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
Oct 19, 2024, 1:58 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 5-6
Meditation Verses: 5:27-30
Thought
Jesus loves the Church so much that He is always working at making her as beautiful to Himself as possible! He began with the sacrifice that paid for her sin, cleansing her from the stain of former sin and gifting her everything she needed for life and godliness. But He also continues in teaching and training her so that she becomes all-glorious on the day He receives her to Himself at the end of this age.
Oct 18, 2024, 2:00 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:13-15
Thought
Jesus Christ Himself is the goal and the likeness into which we all should be growing. And there is only one Jesus, so there cannot be multiple likenesses to which men attain. Yet Paul makes clear here that there are winds of doctrine and deceitful men who use trickery and deceitful scheming to lead believers astray, who confuse the picture.
Oct 17, 2024, 2:01 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:1-3
Thought
We all formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air who is still working in those who disobey the Lord. We all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging in the desires of our flesh and mind, being by nature objects of wrath. But when God redeemed us through Christ, we broke from these.
Sep 29, 2023, 8:29 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 5-6
Meditation Verses: 5:5-7
Thought
No immoral, impure or greedy person has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Interesting that he puts it that way: There is the kingdom of Christ, which would be His millennial reign, and the Kingdom of God, which would be eternity, after Jesus hands everything over to the Father, who creates a new heavens and earth. No immoral, impure or greedy person will have any inheritance in either of those kingdoms, though some immoral, impure or greedy people will "enjoy" Jesus' kingdom, though not really; they'll endure it only until they can rebel at the end of it.
Sep 28, 2023, 8:31 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:17-19
Thought
As a believer, I'm no longer to live as the Gentiles do, as lost people do. They do not know God and have no clue as to how He ways us to live, because they have hardened their hearts, and so they are clueless about Him. Having hardened their hearts against the truth, they have lost sensitivity to their conscience and to their God-given nature, and replaced that sensitivity with sensuality, seeking feeling from their flash, which leads to indulging all kinds of immorality and impurity, things that God opposes.
Sep 27, 2023, 8:32 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 1-2
Meditation Verses: 1:18-20
Thought
Paul prays that the eyes of the Ephesians' hearts may be enlightened so that they can see and understand three things: the hope to which God called them, the riches of God's glorious inheritance in the saints, and God's incomparably great power for those who believe, a power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at His right hand. I too need help, that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened so that I can understand and know the hope to which I've been called.
Sep 30, 2022, 7:04 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 5-6
Meditation Verse: 5:11
Thought
As Christians, we are called not merely to step out and away from the fruitless deeds of darkness, but we're also to reprove them! We're not just to stop doing them, but to point out that they are unhealthy and unrighteous and hated by God. No wonder Christians get in trouble and become a target of attack by all those that love evil!
Sep 29, 2022, 7:06 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 3-4
Meditation Verse: 4:25
Thought
Because we belong to one another, so we must be honest with each other and speak the truth to each other. We must not deceive one another and we must not be fake with one another. We belong to each other, so we need to know the truth about each other.
Sep 28, 2022, 7:07 AM
Passage Read: Ephesians 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:8-10
Thought
Interesting, Paul makes it clear in this chapter that we are not saved by our good works. We were dead in our sins and trespasses, we were children of wrath, we were separated and hopeless, doomed to destruction. There was nothing to commend us to God and no way we could be worthy of salvation. So God stepped in and saved us anyway, and made us a new creation that would do good works, which He prepares in advance for us to do.