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
Jan 28, 2025, 6:23 PM
Passage Read: Judges 18-21
Meditation Verse: 19:25
Thought
There is so much carnage in these last chapters of Judges, not just war, but rape and idolatry. It's like Israel has learned nothing. How far they have fallen! These are not the times or the practices to build a theology on.
Jan 27, 2025, 7:51 PM
Passage Read: Judges 14-17
Meditation Verses: 16:30-31
Thought
What was God thinking when He chose Samson as judge? Was Israel so clueless at this point that Samson was the best He could find? God uses him and blesses him with great strength, but he is no paragon of virtue.
Jan 26, 2025, 7:53 PM
Passage Read: Judges 10-13
Meditation Verse: 10:16
Thought
The Israelites had sinned against the Lord again, abandoning Him to worship the idols of the nations around them. So the Lord allowed the Ammonites and Philistines to oppress them eighteen years!
Jan 25, 2025, 10:46 AM
Passage Read: Judges 6-9
Meditation Verse: 9:57
Thought
The Lord hears the curses we proclaim against others, especially if they have done evil in God's sight. Abimelech killed his brothers and so Gideon's line was almost completely wiped out.
Jan 24, 2025, 10:47 AM
Passage Read: Judges 2-5
Meditation Verses: 2:12-15
Thought
How could a generation arise that didn't know the Lord? Because they dwelt among people who worshiped other gods, and those gods didn't demand obedience, but only gifts, and allowed and encouraged fleshly desires be satisfied in worship of them.
Jan 23, 2025, 10:48 AM
Passage Read: Joshua 22 - Judges 1
Meditation Verse: Judges 1:33
Thought
Each tribe had their challenges. Some pockets of Canaanites and Amorites were too strong and too determined to remain alive and in the land! So the tribes compromised and lived among them, until they became strong enough, then they put them to forced labor.