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, 2024, 8:45 AM
Passage Read: Acts 26-27
Meditation Verses: 26:20,23
Thought
Paul proclaims Jesus as the Christ, who was foretold to have to suffer and rise from the dead, so that forgiveness of sins could be given to anyone who turns from their own ways to God, displaying their faith and repentance by deeds that line up with repentance. Faith in Christ should result in repentance and a changed life that shows faith and submission to God. God being God, we have no business deciding how we'll conduct ourselves, but must learn from Him and do as He does.
Sep 18, 2024, 8:46 AM
Passage Read: Acts 24-25
Meditation Verse: 25:11
Thought
Paul had been in prison two years, and he was no closer to Rome and no closer to being set free. Whatever means God intended to use to bring him to Rome to testify had not materialized. For two years he had had conversations with Felix, and now Felix was gone and Paul was still a prisoner. It became clear to Paul that he would need to appeal to Caesar, especially when offered the chance to return to Jerusalem. That was going backwards not forward.
Sep 17, 2024, 8:48 AM
Passage Read: Acts 22-23
Meditation Verse: 23:16
Thought
God had already promised to Paul that he would testify for Christ in Rome. Though Paul was willing to die for Christ in Jerusalem, the Lord had other plans, such that He had Paul's nephew in the right place at the right time, to hear the plot against him and report it to Paul and the soldiers guarding him.
Sep 16, 2024, 8:49 AM
Passage Read: Acts 20-21
Meditation Verses: 21:11-14
Thought
Paul and those with him, representatives from each of the churches that gave a gift for the Jews in Jerusalem, kept hearing that Jerusalem would end badly for Paul. So in several of the places where they stopped, the believers begged him not to go, as if prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so. But Paul's understanding and commitment was that he should go and needed to go. No matter what was said or who begged him, he wouldn't change course. Had he given his word to deliver the gift personally?
Sep 15, 2024, 8:52 AM
Passage Read: Acts 18-19
Meditation Verse: 19:6
Thought
Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit, though Luke didn't record him receiving the Spirit like this, with a noteworthy response. Yet Paul was laying hands on others and the Spirit was coming on them. Paul went on to write much of the New Testament, which has become the standard of Christian truth and teaching. Yet nowadays there are two prominent groups that seem to lay aside Paul's teachings to the greatest degree: Those that are in the process abandoning all of Scripture and creating a new god after their own likeness, and those who claim and appear to have the Holy Spirit in dramatic form.
Sep 14, 2024, 8:54 AM
Passage Read: Acts 16-17
Meditation Verses: 17:24-27
Thought
Paul is not afraid to speak the truth, even if it's offensive to people. He is not offering an alternative religion that people can choose to believe or not, but telling them the truth about the universe, that it is God's creation, and He alone is God and alone worthy of worship. He gently but definitively rebukes all their ideas about God, even though it could enrage them.
Sep 13, 2024, 8:56 AM
Passage Read: Acts 14-15
Meditation Verse: 14:22
Thought
Paul and Barnabas have suffered tribulation in their efforts to take the Gospel to the nations of the Roman empire, but what tribulations do the people who remain at home need to go through? There is perhaps hatred of them by the Jews who had rejected Jesus as Messiah, that may have periodically boiled over into persecution. But if they just sit around and mind their own business, working diligently to provide their own needs, who will care about them, what tribulation will come upon them?
Sep 12, 2024, 8:57 AM
Passage Read: Acts 12-13
Meditation Verse: 13:10
Thought
Elymas was a Jewish false prophet, who served the proconsul. When the proconsul invited Paul and Barnabas to explain the Gospel to him, Elymas opposed them and worked at turning the proconsul away from the message. According to Paul in his rebuke, Elymas was turning the straight way of the Lord into a crooked way.
Sep 11, 2024, 8:58 AM
Passage Read: Acts 10-11
Meditation Verses: 10:34-35
Thought
Cornelius believed in the God of the Jews, that He was indeed the one true God. He turned away from his own gods and accepted the conditions and restraints and lesser position Gentiles had in the Jewish world. That did not bother him. He in fact gave generously to the Jews and prayed faithfully to the Lord. And the Lord took notice. In compassion and acceptance, He told Cornelius to send for Peter, who would tell him what was needed to be saved. Cornelius obeyed right away.
Sep 10, 2024, 9:00 AM
Passage Read: Acts 8-9
Meditation Verses: 8:21-23
Thought
Simon believed the Gospel at Philip's preaching, but he used to be someone great, called the "Great Power of God." But he saw in Philip and the Gospel something greater, and when the apostles came to give the Holy Spirit, he saw something still greater. He wanted the power to give the Holy Spirit, and Peter sensed in him or was told by God that Simon had a serious problem. Even though he had believed the Gospel and given up his former ways, he still wanted power to awe the people.