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
Aug 21, 2025, 8:03 AM
Passage Read: Mark 9-10
Meditation Verse: 10:15
Thought
What is it about a little child that encapsulates saving faith? Is it that they are so innocent and guileless that they don't doubt any word spoken to them? They believe without doubt because they haven't learned that people can't be trusted or believed? People break their word or make claims about themselves that often aren't true or are exaggerated, so after some growing up and experiencing the unreliability of people, we know not to take people too literally or seriously.
Aug 20, 2025, 8:34 AM
Passage Read: Mark 7-8
Meditation Verses: 8:31-33
Thought
How natural it is to want to keep people we care for from suffering. Peter's heart was in the right place, from a human point of view, but the fact is that living for God in this world requires suffering and even death. Jesus rebuking Peter wasn't just for Peter, but for all of us, as Jesus goes on to apply it to everyone who follows Him. We need our own priorities adjusted. Living this life isn't about enjoying as much as we can get from it.
Aug 19, 2025, 8:16 AM
Passage Read: Mark 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:51-52
Thought
How and why were the disciples' hearts hardened? What lesson were they to have understood from the loaves? They had just returned from their own preaching trips and we're reporting the things they had taught and the miracles they had performed. But there were so many people coming and going that they didn't even have a chance to eat! So Jesus called them to go to a quiet place with Him. But the only solitude they had was in the boat as they sailed across the sea.
Aug 18, 2025, 8:21 AM
Passage Read: Mark 3-4
Meditation Verse: 4:24
Thought
"Consider carefully what you hear." This is the command. Because how I respond to God's word will be the same way God responds to me--and even more! If I consider carefully what God is saying and am eager to obey it, then the Lord will be eager to teach me more. But if I don't think much about it and what I should be doing in response to it, the Lord will not simply give me little, He'll take away even what little I already have!
Aug 17, 2025, 6:40 AM
Passage Read: Mark 1-2
Meditation Verse: 2:15
Thought
Mark points out that the "sinners" and tax collectors who are with Jesus at Matthew's house were followers! While many of Matthew's friends would likely be tax collectors, and when Matthew invited Jesus for dinner, many of those friends may have come out of curiosity, to find out more about Jesus, Mark says that there were already many who followed Jesus. Secretly? At a distance? No one liked them, but they heard of Jesus and likely came to hear Him, and had the financial means to take off work and follow Jesus to hear Him.
Aug 15, 2025, 7:42 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 27-28
Meditation Verse: 27:46
Thought
Almost everyone abandoned Jesus. His mother and some of the other women and John watched nearby, but everyone else had scattered. All the others who came by mocked Him and insulted Him, even the robbers crucified with Him! Even His Father turned away. Yet Jesus was doing exactly what was required by God to fulfill our salvation. He had done nothing wrong and was unjustly condemned, yet He accepted it and endured it.
Aug 14, 2025, 7:10 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 25-26
Meditation Verse: 25:40
Thought
We are supposed to care about all people, but especially those who belong to Jesus, brothers and sisters. Jesus did good to everyone who came to Him, but they came to Him because they believed enough about Him to sell helping from Him. Whether they understand everything about Jesus, they knew He had power to heal all kinds of diseases and cast out demons. When they came, they would hear Him teaching and have the chance to learn more about Him.
Aug 13, 2025, 6:53 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 23-24
Meditation Verse: 24:24
Thought
It sounds like the elect cannot be deceived. That's good news for me, if I'm truly among the elect. It's good news for any who are among the elect! It means they know their God and they understand what He has in mind even for the end times. They don't have to know all the details of the end, but they trust fully in what Jesus has promised about His return so that they cannot be deceived by false Christs.
Aug 12, 2025, 6:51 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 21-22
Meditation Verses: 21:31-32
Thought
This is such a great illustration of what God is looking for, what counts as true salvation. It is not the appearance of obedience and honor that saves, but the actual act of doing what we're told. The son who refused to go and serve his father, but then repented and did what his father wanted, that's what God is looking for. Not the initial refusal, but the eventual humbling and submission. That's the tax collectors and sinners and prostitutes who have turned from their evil ways and are now walking in obedience and honor to God.
Aug 11, 2025, 7:19 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 19-20
Meditation Verses: 20:25-28
Thought
Unbelievers who gain authority over another use that authority for their own comfort and advantage. They think everyone under them is given to them for their own benefit and comfort, to satisfy all their wishes. There may be some mediating and problem-solving duties toward those under them, but those under them are really just tools for their own comfort and pleasure and purposes. So when Jesus says that those who belong to Him and wish to be great, they must become the slaves of all, its easy to think we just turn the paradigm upside-down:
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