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 9, 2024, 1:09 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 11-12
Meditation Verses: 11:1-2
Thought
By faith, the men of old gained approval. By faith, believing God, they not only adjusted their thinking, but changed their lives, their behavior, attempted impossible things and succeeded. Because they believed God when He spoke and did what He asked. They believed that He was God and had authority to command them and to fulfill what He promised--even when they did not see those promises fulfilled in their own lifetimes!
Nov 8, 2024, 1:11 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 9-10
Meditation Verses: 10:26-31
Thought
A few verses earlier, the author reminds us that we have had our consciences sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We have been made holy by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ once for all. We have been remade in order to walk in the righteousness that God always desired from mankind. We have nothing to keep us from doing so, but our own old willfulness.
Nov 7, 2024, 1:12 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 7-8
Meditation Verses: 8:9-11
Thought
The Old Covenant was given with fire and smoke and earthquake and the sound of a trumpet. Very impressive and frightening, to impress God's Words onto the hearts of the people, to impress His greatness into their hearts. God was very near to them as they traveled between Egypt and Canaan, but still they did not honor or obey Him. And once they entered the promised land, they sometimes did better, but gradually became worse, until the Lord eventually drove them out of the land.
Nov 6, 2024, 1:14 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:4-6
Thought
The author is talking about a true conversion here. One who was enlightened: No one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him; no one believes in Jesus without the eye-opening work of the Spirit. More than that, he has tasted of the heavenly gift (spiritual gift or assurance of an eternal inheritance?) and been made a partaker of the Holy Spirit: This person was confirmed by God as a believer, having received the Spirit and His gifts!
Nov 5, 2024, 1:15 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 3-4
Meditation Verses: 3:16-19
Thought
Belief and obedience are inextricably linked. You cannot have obedience to God without belief, and you cannot belief without obedience to God. Those who failed to enter God's rest all heard from God through Moses. It wasn't as if no one had spoken to them, as if God had not taught them right from wrong. But they provoked Him again and again by their sin, by their refusal to believe and obey what the Lord had said, ten times within the first year or so of their deliverance from Egypt!
Nov 4, 2024, 1:17 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:8-9
Thought
We know that it is to Jesus that all things have been subjected; He has received that promise. All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to Him, but He does not yet visibly reign over all things. He has the promise; He has the power, but He has not yet been given all things; they have not yet been subjected to Him.
Oct 23, 2023, 1:44 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 13 - James 1
Meditation Verses: Hebrews 13:5-6
Thought
Keeping my life free from the love of money requires being content with what I have. If I'm not content, I will need more money. If I am content with what I have, I won't need any more money. I actually have enough not only to live on but also to gradually pay back my debt. The only drawback is I have so little time to serve the kingdom, and I think that is what God has in mind with such instructions. Paul says godliness with contentment is great gain.
Oct 22, 2023, 1:45 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 11-12
Meditation Verses: 11:13-16
Thought
Just a few verses earlier, the author mentions that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were living in tents, like strangers, in the land promised to them. They didn't build houses or settle down as if they owned the place. Not until Joshua brought the Israelites in did any of them live in houses. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lived like strangers in the land because they recognized that it was not yet theirs to own.
Oct 21, 2023, 1:47 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 9-10
Meditation Verses: 10:26-29
Thought
The author makes the case at the beginning of this chapter that we have been made perfect through Jesus' death and resurrection. Here he makes it clear that if we deliberately keep on sinning after receiving instruction and knowledge about that wrong behavior, then we are trampling the Son of God underfoot, we are treating as unholy His blood that washed us, and we are insulting the Spirit of grace. That's not good!
Oct 20, 2023, 1:48 AM
Passage Read: Hebrews 7-8
Meditation Verses: 8:10-12
Thought
The New Covenant is that the Lord forgives our sins and remembers our wickedness no more, which allows us to know the Lord because He puts His laws in our minds and writes them on our hearts. He becomes our God and we become His people. The New Covenant is not just that our sins are forgiven, but that we are changed, we are made aware of His laws; they are written into our hearts and minds so that we are able to remember them and keep them.