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 16, 2025, 2:20 PM
Passage Read: John 21 - Acts 1
Meditation Verses: John 21:12-14
Thought
The significance of the resurrection is hard to fully grasp. The disciples left everything to follow Jesus and spent the next three and a half years with Him, daily walking, talking, learning from Him and seeing all He did. They were followers, not leaders. Then He was killed, and they were devastated. What was the point of the last three years? Jesus wasn't installed as king. But three days later, He rose from the dead and showed Himself to them, two times so far.
Sep 15, 2025, 2:26 PM
Passage Read: John 19-20
Meditation Verse: 19:15
Thought
What a sad but true confession of the chief priests. They should have claimed God as their king, but many among the chief priests were Sadducees, and the Sadducees had turned their back on much of the Scriptures and so on God Himself. What mattered most to them was their position and they found protection and power coming from the Romans, so their confession was very true.
Sep 14, 2025, 3:29 PM
Passage Read: John 17-18
Meditation Verses: 17:6-9
Thought
There is a distinction between the world and those who belong to Jesus, and it shows up throughout the Bible. Jesus prays for those who belong to Him, that they would be protected from the world, those who now hate them because they belong to Jesus. Those who belong to the world are hostile to those who belong to Jesus.
Sep 13, 2025, 3:18 PM
Passage Read: John 15-16
Meditation Verses: 16:1-4
Thought
Jesus just warned His disciples that the world would hate them and persecute them, and the Holy Spirit would come and together He and they would testify about Jesus. He told them this so that they would not go astray. Because the day would come when the world would try to kill them and even succeed. Even those who led or attended the synagogue would think that killing them was serving God! People like Saul.
Sep 12, 2025, 2:29 PM
Passage Read: John 13-14
Meditation Verses: 14:30-31
Thought
Jesus loves the Father so much that He does and says only what the Father does and says, so that He can say that whoever looks on Him sees the Father. They are so closely united that to see one is to see the other. That is the same unity Jesus wants us to have with Him. But it requires Jesus' kind of obedience. Jesus' love for the Father causes Him to do exactly what His Father commands...even though it leads to His death.
Sep 11, 2025, 2:10 PM
Passage Read: John 11-12
Meditation Verses: 12:34-36
Thought
There are times when Jesus doesn't answer questions directly. He responds, but sometimes to a completely different question! The people say that the Christ is supposed to remain forever, then ask who the Son of Man is that Jesus keeps calling Himself. Is He the Christ or some other person from Scripture? Then Jesus answers with this urging to walk in the light while they have it with them!
Sep 10, 2025, 1:04 PM
Passage Read: John 9-10
Meditation Verses: 10:24-27
Thought
The Jews, the holdouts among them, saw the miracles and knew in their hearts that only a righteous, God-honoring man could do so many and such powerful miracles. Their theology demanded it. But they refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and were offended that He called Himself God's Son. The evidence was obvious, but they refused to believe.
Sep 9, 2025, 3:05 PM
Passage Read: John 7-8
Meditation Verses: 7:16-17
Thought
Jesus gives many reasons in these two chapters why people can't understand Him. Those who don't believe Him disbelieve because they belong to the devil. If they belonged to God, Jesus' words would be clear to them and they would be able to hear them. They disbelieve because they rely on the "experts" and authorities to tell them whether Jesus' is the Christ. They don't do their own homework; they judge by mere appearances rather than by what they actually see and hear.
Sep 8, 2025, 3:11 PM
Passage Read: John 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:63-66
Thought
There were many "disciples" who followed Jesus. They considered themselves His followers and students. They liked many of His teachings and of course liked to see the miracles, especially if they themselves benefited from them. But they followed from their own curiosity, from fleshly reasons. They were not converted by the Spirit. The proof was not in the following, but in the believing and acceptance of God's Word, through the Scriptures and through Jesus.
Sep 7, 2025, 2:28 PM
Passage Read: John 3-4
Meditation Verse: 4:38
Thought
There are those who sow and those who reap. Those who sow do not often see the fruit of their labor, but they speak for God and live godly lives. They persist and endure. They do the hard work. Who did the work in these Samaritans lives? Surely it was not the priests of Israel, who themselves were not faithful to God and His Word. Yet if not for them, they would know nothing about Jacob's well and something about Jacob's God.