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
Nov 4, 2025, 8:23 AM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:3-8
Thought
Sexual immorality is one of the biggest temptations and problems facing believers. There are others, but this one perhaps more than any other gets spoken against the most. It was common then, it is common now. God saved us to live holy lives, meaning especially lives free from sexual immorality in any and all of its forms, but somehow believers today don't consider many of their immoral ways to be wrong!
Nov 3, 2025, 1:19 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 1-2 Meditation Verses: 2:2-6
Thought
Paul is not preaching to make converts, but to announce what God has done and leave the message and the Spirit to do their work. So he feels no compulsion to make his message pleasing to men, but only a compulsion to make his message and his ways pleasing to God. That's also what gives him courage to speak the message even after having been abused in previous cities; opposition doesn't silence him.
Oct 26, 2024, 9:16 AM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 5 - 2 Thessalonians 1
Meditation Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:14
Thought
This is important enough that Paul didn't just encourage the Thessalonians to do these things, but urged them to admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak and be patient with everyone. The unruly need to be rebuked, admonished, to turn them from their evil ways and protect others who might stumble into their same sinful rebelliousness. The fainthearted need encouragement and assurance that suffering for Christ would be richly rewarded, to hold on and not give up.
Oct 25, 2024, 11:21 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:9-12
Thought
It sounds like Paul is saying that a next step up in their love for the brethren is to lead a quiet life, minding their own business and working with their hands, so that they would behave correctly towards outsiders and not be in any need. He commends them for their love of the brethren, that they are taught by God to love one another, so it's not like they have a problem in this area. They care not just for their own locally, but throughout the region.
Oct 24, 2024, 11:22 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:4-6
Thought
The Gospel is a hard thing to accept. It can provoke a hostile reaction almost as often as it draws some to believe it. It is so offensive to many that those who preach it can be tempted to distort it in order to please men rather than preach the truth of it in order to please God. That is so not my experience that I wonder if I have been preaching the true Gospel?
Oct 6, 2023, 2:39 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 5 - 2 Thessalonians 1
Meditation Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:1
Thought
The day of the Lord will come like a thief; it will surprise everyone who does not know that it is coming. But we are not to be surprised by it, but be watching in expectation. We should know the warning signs, so that we are prepared for it when it comes. It should not surprise us like a thief. Even Jesus said that when we see all the signs happen, we should look up, we should be watching for Him. Because we know when to expect Him, neither should we be expecting Him when the time is not right, when the signs have not been fulfilled.
Oct 5, 2023, 2:41 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:3-8
Thought
When we believed the gospel, we were called to live a holy life, not to continue to walk in impurity. The immediate context has to do with sexual immorality, but holiness is not just about that, but definitely includes that, especially in a society like ours. There is no excuse for believers to practice any form of sexual immorality, nor is there any excuse for us to practice any other form of impurity.
Oct 4, 2023, 2:42 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 1-2
Meditation Verse: 2:9
Thought
While in Thessalonica, Paul and his team labored night and day while also preaching the gospel to them. He did it so as not to be a burden to them. How were they not exhausted? Was the gospel so compelling to them that it didn't matter how much they worked, they still had to preach and teach whoever would listen? Were the people so precious to them that they didn't care how tired they might be, they delighted to spend time with people hungry to know God?
Oct 7, 2022, 3:04 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 5 - 2 Thessalonians 1
Meditation Verses: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-14
Thought
Paul tells the Thessalonians to know and understand and appreciate those who labor in their midst, who lead them in Christ and who warn them. These are their leaders and they're trying to protect and instruct and guide them. They are setting an example that the other believers should also follow. They too should warn the disobedient, comfort those who fear, hold on to the weak and be long-suffering towards everyone.
Oct 6, 2022, 3:06 PM
Passage Read: 1 Thessalonians 3-4
Meditation Verse: 4:1
Thought
Paul calls the Thessalonians to keep working on doing better in Christ. They know the commands he gave when he was with them, and he reminds them to keep doing them and to do them even better. He never says that sin is a hindrance to their ability to walk in holiness, but that they are to work all the more at walking in holiness. Sin is a hindrance and so they should work all the more at putting it down and walking in God's ways.