Category: Devotionals

These are devotional readings, composed by Grace at Wellington to aid in your reading of scripture and the application of it into your lives.

  • Ezra 8:1-14: Exiles Come Home

    This list also gives us a cultural check. In our culture, youth is idolised. Everyone wants to look young. Sometimes it feels like everything is catered to children, including the way some churches focus their strategy for evangelism. But the Bible looks at it the reverse. Perhaps we have missed something.

  • Ezra 7:11-28: Doing the King’s Bidding

    Ezra was a man who was placed in the blessed position. Ezra wanted to return to Jerusalem to reform worship and life there. Thankfully, he had the Persian king’s bidding and backing in his task. Yet this backing, whatever the human reasoning behind it, was ultimately based on God’s hand. Ezra truly was doing the…

  • Ezra 7:1-10: Ezra Arrives On Scene

    Nearly sixty years pass between the end of chapter 6 and the beginning of chapter 7. At the end of chapter 6, a group of exiles had returned. They had rebuilt the altar, endured twenty years of oppression and resistance, rebuilt the temple, resumed worship, and celebrated God’s goodness to them. All must now be…

  • Isaiah 11:10-16: Signal for the Nations

    Jesus’ birth is not just a story of presents and angels singing in the sky, it is the arrival of the Messiah, God’s signal to the nations, that they too could retune their radios from the static of sin to embrace the frequency of reconciliation to God.

  • Proverbs 10:1-17 – Wisdom and Insight

    Where do you seek wisdom from? Today we have the internet and AI and Proverbs feels so random. As we enter the Proverbs proper, we’re going to use the introduction of Proverbs (Pro 1:1-7) to guide us, and Genesis 3 as a case study to explore what God (through Solomon) is trying to tell us…

  • Isaiah 11:1-9: The Righteous Shoot

    While Christmas typically takes us to the wonderful passages of Isaiah 7 and 9, the coming Messiah was prophesied throughout Isaiah and the whole Old Testament. In Isaiah 11, the coming of the Messiah promises the universal righteous reign and rule of Jesus, our Saviour. Jesus’ arrival promised more than an earthly king, it promised…

  • Ezra 6:19-22: New Exodus, New Passover

    The returned exiles had finally restored and rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, and in March 516 BC celebrated its completion. In April, they celebrated the Passover for the first time in decades. Just as God had brought their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt, now God had brought them out in a new exodus from…

  • Ezra 6:16-18: Celebrating God’s Goodness

    Today we do not have a physical temple at a central location, but God’s temple is his church. Wherever his church meets to worship God and give thanks for our salvation in and through Jesus Christ, God is present. Every Sunday, through deeds of salvation in the lives of people and through acts of sanctification…

  • Ezra 6:1-15: Completed at the King’s Command

    Just the same today, God can move the hearts of bureaucrats and leaders to complete his will. While that may mean opposition decreed for our spiritual growth, it also can mean hindrances providentially removed at the right time. When we pray for God to allow things, we remember that it is God who institutes and…

  • Ezra 5: God’s Presence Despite Opposition

    Opposition is an ongoing reality. We have been warned. But Jesus is with us. We have been encouraged. The eyes of God watch over us and our labours. We are called to the great task of temple building, just as the Jews were in 520 BC. God will prosper the work of our hands as…