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
Jul 21, 2025, 2:36 PM
Passage Read: Amos 3-6
Meditation Verses: 5:12-13
Thought
This is why the prophet is considered a fool: When men, when societies, are given to pervert justice and reward wickedness, then the prudent man, who is considered wise, keeps silent. He does not want to be caught up in the backwards justice, where good is punished as evil and evil is rewarded as good. Neither does he want to do evil because He knows there is a higher judge who will call him to account. So he's caught between a rock and a hard place.
Jul 20, 2025, 2:24 PM
Passage Read: Joel 2 - Amos 2
Meditation Verses: Amos 2:11-12
Thought
Why is it that even God's own people turn against Him and His purposes? Here are all these prophesies against the nations around Judah and Israel, promises of judgment for how they have attacked God's people and one another, but then His own people are little better. They also incur His wrath. He raises up prophets and Nazirites among them, but they tell the prophets to be quiet and force the Nazirites to violate their vow.
Jul 19, 2025, 6:06 PM
Passage Read: Hosea 12 - Joel 1
Meditation Verse: Hosea 14:4
Thought
God called Ephraim to repent and return to Him, and promised to love him freely and heal his waywardness, because His anger had turned away. Those promises are for the repentant, not for everyone. The people of Ephraim who repent and return to the Lord will be healed of waywardness and loved freely because the Lord's anger was already vanquished. But though His anger is gone, His promises are only for those who return to Him in humility and with a commitment to change and learn and live by His ways.
Jul 18, 2025, 3:40 PM
Passage Read: Hosea 8-11
Meditation Verse: 8:14
Thought
There are at least two things revealed in these chapters that have Israel and Judah boldness to ignore the Lord's commands: wealth and security. As Ephraim prospered, they built more idols and palaces. Judah built fortified cities for itself. They thought they had everything they needed, and even the Lord couldn't take it from them. They thought they could withstand any enemy, even the Lord couldn't breach their fortresses.
Jul 17, 2025, 3:38 PM
Passage Read: Hosea 4-7
Meditation Verses: 6:4-6
Thought
Ephraim and Judah have been unfaithful to the Lord. They love wealth and pleasure, they practice prostitution, both physical and spiritual (the former begets the latter). They claim to love the Lord, but refuse to walk in His ways. They will not repent, so God has sent prophet after prophet to cut them in pieces and kill them with words. He has judged them time and again. He did this because He desires mercy from His people and acknowledgment of God from them, not offerings and sacrifices.
Jul 16, 2025, 3:09 PM
Passage Read: Daniel 12 - Hosea 3
Meditation Verses: Hosea 2:13-15
Thought
How can the Lord do this? How can He punish and rebuke His people, then turn and allure them, speak tenderly to them and restore to them all His many gifts? He was jealous and angry and let her go her evil way. Then walled her in, trapped her, until she couldn't reach her former lovers, and only then did she think to return to Him, when there was nowhere else to go. He's not even her first choice!
Jul 14, 2025, 6:47 PM
Passage Read: Daniel 8-11
Meditation Verse: 10:11
Thought
Daniel is highly esteemed. His book records such words several times. Ezekiel seems to point to him as well, in a set of his prophecies. Yet Daniel, for all his position and wisdom and authority, Daniel does not seem the least bit arrogant. Committed to God, unconcerned for his own life, compassionate and caring of God's people, his friends and even the kings set over him, but not arrogant. Simple and humble and full of wisdom and grace.
Jul 13, 2025, 6:46 PM
Passage Read: Daniel 4-7
Meditation Verses: 5:18-20
Thought
The Lord exalted Nebuchadnezzar to be the highest and greatest of kings, even though Nebuchadnezzar knew little or nothing about the Lord. What he knew came from taking over Judah, but how much did he learn about Judah's God? He took over many kingdoms! Surely he didn't study all their religions. He worshiped his own god. Yet the Lord exalted him, and began to reveal Himself to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel and significant dreams.
Jul 12, 2025, 6:44 PM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 48 - Daniel 3
Meditation Verses: Ezekiel 48:9-11
Thought
Zadok and his descendants remained faithful to the Lord, even though everyone around them, the rest of the Levites burned incense to other gods. They didn't give in to peer pressure, they didn't lose sight of the truth and reality of God, they didn't treat Him as if He were no different from any other god. They held fast to Him, remained faithful to Him, and served Him alone, as God had commanded.
Jul 11, 2025, 3:06 PM
Passage Read: Ezekiel 44-47
Meditation Verse: 44:9
Thought
Every nation is to come and bring their tribute to the Lord, but not every foreigner will be welcome in the Lord's temple, but only those who are circumcised in heart and flesh. He must humble himself and accept the Lord's commands and decrees to do them, including being circumcised in the flesh. Only these foreigners are allowed entry into the temple. Especially if they live among the Israelites, they are expected to obey the whole law, because there is only one law for native-born and alien living in Israel.