as their own. But there will also be nations of oppressors, unbelievers, who will be made Israel's servants.
May 30, 2025, 6:43 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 7-10
Meditation Verses: 9:14-17
Thought
The elders and prominent men, the prophets who speak lies, they will all be cut off in a day. God hates them! They have led the people so far astray, that He will have pity on no one, not young man nor widow nor orphan. Everyone is wicked and ungodly. All their mouths speak vileness. There is no reason to show pity. Yet, even this punishment is not enough to satisfy the Lord's anger. He will bring even more disaster on them!
May 29, 2025, 6:53 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 3-6
Meditation Verse: 5:8
Thought
What an interesting verse. There are those who are house to house and field to field, and they end up isolated, alone in the land. They build ever bigger houses, and the expand their fields, until they have driven off their neighbors and there is no land left for anyone else. This is how we farm in America today, but God says "Woe" to such people! It's like God never meant for a few people to acquire all the land in an area, and then dwell alone, far from others.
May 28, 2025, 6:44 AM
Passage Read: Song of Solomon 7 - Isaiah 2
Meditation Verses: Isaiah 2:2-3
Thought
This is surely a vision of Jesus' kingdom. The mountain of the house of the Lord, where Jesus is seated upon His throne, this mountain will be raised up above all other mountains, and all the nations will stream to it. They will bring their gifts and treasure, and they will learn the ways of the Lord. The law of God will be the law of all lands. The Lord will again establish not just a nation but an empire and require all nations to walk according to His ways, which He established for Israel long ago. The Law of the Lord will be the law for all nations.
May 27, 2025, 7:04 AM
Passage Read: Song of Solomon 3-6
Meditation Verses: 5:6-8
Thought
This is such a strange part of this love poem! Her liver comes to her but the door is locked. By the time she gets up to let him in, he is gone. She seems him in the night and is found by the watchmen. It had happened before with no consequence, but this time they beat her and bruise her! And how does she respond? "Tell my lover I am faint with love." The beating is lost in her love for her husband! Nothing about it. Why the beating in the first place?
May 26, 2025, 8:05 AM
Passage Read: Ecclesiastes 11 - Song of Solomon 2
Meditation Verse: Ecclesiastes 11:5
Thought
I do not know the path of the wind, but men are beginning to understand how the body is formed in the womb. That doesn't make it any less marvelous, and neither does that mean we understand it all. But given this verse, it means we can begin to understand the ways of God who makes all things. God tells Jeremiah that the one who boasts should boast that he knows the Lord. So Solomon is right in that I cannot understand all that God is doing in the lives of every person, but I can understand God.
May 25, 2025, 6:44 AM
Passage Read: Ecclesiastes 7-10
Meditation Verses: 8:16-17
Thought
Here is Solomon's most interesting confession: He used all his wisdom to try to understand all God is doing with men on the earth, and he found it impossible. Whatever God's principles are that He uses to guide His interactions and purposes with men, even the wisest of men cannot figure it out. That's not to say that God is capricious, but that His ways truly are so far above ours. No matter how wise a man may be, he still needs God to explain things to him.
May 24, 2025, 11:46 AM
Passage Read: Ecclesiastes 3-6
Meditation Verses: 4:4-6
Thought
There is so much in here about contentment, whether you really understand all that God is doing or have no clue. Even if someone doesn't believe in God and eternal life, why do they bother to work and work and work to gather wealth if they never take time to enjoy the fruit of their labor? What's the point? Better to regularly take time to enjoy what you have than to spend your years laboring for wealth and never stop to enjoy rest or the reward of your wealth!
May 23, 2025, 6:44 AM
Passage Read: Proverbs 30 - Ecclesiastes 2
Meditation Verses: Ecclesiastes 2:22-25
Thought
Because of death, all our labors are ultimately for nothing. Is just marking time and keeping us above until we die. But death is inevitable, so nothing on this earth really means anything. It's all temporary, and just for keeping us out of trouble until we finish our course. That is depressing and infuriating! Why bother? Because we need to feed ourselves. Why labor for great wealth and many precious things? There is no good reason.
May 22, 2025, 6:44 AM
Passage Read: Proverbs 26-29
Meditation Verse: 29:20
Thought
Chapter 26 gave an extensive description of a fool, and there seems no hope for a fool to be saved from his foolishness, apart from God who can do the impossible. Here it says there is more hope for a fool than for a man who speaks in haste. I always want to be one of those guys who has a quick wit, but this suggests that is no admirable trait. The one who speaks in haste may say many clever things, but how many of them are actually foolish?