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
Aug 20, 2026, 1:52 AM
Passage Read: Mark 7-8
Meditation Verses: 7:1-2
Thought
Nowadays, we'd call this basic health and safety. Wash your hands before eating, because you've touched all kinds of things, and you have no idea what you've picked up along the way. As God, Jesus would know that, but He never bothered to teach His disciples such basic cleanliness rules. More than that, He knew this confrontation was coming.
Aug 19, 2026, 1:40 AM
Passage Read: Mark 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:1-6
Thought
These people thought they knew Jesus, because He grew up among them. They knew Him as the carpenter. They knew His mother and father, His sisters and brothers. Because they knew His upbringing, they couldn't understand how He now knew so much about God and His Word. He hadn't been away from them for very long, certainly not long enough to now have authority to teach in their synagogue.
Aug 17, 2026, 9:18 AM
Passage Read: Mark 3-4
Meditation Verses: 4:38-40
Thought
This is convicting. How many things do I worry about? How many things am I afraid of, things that may go wrong (or not), things that may cause me trouble (or not). Jesus' disciples were in a real storm in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. They were all afraid, even the fishermen who knew the sea best. They could very well drown.
Aug 16, 2026, 8:51 AM
Passage Read: Mark 1-2
Meditation Verse: 1:34
Thought
The demons recognized Jesus and would tell it freely, so Jesus would not permit them to speak, and they obeyed. More than that, He would cast them out of those who came to Him, and they could not refuse. They did exactly as He instructed, but the leper Jesus healed a few sentences later couldn't keep quiet in spite of Jesus' stern warning to tell no one.
Aug 24, 2025, 6:52 AM
Passage Read: Mark 15-16
Meditation Verses: 16:7-10
Thought
These women, including Jesus' mother, saw the angel, heard his words and fled the tomb in fear. The angel told them to tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus had risen from the dead, but instead they said nothing to anyone because they were so afraid. They couldn't think straight and they didn't know what to believe. But then the Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene and she understood that Jesus was truly alive, then she knew what she needed to do.
Aug 23, 2025, 9:54 AM
Passage Read: Mark 13-14
Meditation Verse: 14:38
Thought
I often thing how much easier it would be to die for Jesus than to live for Him. But even dying for Jesus is no easy thing. Peter and the rest of the Apostles knew Him well. They'd seen His miraculous powers; they were convinced that He was the Messiah. But when He was arrested, though every one agreed they would die with Jesus, yet they all fled. One of them was even the betrayer! Peter went on to deny knowing Him three times, exactly as Jesus said he would.
Aug 22, 2025, 8:29 AM
Passage Read: Mark 11-12
Meditation Verses: 11:21-25
Thought
Jesus curses a fig tree because it has no fruit outside its normal fruit season. How is that fair to the tree, to expect fruit when it doesn't normally have fruit? Was the tree somehow to know on this day Jesus would be looking for something to eat and produce some fruit just for Him? Is this only meant to illustrate the power of faith, or is it also showing that God expects fruit from His people in season and out of season?
Aug 21, 2025, 8:03 AM
Passage Read: Mark 9-10
Meditation Verse: 10:15
Thought
What is it about a little child that encapsulates saving faith? Is it that they are so innocent and guileless that they don't doubt any word spoken to them? They believe without doubt because they haven't learned that people can't be trusted or believed? People break their word or make claims about themselves that often aren't true or are exaggerated, so after some growing up and experiencing the unreliability of people, we know not to take people too literally or seriously.
Aug 20, 2025, 8:34 AM
Passage Read: Mark 7-8
Meditation Verses: 8:31-33
Thought
How natural it is to want to keep people we care for from suffering. Peter's heart was in the right place, from a human point of view, but the fact is that living for God in this world requires suffering and even death. Jesus rebuking Peter wasn't just for Peter, but for all of us, as Jesus goes on to apply it to everyone who follows Him. We need our own priorities adjusted. Living this life isn't about enjoying as much as we can get from it.
Aug 19, 2025, 8:16 AM
Passage Read: Mark 5-6
Meditation Verses: 6:51-52
Thought
How and why were the disciples' hearts hardened? What lesson were they to have understood from the loaves? They had just returned from their own preaching trips and we're reporting the things they had taught and the miracles they had performed. But there were so many people coming and going that they didn't even have a chance to eat! So Jesus called them to go to a quiet place with Him. But the only solitude they had was in the boat as they sailed across the sea.