September 15-19
[M] Isaiah 64-66; 2 Corinthians 2
[T] 2 Kings 21; 2 Chr 33; Ps 71; 2 Cor 3
[W] Nahum 1-3; Psalm 149; 2 Cor 4
[T] 2 Kings 22-23; Psalm 73; 2 Cor 5
[F] 2 Chr 34-35; 2 Cor 6
Dwell Plan Day 186-190 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Isaiah 65:17-25 | Isaiah gives us a breathtaking vision of the new heavens and new earth—a renewed creation where sorrow, pain, and death are gone forever. He describes people living long lives, children never dying young, and God’s people enjoying the fruit of their labor without fear. These images are not meant to be taken with wooden literalism; they are poetic ways of showing us how completely God will undo the curse of sin. The promise is not of some vague disembodied spiritual state, but of a restored and perfected world. In this new creation, work will be satisfying, relationships whole, and worship natural and unbroken. We will eat, celebrate, build, plant, sing, and enjoy life as God always intended it to be—a culture and community made whole under the reign of Christ.
This hope is meant to sustain us as we walk through the hardships of today. Life now is filled with griefs, setbacks, and disappointments, but Isaiah’s vision reminds us that these sorrows will not last. Jesus promises to put everything back together, to make all things new, and to bring His people into a world where joy never ends. When we encounter pain, loss, or frustration in this life, we can lift our eyes to the hope of the life to come. One day, we will dwell with Christ in a renewed creation where everything sad comes untrue, and we will enjoy Him forever in a world made perfect.
Isaiah 66:22-24 | Isaiah seems to move from the sweetest promises to grim macabre judgment without taking a breath. Scenes and descriptions of blessedness and renewal are squashed right next to depictions of violence and horror. This must have made an impression on Jesus too. As Isaiah comes to its conclusion, we’re left with a vision of judgment that describes their “worm” and their “fire” never stopping. It’s an eternal judgment Isaiah describes here, but this language becomes an anchor point for Christ’s teaching. Jesus repeats His warnings about hell and God’s punishments more than any other person in the Bible. The implication is that He really sees and understands what God’s judgment means, and Jesus’ description of God’s judgment is taken right from the last words of this book. Sandwiching blessing and condemnation is jarring to us as readers, but it seems to have a point all of its own. God’s mercy and judgments have always been twins, realities that always exist together. We see them both all through Isaiah, we see them all across the Bible, and we see them most clearly in the cross itself. This is our God, and this is why we’re told to consider this part of God. It creates a knowledge of Him that brings both fear and wonder into our knowing Him. It makes our God greater than our understanding, humbling our minds. It also demands that we figure out where we stand with this God, because from Him are blessedness or damnation, the stakes of how we will live eternally.
Tuesday
1 Kings 21 | 2 Chronicles 33 | Reading through the long list of kings in Israel and Judah can be discouraging. Again and again, we encounter leaders who abandon God’s ways, abuse their power, and drag the people down with them. Ahab seizing Naboth’s vineyard in 1 Kings 21 and Manasseh’s idolatry in 2 Chronicles 33 are not isolated failures but part of a tragic pattern. Page after page, Scripture confronts us with the reality that no merely human king could ever fulfill God’s calling to lead His people in righteousness. These stories aren’t just depressing—they are purposeful. They are meant to stir in us a deep hunger for a king who will not fail.
The New Testament opens by showing us that this longing has an answer. Matthew begins his Gospel by tracing Jesus’ genealogy back to David, declaring Him the rightful Son of David and true heir to the throne. Unlike the kings before Him, Jesus does not exploit His people, but comes to serve and to save. He rules with justice, compassion, and perfect obedience to His Father. Where the kings of Israel led their people into sin, Jesus bears the sin of His people and brings them into life. All the disappointing reigns of the past were preparing us for this—so that when the true King arrived, we would recognize Him as the One our hearts had been waiting for.
2 Corinthians 3:18 | God is the only thing in this universe that doesn’t change as you study Him and cannot be studied or known without changing you. This is what knowing Jesus does, what a personal relationship with God makes possible. All learning changes us somehow, altering our attitudes or changing how much we know. That’s why we have curriculums, so we can plan it out. But this verse is at a whole different level. This isn’t just information that’s coming in, this is the direct presence of the Spirit. And this doesn’t just change you a little bit, influencing you in a new direction for new possibilities. Not at all. This is transformative—with a reach that far exceeds any human grasp—promising us that we’re being transformed into the image of a God. This is happening by looking at God. But we can’t see God, so what “beholding” is this verse describing? A part of it is worship. Just praising God is a way that we “look” at Him. Another part is reading scripture. As we read His words we find we get to know Him as a person, and this knowing is another way of seeing Him. Another part is community: our relationships in His kingdom are ways that He speaks, and we learn who He is through His people. These are just starting points that grow and develop through prayer, devotional life, and sacrament. The Holy Spirit works in and through all of these places to reveal God, and in that revealing we are also transformed by God’s glory itself. Praise Him!
Wednesday
Nahum | The book of Jonah shows us something unexpected: God’s mercy poured out on Nineveh, the capital of the brutal Assyrian empire. When Jonah finally preached, the city repented, and God spared them. But that repentance didn’t last. Assyria soon went back to its old ways: violence, arrogance, and cruelty that made them one of the most feared empires in the ancient world. For Israel, living under that shadow must have been exhausting. They had seen God’s mercy, but they were left wondering: Will He ever deal with this evil?
That’s where Nahum comes in. Written about 150 years later, Nahum announces the fall of Nineveh in vivid, poetic detail. The city that once looked unstoppable is shown to be fragile before the judgment of God. We know that in 612 BCE, Nineveh fell to a coalition of Babylonians and Medes. Ancient records say the Tigris River flooded and broke through the city’s defenses, which matches Nahum’s prophecy that “the river gates are opened; the palace melts away” (Nah. 2:6). The empire that had boasted of its strength was undone by the very river it relied on for protection. Nahum’s words weren’t vague threats; they came true in precise, dramatic fashion.
And that’s good news for us, too. It means we don’t have to carry the weight of “fixing” every injustice ourselves. God is patient and merciful, but He’s also just—and He promises to deal with evil in His timing. That frees us to keep walking faithfully with Him, even when the world around us feels unfair or overwhelming. Like Israel, we can trust that the God who sees will act, and one day, in Christ, He will put all things right.
Psalm 149:4 | For the LORD takes pleasure in his people | One idea I (Jon) have struggled with, because of my upbringing, is the character and heart of God. I grew up in a church and youth group setting that was very legalistic and Pharisaical. I learned—mostly through culture, not direct teaching—that God was stern and angry, just waiting for me to mess up.
The thought that God actually delights in me never even crossed my mind. But that’s exactly what this verse (and the rest of scripture) says. God delights in me. He delights in you. He really genuinely likes you. His heart toward you isn’t constant anger, even when you fail. His heart is tender and loving. He’s the prodigal’s Father, running to meet you with open arms. He’s the Shepherd who comes after you to carry you home. He’s the Lord who died for you—because He really does delight in you.
If this truth is hard for you to wrap your head around like it has been for me, I want to recommend a book: Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. I think both of our churches still have free copies; I’d encourage you to grab one and be reminded of just how tender His heart really is toward you.
2 Corinthians 4:14 | Paul reminds us here that our hope isn’t just survival after death—it’s resurrection. On Monday when we read Isaiah 65, we saw God’s promise of a new heavens and a new earth, a world where sorrow and pain are gone and life is full of joy in His presence. Paul’s words connect directly to that vision: the same God who raised Jesus will raise us to share in that restored creation. This means our future is not a disembodied spiritual escape, but a life more real and more whole than anything we’ve known. We will worship, work, feast, and rejoice in the presence of God and His people forever. Even when this life feels crushing, that promise steadies us. One day, Jesus will raise us, and we will step into the world Isaiah longed for—a world made new.
Thursday
Psalm 73 | There are a number of the poems of the Psalms that deal with the success of bad people. It’s one of those things that we all notice in life. It’s a basic universal human experience: bad people are awful, and they seem to do pretty well in this world. It’s really disturbing at times, especially when you’re on the receiving end of the rude indifference of wealthy folks. It wears you out, testing your faith, making you doubt yourself and God’s love. That’s what has happened to our poet. As we follow his poem, we find that he gets to the point of despair in verse 16, but then something about God’s worship awakens his understanding. He becomes aware that his own bitterness has almost shipwrecked him. As he struggled with the outward success of wicked men, he had slowly given himself over to resentment and unbelief. His relationship with God had broken down too, so much so that he’s like a wild animal in front of God. His emotions and despair have overwhelmed him. But it’s right at this point that our poet experiences grace. God is holding on to him anyways, guiding and empowering and loving him the whole time. Even as he struggles with God’s justice, God has been loving him—which is just proof for him that God will definitely accept him into His presence in verse 24. God has loved him through his doubts and chased him through his complaint. This experience of grace is so powerful that he comes to a new understanding of God. This God loves him completely and is with him continually, and that means nothing else matters. He comes to a new conclusion about what’s important: there is nothing in all of heaven he wants but God, and that leaves the earth—and there’s nothing he wants there either. His struggle with God’s justice led him to a knowledge of God’s amazing mercy. This path has been walked many times by the children of God and has surprised many by the joy they discovered in their struggling. Praise Him.
2 Corinthians 5:20 | It’s amazing that God chooses to spread His message through regular people like us. Paul calls us “ambassadors”, that means we represent the King wherever we go. We don’t need a pulpit, a title, or a platform. God’s plan has always been to work through ordinary church people who carry the gospel into their homes, workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods. That’s why we talk so much about PABST (praying for people, asking questions and listening to them, blessing them, sharing your story, and talking about Jesus.) This isn’t just a program, it’s the way God has chosen to make His appeal to the world—through us. When you love and invest in your PABST people, you’re stepping right into the role of ambassador that Paul describes.
Friday
2 Chronicles 34-35 | 2 Kings 22-23 | The story of Josiah is one of the most inspiring in the Old Testament, and it’s told twice—once in Kings and once in Chronicles. Both highlight Josiah’s rediscovery of the Law and his bold reforms, but the emphasis shifts depending on when the book was written.
In Kings, written before the exile, the narrative stresses that even Josiah’s obedience could not turn aside God’s anger. After describing Josiah’s sweeping reforms, 2 Kings 23:26 still says, “Still the LORD did not turn from the burning of His great wrath…” The point is sobering: judgment was inevitable, and exile was coming. Josiah’s faithfulness is honored, but the overall tone is heavy, highlighting the seriousness of Judah’s sin.
Chronicles, written after the exile, tells the story differently. While it includes Josiah’s reforms, it expands on his devotion, showing him purging idolatry not just in Judah but also in the lands of Israel (2 Chron. 34:6). It highlights his personal humility when hearing the Law, his leadership in covenant renewal, and the joy of the great Passover he led in chapter 35: “there had not been kept a Passover like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet” (2 Chron. 35:18). The emphasis isn’t on the inevitability of judgment but on the hope of renewal. For a people who had already lived through exile and were trying to rebuild, this retelling would have been deeply encouraging: obedience to God’s Word could still bring life and joy.
For us, both perspectives are vital. Kings reminds us that sin is deadly serious, and no amount of half-hearted reform can erase its consequences. Chronicles reminds us that God delights to bring renewal, even after seasons of failure, when His people humble themselves and return to Him. And as Christians, we see that the deepest hope of Josiah’s reforms is fulfilled in Jesus. He not only restores true worship but makes us into living temples filled with His Spirit. In Him, we have both the warning of judgment and the hope of lasting renewal.
2 Corinthians 6:14-18 | Is this about marriage? No. It’s about relationships—all relationships. So, in a roundabout way it is about marrying as a subset of all human relationships. But here’s the problem: marriage is a subset, but it's a hopped up subset. It’s a specially holy, revelatory (it tells us who God is too), and intense version of relationship. So anything that this passage says about relationships it also says doubly about marriage. Paul doesn’t make an argument about marriage specifically here because he doesn’t have to. The whole Bible teaches time and time again, through commands and stories, that His children are not to marry the children of this world. No wiggle room. No discussion. The children of light cannot have “partnership, fellowship, accord, portion, agreement” with the children of darkness. Those are the five words used in these verses. If that’s too abstract, Numbers 25 puts it into a plain and brutal story, where a man named Phinehas is honored by God for violently stopping two people who were doing all five and more. All of this is to say, this is how seriously God takes this stuff. He’s quite consistent about it. Anyone who suggests otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.