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
Mar 20, 2025, 1:27 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 12 - Esther 2
Meditation Verses: Nehemiah 13:23-25
Thought
Nehemiah returned to Babylon for a time, but when he came back to Jerusalem, many of his reforms were undone! All the people had taken an oath to be the Lord's people and do His will, but Nehemiah turns his back for a short time, and the people forget their oath! Just like that! Does their word mean nothing to them? Does the Lord mean nothing to them? Is there no way to convince people to do what is right from the heart? Must they always require someone who will enforce God's law in order for them to faithfully obey?
Mar 19, 2025, 1:56 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 8-11
Meditation Verses: 8:9-12
Thought
What a great illustration of what my response to the Word of God should be: As I read it, I should be convicted and grieved over what it commands and how I've failed, of the judgement I deserve. I should be overcome with grief. But then I should also rejoice, because now I understand what it says and can change my ways to conform to its instruction. That should be cause for joy!
Mar 18, 2025, 1:16 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 4-7
Meditation Verses: 4:4-5
Thought
Jesus commanded His followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. Nehemiah asked God to remember their enemies and their insults, and judge them accordingly. David had prayed something similar, but only after doing all he could to show kindness to those who hated him. We are being insulted majorly online at present.
Mar 17, 2025, 2:19 AM
Passage Read: Ezra 10 - Nehemiah 3
Meditation Verses: Nehemiah 1:2-3
Thought
God had granted favor to the exiles and allowed them to return to their own land. God kept His promise to bring the people back after seventy years. But that doesn't mean He was done punishing or disciplining them. They had been greatly reduced in number, humiliated, and they remained under the rule of foreign powers. Sometimes those powers were more favorable to them, sometimes less.
Mar 17, 2024, 2:00 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 12 - Esther 2
Meditation Verses: Nehemiah 13:10-12
Thought
There is a natural bent in people to turn away from the Lord. Though they begin well, under the lead of a dedicated ruler, if he departs, they go back to their old ways. Nehemiah and Ezra had led the people to read the Law multiple times. Each time they read it, they discovered something new and determined to obey it. But once Nehemiah returned to Babylon, the people and the officials no longer considered the service of God and His temple to be so important.
Mar 16, 2024, 2:01 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 8-11
Meditation Verses: 9:30-31
Thought
God was committed to His people, but that doesn't mean He saved every last Israelite. The soul who sinned, died. And that surely means that he was lost to eternity. In the story of Lazarus the beggar, it is clear that there are many Jews in torment. The Lord is faithful to His people and refuses to let them all perish, but He disciplines the nation by killing those who forsake Him. He disciplines all by sending prophets to rebuke them, and those who refuse to repent are destroyed.
Mar 15, 2024, 2:04 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 4-7
Meditation Verses: 4:4-5
Thought
This, of course, flies in the face of "pray for those who persecute you," but Nehemiah didn't know about Jesus. Yet there is one God, one Lord; Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. So how does this jive with Matthew 5? God does send sun and rain on the evil and the good, but Jesus also said that anyone who would not listen to the Gospel should be left to themselves, with the dust of their town kicked off the feet as a testimony AGAINST them.
Feb 27, 2023, 8:08 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 12 - Esther 2
Meditation Verse: Nehemiah 13:22
Thought
It's interesting that Nehemiah is concerned about God remembering his good works on behalf of the Lord and His people. He was truly concerned about honoring the Lord and making sure His people walked in His ways. He was very forceful, but not necessarily wrong. We could really use some stronger representatives of God. Bolder and more direct.
Feb 26, 2023, 8:09 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 8-11
Meditation Verses: 9:34-38
Thought
The leaders of the people here acknowledge that they are all slaves in their own land, though the Jews in Jesus' day will declare that they have never been slaves of anyone! This generation acknowledges that they are ruled by a foreign king, and that the bulk of their produce goes to their foreign rulers. And it is because their forefathers sinned by failing to obey the Law of the Lord. So this day they rededicate themselves to submit to and carry out the words of the Law.
Feb 25, 2023, 8:11 AM
Passage Read: Nehemiah 4-7
Meditation Verse: 6:14
Thought
It is sad that these foreign leaders who cared nothing about the welfare of the Jews would be able to hire prophets from among the Jews to intimidate one who was seeking to do good to the people. It is sad that there were spiritual people, prophets, who were willing to be used by others to frustrate a work that was beneficial to the people. It is a reminder that not all who claim to know God actually do.