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
Feb 28, 2026, 9:28 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 22 - 2 Kings 3
Meditation Verses: 2 Kings 2:2-3
Thought
Most men jump at the opportunity to break free of their leader. Everyone wants to lead rather than follow. Everyone wants to be in charge rather than submit to another. There does come a time in some men's lives when the Lord removes his head from over him and makes him his own head. It is not explicitly sin or wrong not to be submitted to another human authority.
Feb 27, 2026, 1:51 PM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 18-21
Meditation Verse: 21:29
Thought
God is so gracious to Ahab, whom He describes as someone who sold himself to do evil. Sometimes Ahab shows a kind of grief, as if maybe he could be reached. He does not entirely reject the prophets of the Lord, though his wife tried to kill them all. He listens to military advice from them, though he does not learn real repentance through them.
Feb 26, 2026, 9:26 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 14-17
Meditation Verses: 14:7-10
Thought
The very thing Jeroboam was afraid of, he brought on his family and all Israel! He wanted to save his life and feared that if Israel remained faithful to the Lord, they would also eventually reunite with Judah and he would be killed. So he consulted with unfaithful men and set up new gods for Israel, offending the God who made him king!
Feb 25, 2026, 7:41 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 10-13
Meditation Verses: 12:26-28
Thought
The Lord made Jeroboam king, but Jeroboam didn't trust the Lord to protect him, though the Lord has in fact made him king over ten tribes as He promised. He feared that the kingdoms would seek to reunite, and he would be found the rebel and offending king, like Saul's son, and be killed.
Feb 24, 2026, 9:45 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 6-9
Meditation Verses: 9:3-8
Thought
God agrees to put His Name forever and to fix His eyes and heart perpetually on the house that Solomon built for Him. But He makes clear that His promise is conditioned on the obedience of the people, just as His promise to David is conditioned on the obedience of David's sons. He will not protect and bless people who refuse to honor Him.
Feb 23, 2026, 8:41 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 2-5
Meditation Verses: 2:22-25
Thought
Solomon's justice was swift. And in Adonijah's case, he didn't judge merely based on outward actions and words, but on the intent of those words and actions. Adonijah simply asked for the young woman who served David in his old age, but Solomon understood that to be a ploy to regain the throne, along with Abiathar the priest and Joab.
Feb 22, 2026, 8:26 AM
Passage Read: 2 Samuel 22 - 1 Kings 1
Meditation Verses: 2 Samuel 22:21-25
Thought
I think I begin to understand this: We talk about being righteous and being perfect, as if one day we could actually attain unto perfection, yet we do not believe that it is possible in this life and won't happen until the next. If I think of perfection as some kind of condition I attain that causes me to always do what is right, then I'll never get there, except by judicial mandate through faith in Christ.
Feb 21, 2026, 8:37 AM
Passage Read: 2 Samuel 18-21
Meditation Verses: 19:5-6
Thought
Absalom hated David. There's no escaping that conclusion. He had grown so bitter against his father for not protecting his sister and not judging his half-brother, that he convinced himself that killing his father was the good and right thing to do. He was determined to destroy his father. In the end, God destroyed him.
Feb 20, 2026, 6:46 AM
Passage Read: 2 Samuel 14-17
Meditation Verses: 17:1-2
Thought
David's life is a testimony against laying hands on the Lord's anointed, but here is the wisest man in the kingdom advocating just that. As wise as Ahithophel is considered to be, he sees nothing wrong with joining in with a rebellious son of the king and planning to kill the king for that son. Two things that should be clearly wrong to the wise.
Feb 19, 2026, 9:24 AM
Passage Read: 2 Samuel 10-13
Meditation Verses: 12:13-14
Thought
The consequence for adultery and for murder were death, but there was no one to judge David. So almost a year after the deeds were committed, God confronted David through Nathan the prophet. David confessed his sin immediately, and Nathan assured him that the Lord had taken away his sin and he would not die.