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
Sep 19, 2025, 8:18 AM
Passage Read: Acts 6-7
Meditation Verses: 7:51-54
Thought
What was Stephen thinking? How could he say such things to them? Sure, they had resisted the Holy Spirit, they persecuted and killed Jesus, and they were not keeping the Law of Moses. But to say that all their fathers did the same? Certainly many, even most people of each generation disobeyed the Law, ignored the Spirit and didn't support the prophets, but Stephen implies that all of them did that and worse! No wonder the leaders were furious with him!
Sep 18, 2025, 8:46 AM
Passage Read: Acts 4-5
Meditation Verses: 5:40-42
Thought
The apostles were arrested and commanded multiple times not to speak or teach about Jesus, but the Sanhedrin was afraid to do anything more than flog them. They had boldness to continue preaching in public, in the temple courts and from house to house. They were even told by an angel to preach in the temple after he released them from jail.
Sep 17, 2025, 8:25 AM
Passage Read: Acts 2-3
Meditation Verses: 3:25-26
Thought
Peter defines God's meaning in His promise to Abraham, the promise that all nations would be blessed through Abraham's descendant: Jesus was raised to live again and sent to people to bless them by turning them from their wicked ways! That's not what I normally think of as a desired blessing! Health, wealth, safety, comfort, good food, love, happiness, those are things I think of as blessings. Those are not the blessings God meant when He made this promise to Abraham, according to Peter.
Sep 16, 2025, 7:20 AM
Passage Read: John 21 - Acts 1
Meditation Verses: John 21:12-14
Thought
The significance of the resurrection is hard to fully grasp. The disciples left everything to follow Jesus and spent the next three and a half years with Him, daily walking, talking, learning from Him and seeing all He did. They were followers, not leaders. Then He was killed, and they were devastated. What was the point of the last three years? Jesus wasn't installed as king. But three days later, He rose from the dead and showed Himself to them, two times so far.
Sep 15, 2025, 7:26 AM
Passage Read: John 19-20
Meditation Verse: 19:15
Thought
What a sad but true confession of the chief priests. They should have claimed God as their king, but many among the chief priests were Sadducees, and the Sadducees had turned their back on much of the Scriptures and so on God Himself. What mattered most to them was their position and they found protection and power coming from the Romans, so their confession was very true.
Sep 14, 2025, 8:29 AM
Passage Read: John 17-18
Meditation Verses: 17:6-9
Thought
There is a distinction between the world and those who belong to Jesus, and it shows up throughout the Bible. Jesus prays for those who belong to Him, that they would be protected from the world, those who now hate them because they belong to Jesus. Those who belong to the world are hostile to those who belong to Jesus.
Sep 13, 2025, 8:18 AM
Passage Read: John 15-16
Meditation Verses: 16:1-4
Thought
Jesus just warned His disciples that the world would hate them and persecute them, and the Holy Spirit would come and together He and they would testify about Jesus. He told them this so that they would not go astray. Because the day would come when the world would try to kill them and even succeed. Even those who led or attended the synagogue would think that killing them was serving God! People like Saul.
Sep 12, 2025, 7:29 AM
Passage Read: John 13-14
Meditation Verses: 14:30-31
Thought
Jesus loves the Father so much that He does and says only what the Father does and says, so that He can say that whoever looks on Him sees the Father. They are so closely united that to see one is to see the other. That is the same unity Jesus wants us to have with Him. But it requires Jesus' kind of obedience. Jesus' love for the Father causes Him to do exactly what His Father commands...even though it leads to His death.
Sep 11, 2025, 7:10 AM
Passage Read: John 11-12
Meditation Verses: 12:34-36
Thought
There are times when Jesus doesn't answer questions directly. He responds, but sometimes to a completely different question! The people say that the Christ is supposed to remain forever, then ask who the Son of Man is that Jesus keeps calling Himself. Is He the Christ or some other person from Scripture? Then Jesus answers with this urging to walk in the light while they have it with them!
Sep 10, 2025, 6:04 AM
Passage Read: John 9-10
Meditation Verses: 10:24-27
Thought
The Jews, the holdouts among them, saw the miracles and knew in their hearts that only a righteous, God-honoring man could do so many and such powerful miracles. Their theology demanded it. But they refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and were offended that He called Himself God's Son. The evidence was obvious, but they refused to believe.