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 11, 2025, 7:19 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 19-20
Meditation Verses: 20:25-28
Thought
Unbelievers who gain authority over another use that authority for their own comfort and advantage. They think everyone under them is given to them for their own benefit and comfort, to satisfy all their wishes. There may be some mediating and problem-solving duties toward those under them, but those under them are really just tools for their own comfort and pleasure and purposes. So when Jesus says that those who belong to Him and wish to be great, they must become the slaves of all, its easy to think we just turn the paradigm upside-down:
Aug 10, 2025, 6:42 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 17-18
Meditation Verses: 18:21-22
Thought
This is not a command to forgive everyone who sins against me, but everyone who pleads for forgiveness, as the parable that follows makes clear. God doesn't forgive the sins of every person, but only those who come to Him in repentance, pleading for forgiveness. He keeps a record of every sin of every person, and in the final judgment, all will be judged according to what is recorded in those books.
Aug 9, 2025, 6:47 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 15-16
Meditation Verse: 16:12
Thought
The teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees would be two sides of the same false teaching coin. On the one hand are the teachings that add rules and regulations that have the appearance of good, but actually create loopholes to escape obeying God. On the other hand are the teachings that outright deny things the Scriptures teach. Both do the same thing, both set aside God's Word, one blatantly and one subtly.
Aug 8, 2025, 11:01 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 13-14
Meditation Verses: 13:10-15
Thought
The people have become calloused; They barely see and hear, but they don't recognize or understand. If they opened their eyes and ears and hearts, they could turn and be healed. But instead of making it easier for them to understand, Jesus speaks in parables, to make it harder for them to get what He's saying! He's willing to heal them if they turn, but He won't help them understand! Instead, He seems to be judging them and letting them condemn themselves.
Aug 7, 2025, 7:24 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 11-12
Meditation Verses: 11:20-21
Thought
The correct response to miracles is repentance. When miracles are given, it is so the people who see them or hear about them would know that the messenger is sent from God and they need to listen to Him. Miracles raise the expectation of God on the people who experience the miracles or just hear about them. The cities where Jesus performed most of His miracles should have repented en masse.
Aug 6, 2025, 6:56 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 9-10
Meditation Verse: 10:28
Thought
Believing in Jesus should in effect make me fearless, because I should no longer fear any man. The only one I should fear is God Himself. Of course, this is not a fearlessness that comes from believing I'm indestructible and therefore can do any crazy stunt. This is a fearlessness in proclaiming the truth about God and His Son Jesus, proclaiming Jesus as the coming King, His standard of righteousness the standard by which all men will be judged, and Jesus Himself the only means of forgiveness and transformation.
Aug 5, 2025, 6:42 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 7-8
Meditation Verses: 7:21-24
Thought
Jesus makes plain here that doing the will of His Father means putting Jesus' teachings into practice. There are those who want to use miracles and prophesying and casting out demons in Jesus' name as a proxy for obedience, but Jesus says that people who do such things yet do not obey His words will be cast into eternal torment. Jesus' name has real power, and if someone should use it and see miracles happen, he should have sense enough to recognize that Jesus is no mere mortal, and he'd better get to know this mighty God!
Aug 4, 2025, 6:58 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 5-6
Meditation Verses: 5:43-48
Thought
This is not really about enemies and persecutors who are far away. Jesus is talking about people right here and now who are plotting against a believer, working against him and doing evil to him. We can pray for enemies and persecutors who are far removed from our lives, but this instruction is especially about those we see and interact with regularly.
Aug 3, 2025, 6:47 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 3-4
Meditation Verse: 3:8
Thought
Repentance isn't a one-time thing, but a beginning. The people were coming to John, confessing their sins and being symbolically cleansed in baptism, but that didn't mean anything unless they were genuinely turning away from the sins they were confessing! There may be one point at which they admitted their evil deeds, but if they went right back into them, then they didn't understand repentance. They needed to make changes that showed their repentance, they needed to bear fruit in keeping with their repentance.
Aug 2, 2025, 9:57 AM
Passage Read: Matthew 1-2
Meditation Verses: 2:1-2
Thought
These magi from the east are some of the only people to recognize what God had just done! And they were determined to go and honor the newborn king of the Jews. Were they surprised to find out that none of the leaders of Israel recognized what had happened? Did they realize what a chain of events their devotion would set off? In short order, all the babies in Bethlehem would be killed because they tipped off Herod to Jesus' birth.