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
Jun 7, 2025, 6:49 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 39-42
Meditation Verses: 40:9-10
Thought
This is only good news to those who have suffered unjustly, or suffered justly and come to recognize their wrong. They have been punished and are ready to do right, but they have not yet been released from prison or from their punishment. To those who think everything is going well, things are not so bad, or who are enjoying what this life and this world has to offer, to them, this is not good news, that the Lord has appeared with reward and recompense.
Jun 6, 2025, 6:38 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 35-38
Meditation Verses: 38:10-12
Thought
What is the point of life, if not to serve the Lord and lay up glory and honor in His presence forever? Hezekiah speaks of no longer seeing the Lord in the land of the living, yes, but what about seeing Him in the land of the dead? While the Lord may not visit Hades, he will meet all his ancestors who worshiped and served the Lord, and they will be able to speak to one another about the great things God did in their day.
Jun 5, 2025, 6:41 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 31-34
Meditation Verses: 33:14-16
Thought
It is sinners who say, "Who can dwell with this consuming fire?" It is those who refuse to submit to the Lord that see Him and fear Him as a frightful burning. In answer to their question, the Lord declares that it is those who do what is right and love righteousness who will dwell forever with the Lord.
Jun 4, 2025, 7:06 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 27-30
Meditation Verses: 30:9-11
Thought
The people are unwilling to hear the word of the Lord. They have gone their own way and they want to keep going their own way. They don't want to be confronted with the Holy One of Israel. They don't want to hear His commands and His righteousness and the righteousness He expects of them. So they command the seers and prophets to be silent or only speak happy things, illusions and lies that make them feel good about themselves.
Jun 3, 2025, 7:34 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 23-26
Meditation Verses: 26:1-3
Thought
Verse 3 is a well-known verse of encouragement, reminding us to trust in the Lord and He will keep us at peace. But the context is more specific than that. The promise is that the Lord will save Israel and destroy all her enemies. He will protect her with His power and might, and the city will welcome all who do righteousness; the people who live there and those who visit will be righteous people.
Jun 2, 2025, 7:24 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 19-22
Meditation Verses: 22:11-14
Thought
God brought the king of Assyria against Judah and Jerusalem, and they made all the preparations they knew how to make, but they didn't turn to the Lord and seek His mercy or favor. They saw that despite all their efforts, there was no hope, so they decided to live it up one last night, then die the next day when the enemy came against them. Yet God brought overwhelming odds against them so that they would humble themselves and seek Him!
Jun 1, 2025, 6:56 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 15-18
Meditation Verse: 16:5
Thought
This is who God is and what He values. This is the Lord Jesus, and how He will operate. In love for all people, God will establish His Son on the throne of Israel and all the nations will submit to Him and seek Him and He will judge them. He will seek justice and speed the cause of righteousness. He will judge justly and fairly, according to the law of the Lord and His righteous character. Neither Jesus not God side with the lawless, with those who cast down or make up rules by themselves, for their own aggrandizement.
May 31, 2025, 11:41 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 11-14
Meditation Verses: 14:1-2
Thought
No one can stop what the Lord has in mind. He will one day establish Israel as the chief of the nations, when Jesus comes to rule. In that day, there will be aliens who have joined themselves to the people of Israel, which likely refers to Gentiles who embrace the God of Jacob as their own. But there will also be nations of oppressors, unbelievers, who will be made Israel's servants.
May 30, 2025, 6:43 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 7-10
Meditation Verses: 9:14-17
Thought
The elders and prominent men, the prophets who speak lies, they will all be cut off in a day. God hates them! They have led the people so far astray, that He will have pity on no one, not young man nor widow nor orphan. Everyone is wicked and ungodly. All their mouths speak vileness. There is no reason to show pity. Yet, even this punishment is not enough to satisfy the Lord's anger. He will bring even more disaster on them!
May 29, 2025, 6:53 AM
Passage Read: Isaiah 3-6
Meditation Verse: 5:8
Thought
What an interesting verse. There are those who are house to house and field to field, and they end up isolated, alone in the land. They build ever bigger houses, and the expand their fields, until they have driven off their neighbors and there is no land left for anyone else. This is how we farm in America today, but God says "Woe" to such people! It's like God never meant for a few people to acquire all the land in an area, and then dwell alone, far from others.