November 10-14
[M] Ezekiel 46-48; John 16
[T] Daniel 1-3; Psalm 88; John 17
[W] Daniel 4-6; John 18
[T] Daniel 7-9; Psalm 91; John 19
[F] Daniel 10-12; John 20
Dwell Plan Day 226-230 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Ezekiel 47–48 | The book closes with a sweeping vision of restoration and hope. Ezekiel sees water flowing from beneath the threshold of the temple, deepening as it moves outward until it becomes a mighty river that no one can cross. Wherever the river flows, it brings life and healing—even the Dead Sea becomes fresh. Along its banks grow trees whose fruit never fails and whose leaves bring healing to the nations. This imagery echoes Eden and anticipates the new creation of Revelation 22, where a river of life flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. God’s presence, once withdrawn because of sin, now flows out to renew all things.
The vision culminates in the division of the land among the tribes of Israel and the description of a new city. At the very end, Ezekiel writes, “And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord is There” (Ezekiel 48:35). That single phrase captures the whole purpose of redemption. The glory that once departed (Ezekiel 10) has returned. The exiles who longed for home are now shown that the true restoration is not merely a rebuilt temple or land, but the return of God Himself to dwell among His people. Everything in this vision points to restored communion—the life of God flowing into the world and the people of God living forever in His presence.
For believers today, this vision gives us a deep and steady sense of eternal focus. “The Lord is there” is not just a prophecy—it’s our ultimate reality in Christ. Even now, through the indwelling Spirit, the river of His life flows within us, but one day that union will be perfected when faith becomes sight. Our future is not defined by uncertainty or decay but by nearness to God. Every longing we have for peace, beauty, and belonging will one day be satisfied in His presence. The story of Scripture ends as it began—in a garden filled with life, where God walks with His people, and all creation declares: the Lord is there.
John 16:7 | Jesus tells His disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.” That would have sounded impossible to them—how could His absence ever be better than His presence? Yet through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, what seemed like loss became the means to a deeper intimacy than they had ever known. While the disciples once walked beside Christ, the Spirit now enables believers to have Christ dwell within them. The Spirit makes the presence of Jesus personal, constant, and transforming—illuminating His Word, convicting our hearts, comforting our sorrows, and empowering our obedience. The same Spirit who hovered over creation and raised Jesus from the dead now abides in us, bringing us into fellowship with the living God. So let us draw near through prayer, lingering in His Word with open hearts, asking the Spirit to make the voice of Christ clear to us. As we do, we will find that the very presence Jesus promised is not distant or abstract, but near, warm, and alive—our hearts burning within us as He speaks to us through His Word.
Tuesday
Daniel 3:17–18 | Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s courage wasn’t grounded in the certainty of rescue but in the certainty of who God is. They believed God was able to save—but even if He didn’t—He was still sovereign, still good, and still worthy of their full devotion. This is what real faith looks like: trusting the power of God without demanding a particular outcome. They didn’t obey because they knew how the story would end; they obeyed because they knew the One who writes the story.
This same kind of faith anchors us when life doesn’t go the way we hoped. God’s people have always been called to trust His wisdom, not just His works—to believe that He is in control, even when deliverance doesn’t come right away. The fiery furnace reminds us that God’s glory, not our comfort, is the ultimate goal. Sometimes He rescues us from the fire; other times He walks with us through it. Either way, His purposes never fail. The cross of Christ proves that even suffering is not wasted—God can turn what looks like defeat into victory. So may we learn to pray with the same heart: “Lord, I know You are able. But even if not, I will trust You.”
John 17 | This is one of the most amazing chapters in the whole Bible. It’s Jesus’ prayer to the Father right before He goes to the cross—a moment where we get to listen in as He pours out His heart. Every sentence of this prayer could be its own sermon. There’s so much here about who Jesus is, what He came to do, and how deeply He loves His people. He prays for His disciples and for everyone who would one day believe in Him—which means He was praying for us. Take time to read this chapter slowly, word by word, and let it sink in. Don’t rush. Ask the Spirit to help you understand and feel the love of Christ in these verses. As you do, you’ll see that the same Jesus who prayed for His people then is still praying for us now.
Wednesday
Daniel 4:28–5:12 | Daniel records two kings who shared the same throne, the same pride, and the same opportunity to humble themselves before God—but with very different endings. Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up by power and success, boasted in his own glory until God struck him down and drove him into the wilderness to live like a beast. But through that humbling, his eyes were opened. When he lifted them to heaven, his reason returned, and he confessed that “those who walk in pride He is able to humble” (Daniel 4:37). His words sound less like a pagan king and more like a redeemed man. Many scholars believe that Nebuchadnezzar was genuinely converted—his repentance real, his worship sincere. There’s every reason to think you’ll meet him in heaven, a trophy of grace rescued from the depths of self-worship.
His son Belshazzar, however, learned nothing from his father’s story. In Daniel 5, he mocks the living God by drinking from the vessels of the temple and praising idols of gold and silver. The hand of judgment literally writes his doom on the wall. He had all the warnings—his father’s fall, his father’s repentance—but hardened his heart instead of humbling it. By the end of the night, the king who thought himself untouchable lay dead, and his kingdom was gone. Pride destroyed what privilege could never preserve. Where Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation led to life, Belshazzar’s arrogance led to death.
The New Testament echoes this same truth: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). Pride is still the root of every sin—a refusal to depend on God, a desire to be our own lord. The gospel calls us to the opposite posture: the humility of Jesus, who emptied himself and became obedient to the point of death (Philippians 2:8). Nebuchadnezzar’s story reminds us that no one is beyond God’s reach. Belshazzar’s story warns that no one is beyond His judgment. Our hope is to learn the lesson of the father, not the son—to lift our eyes to heaven before God must bring us low, trusting that every act of humbling is grace meant to lead us to life.
John 18:6 | When the soldiers and officers came to arrest Jesus, He stepped forward and said, “I am he.” But in the original Greek, the “he” isn’t there—Jesus simply says, “I am” (ego eimi), the divine name God used when revealing Himself to Moses in Exodus 3:14. At that moment, the power and authority of His divine identity broke through, and everyone who came to seize Him was thrown backward to the ground. This wasn’t an accident—it was a glimpse of who was really in control. Even in the chaos of His arrest, Jesus wasn’t overpowered; He was willingly giving Himself up in obedience to the Father’s plan. The same voice that spoke creation into being could have stopped the mob in an instant, but instead He used His power to surrender, showing that God’s sovereignty and love meet perfectly in the cross.
John 18:10 | Think about what's really going on here. Nobody tries to cut off someone's ear with a sword. Peter was likely swinging to lop off his dome, and Malchus probably turned his head at the last second, causing the blow to glance off and sever his ear instead. The moment reveals Peter’s impulsive zeal and his failure to grasp that Jesus’ kingdom would not advance by violence.
Thursday
Daniel 9:24–27 | The prophecy of the “seventy weeks” in Daniel 9:24–27 is one of the most debated passages in Scripture, but Sam Storms, in his book Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative, helps bring clarity by reading it through the lens of Christ’s finished work. Storms argues that the seventy weeks should not be read as a strict timetable of literal years leading to a future seven-year tribulation, but as a symbolic framework describing God’s plan of redemption culminating in the coming of the Messiah. The six purposes listed in verse 24 (“to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place”) are all accomplished in Jesus Christ through His death and resurrection. As Storms puts it, “The seventy weeks of Daniel find their ultimate fulfillment not in the rebuilding of an earthly temple but in the redemptive work of the true Temple, the Lord Jesus Christ himself.”
Storms challenges the popular dispensational view that introduces a long “gap” between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks. In that system, the final week is pushed to the end of history as a future seven-year tribulation period involving a rebuilt temple and a personal antichrist. Storms contends that such a gap is not demanded by the text. Instead, the prophecy unfolds seamlessly: the “anointed one” who is “cut off” (v. 26) refers to Christ’s crucifixion, and the covenant confirmed in the final week (v. 27) is the new covenant established by His blood. The desolation that follows, he argues, is the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, a historical judgment that visibly confirmed God’s rejection of the old covenant system and the triumph of Christ’s kingdom.
Storms emphasizes that this prophecy reveals both the depth of God’s sovereignty and the unity of His redemptive plan. Daniel’s seventy weeks show that all of history—Israel’s exile, the coming of the Messiah, the church age, and the final consummation—is one continuous story centered on Jesus. The “anointed one” fulfills every promise and completes every purpose of God’s covenant. Storms writes, “Daniel’s seventy weeks are not a countdown to catastrophe but a declaration that redemption has been accomplished and that God’s kingdom has been inaugurated in Christ.” This means that the prophecy is not primarily about a future timeline, but about the unfolding of salvation through the work of the Son.
For those who want to explore this more deeply, Sam Storms’s Kingdom Come is one of the clearest and most compelling modern works on amillennial theology. I (Jon) highly recommend it. He patiently walks through the text verse by verse, showing how Christ stands at the center of biblical prophecy and how Daniel’s vision fits within the “already-but-not-yet” framework of God’s kingdom. If you’ve wrestled with the seventy weeks or felt confused by competing end-times charts, Storms’s book offers a refreshing and Christ-centered alternative. His approach helps us see what Daniel longed to see—that God’s plan has not failed but is being fulfilled perfectly in Jesus, who reigns now and will one day bring all things to completion.
John 19:30 | When Jesus declared “It is finished,” He used the Greek word tetelestai—a term that means “paid in full” or “brought to completion.” In the ancient world, it was often written across receipts to indicate that a debt had been completely settled. Jesus wasn’t saying that His life was simply ending; He was declaring that His mission of redemption had been fully accomplished. Every demand of God’s law, every prophecy pointing to the Messiah, every requirement for atonement—finished. There is nothing left for us to complete because He left nothing undone. As Paul later wrote, “By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). The cross isn’t the beginning of our contribution—it’s the end of all our striving.
This means that salvation is not a partnership between our effort and Christ’s work but a gift of grace from start to finish. Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” To try to add to what Jesus has finished is to imply that His work was somehow incomplete. The gospel invites us instead to rest, to trust that what Jesus declared on the cross still stands true today. Our obedience flows not from trying to earn God’s favor but from the joy of already having it. As Galatians 2:21 reminds us, “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.” Because He said tetelestai, we can live in freedom and gratitude, knowing that our debt is paid, our standing secure, and our salvation complete in Him.
Friday
John 20:17 | When Jesus tells Mary, “Do not hold on to me,” He isn’t forbidding physical touch. In fact, later He invites Thomas to touch His hands and side (John 20:27). The issue isn’t contact, it’s clinging. Mary had just watched Him die, and now He was alive before her eyes. Naturally, she didn’t want to lose Him again. But Jesus was teaching her that their relationship, and the way His followers would now know Him, was about to change. He would soon ascend to the Father, and through the coming of the Holy Spirit, His presence would no longer be limited to one place or one person. He was leading her—and all of us—into a deeper kind of closeness.
In this moment, Jesus is inviting His followers to release their hold on the old way of knowing Him and to embrace the new reality of His risen ascended presence. By ascending, He would become present to all believers everywhere through the Spirit, not just to those who could physically see Him. The comfort we have is that we don’t need to cling to Jesus to keep Him near—He holds on to us. His Spirit abides within us, uniting us to the same Savior who stood before Mary that morning. Our call is to trust that He is closer now than ever before and to go, as Mary was sent, to tell others that the risen Lord is alive and reigning—and that He is ours forever.
John 20:24–29 | Thomas gets a bad reputation for being the doubter, but his story is one of grace and restoration. When the other disciples told him they had seen the risen Lord, Thomas refused to believe unless he could see and touch the wounds himself. It wasn’t that he wanted to believe the impossible—he just couldn’t accept that what he saw on the cross could ever be undone. A week later, Jesus appears again, meeting Thomas right in the middle of his unbelief. He doesn’t scold him or shame him. He simply offers His scars and says, “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Jesus doesn’t crush Thomas for his questions—He meets him with mercy, showing that real faith isn’t the absence of doubt but the willingness to bring our doubts to the risen Lord.
Thomas’s response is the climactic confession of the Gospel of John: “My Lord and my God.” It’s deeply personal. The same man who refused to believe now bows in worship. He doesn’t just acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and God—he claims Him as his Lord and his God. In that moment, unbelief becomes belief, and skepticism turns to surrender. The resurrected Christ moves Thomas from distance to devotion, from cynicism to worship. That’s what grace does—it turns hardened hearts into worshiping ones.
Jesus tells Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That’s us. We haven’t seen His hands or touched His side, yet by the Spirit, the same risen Christ meets us still. He’s not asking for blind faith but is inviting us into a living one—a faith built on testimony, community, and the Spirit’s work in our hearts. Just as Thomas’s encounter sent him out as a witness, our encounters with the risen Jesus send us out to tell others. The more we see Jesus at work—in our lives, in our church, and in the lives of others—the more our own doubts give way to confidence and joy. The story of Thomas reminds us that Jesus doesn’t wait for perfect faith before He comes near; He comes near to make our faith whole.