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 6, 2022, 8:23 AM
Passage Read: Romans 8-9
Meditation Verses: 8:35-39
Thought
This was such a happy chapter up till this point. God won't withhold anything from us, we should be so happy! He wants to give us everything! He gave His own Son, how will He not freely give us everything else? But then Paul writes this, that in every form of horrible thing, we are not separated from the love of Christ. He doesn't write about wonderful experiences and victories, but about trials and tribulations. He doesn't write about prosperity but trouble.
Sep 5, 2022, 8:24 AM
Passage Read: Romans 6-7
Meditation Verse: 7:8
Thought
"Apart from Law, sin is dead." This cannot mean that there was no sin before the Law, because he's already said sin was in the world before the Law, but it was not imputed without the Law. God says back in Genesis 6 that every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts was only evil from childhood. Cain killed Abel, Lamech killed a young man. Sin was active in the world even without the Law, and so God destroyed the world with a flood long before He gave the Law.
Sep 4, 2022, 8:25 AM
Passage Read: Romans 4-5
Meditation Verses: 5:3-5
Thought
Afflictions produce patience, patience produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Because we must endure affliction and can't do much to change it, we have to learn endurance and patience. Though we might be in a hurry to find a way out, yet the way out does not always immediately present itself, so we must endure. And as we endure, if we still seek to do what is good and right, we are developing tested and proven character.
Sep 3, 2022, 8:27 AM
Passage Read: Romans 2-3
Meditation Verse: 2:25
Thought
The problem with trusting in signs and marks is that we don't bother to walk in the way we are called to, we think the mark we have received guarantees our acceptance. So it was with the Jews who thought being circumcised guaranteed their inclusion in the blessings of God for the nation. But anyone who was circumcised but did not walk in obedience to the Law, their circumcision was meaningless.
Sep 2, 2022, 8:28 AM
Passage Read: Acts 28 - Romans 1
Meditation Verse: Romans 1:21
Thought
It is a dangerous thing to acknowledge God but not allow Him to be God. Men who know God but do not glorify Him as God by submitting to His every decree are taking upon themselves a responsibility they do not own. And by setting aside the Lord and exalting themselves to the place of law-giver, they have already corrupted the source of their wisdom, so that the fruit of their reasonings will be in error. Submission to God as God, and gratitude for His guidance and authority, are the beginning of wisdom and will lead to right conclusions about man, the world and God.