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 9, 2024, 12:55 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 2-5
Meditation Verses: 2:40-43
Thought
After the years of living in Jerusalem, knowing he wasn't to leave under penalty of death, Shimei left the city in pursuit of two runaway slaves. Solomon's men knew when he had gone and knew when he returned. Was it gate guards who recognized him or were there regular patrols that checked in on him? Somehow Solomon knew that he had left the city. No one reminded Shimei before he left that he would violate the terms of his parole, not his friends and not the men who might have seen him packing for a journey.
Jan 29, 2023, 6:45 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 18-21
Meditation Verse: 20:28
Thought
Elijah succeeds against the prophets of Baal, then twice the Lord gives Israel success over the Arameans, all to show Ahab that the Lord is God. Yet Ahab makes no changes. Three significant miracles and Ahab continues in his sin. Miracles won't necessarily convince a man that the Lord is God. God must open their heart to believe, and he can do that without miraculous signs. So the signs serve as much as a testimony against all those who refuse to believe.
Jan 28, 2023, 6:47 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 14-17
Meditation Verses: 15:3-4
Thought
The Lord is gracious even to sinners, but it is usually not because of them, but because of a promise He made to a previous generation. Indeed, His loyalty to Israel is not so much because of Israel's faithfulness, but because of God's promise to Abraham. The only reason they survive despite their sin is because of God's loyalty to Abraham and the promise He gave him. Yet because of that, future generations who are less than faithful don't understand that the good they enjoy, like the strength of Jerusalem, is not because of them, but because of their forefather.
Jan 27, 2023, 6:48 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 10-13
Meditation Verses: 13:16-18
Thought
How easy it is to doubt a word of God, especially when it makes my life a little inconvenient or uncomfortable. Scripture doesn't say how long the journey was for this prophet from Judah, but he was commanded not to eat in Israel, to prophesy against the Jeroboam's altar, then return without food or drink. He was on foot and didn't make it very far on his way home before the second prophet caught up with him.
Jan 26, 2023, 6:49 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 6-9
Meditation Verses: 8:38-42
Thought
Whenever trouble comes and people pray to the Lord for deliverance, each man knowing his own heart and his own afflictions, then may the Lord forgive and deal with each one according to his deeds, that each man may fear the Lord all the time. Then foreigners will hear and come and pray to the Lord as well, so that all the peoples of the earth may know the Lord and fear Him.
Jan 25, 2023, 6:51 AM
Passage Read: 1 Kings 2-5
Meditation Verse: 2:40
Thought
Shimei had agreed to the terms to never again leave Jerusalem, but perhaps after three years he'd forgotten why he always remained in Jerusalem. Or maybe he thought just one little trip to fetch his runaway slaves would be all right. Jerusalem was a walled city with gates and surely guards at the gates, and those guards probably had standing orders to watch for Shimei. Evidently no one warned Shimei that he was about to violate the king's command.
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