November 17-21
[M] Ezra 1-2; John 21
[T] Ezra 3-4; Psalm 92; 1 John 1
[W] Haggai 1-2; Zechariah 1; Ps 138; 1 John 2
[T] Zechariah 2-5; Psalm 93; 1 John 3
[F] Zechariah 6-8; 1 John 4
Dwell Plan Day 231-235 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Ezra-Nehemiah | In our English Bibles, Ezra and Nehemiah show up as two books, but for most of history they were read as one continuous story. The earliest Hebrew manuscripts treat them as a single work, and the flow of the narrative makes that clear—Ezra begins with the first wave of exiles returning home, and Nehemiah picks up the same storyline as more return to rebuild the city, its walls, and its spiritual life. Together, they paint a picture of a people who are trying to find their footing again after decades of exile, carrying both the excitement of a fresh start and the disappointment that everything feels smaller and harder than before. It’s a book steeped in real history: the Persian Empire, royal decrees, foreign rulers, political tension, slow progress, and a community trying to rediscover its identity under God.
What makes Ezra-Nehemiah so important in the canon is the way it shows God faithfully rebuilding His people, not just physically, but spiritually. The temple is rebuilt, but more importantly, worship is restored. The walls go up, but more importantly, the people renew their covenant with the Lord. And even though the ending feels incomplete—there’s still sin, opposition, longing—the book points our hearts toward the bigger story God is writing, one that ultimately leads to Christ rebuilding what we could never rebuild on our own. Ezra-Nehemiah reminds us that God is committed to restoring His people, but the restoration we most desperately need isn’t architectural or political: it’s the restoration of the heart.
Tuesday
Ezra 3:10 | When the foundation of the new temple was finally laid, it must have felt like the first deep breath these people had taken in seventy years. They had lived with the memory of their temple in ruins; an open wound of shame, judgment, and despair. Their national identity had been shattered, their worship cut off, their people nearly wiped out. So when the priests stood in their robes, the trumpets sounded, and the Levites sang praise “according to the directions of David,” it wasn’t just a construction milestone—it was a moment of unbelievable grace. God was giving them back what they thought was gone forever. The foundation wasn’t just stone; it was hope. It was God saying, “I’m not done with you. I’m rebuilding what was destroyed.” And in that moment, you can almost hear the mix of laughter, tears, and stunned joy as exiles realized that the God who disciplined them had also brought them home to begin again.
Wednesday
Haggai-Zechariah | Haggai and Zechariah spoke into the same moment we see in Ezra and Nehemiah: a group of discouraged returnees who came back from exile ready to rebuild the temple but ended up quitting when the opposition got loud and life got complicated. For about sixteen years the project sat unfinished, and the people drifted into survival mode. So God sent these two prophets to shake them awake. Haggai’s message is basically, “You’ve put God on the back burner—let’s fix that,” while Zechariah comes alongside and says, “And don’t forget, God is doing far more behind the scenes than you can see.” Haggai calls them to refocus their priorities and get back to the work, and Zechariah lifts their eyes to the bigger story of God restoring, cleansing, empowering, and ultimately sending the Messiah. Together they remind us that small faithful steps matter, that God hasn’t forgotten us, and that He’s leading everything toward the glory of Christ.
1 John 2:2 | When John says Jesus is the “propitiation” for our sins, he’s using a word that gets right to the center of the gospel. Tim Keller puts it plainly: “Propitiation literally means to turn aside the wrath of somebody through a payment.” God’s wrath isn’t an emotional flare-up, it’s His settled just opposition to sin. And the incredible news of the gospel is that the payment that turns aside that wrath wasn’t demanded from us, but was provided for us. Jesus—God Himself in the flesh—steps into our place, absorbs the judgment we earned, and satisfies divine justice fully. Keller (in a 1990 sermon) compares it to an unpaid electric bill getting settled by someone else: the wrath of the shutoff is turned aside, and the lights come back on. At the cross, God doesn’t suspend justice or soften it, He fulfills it perfectly by taking it upon Himself. Wrath and love meet in one moment, both fully expressed.
John goes further by reminding us that this saving work isn’t small or narrow. Jesus is the propitiation “not for ours only,” meaning this salvation isn’t restricted to a tiny corner of humanity. His sacrifice is big enough and sufficient enough to save people from every tribe and tongue. It is global in scope, powerful in effect, and overflowing with grace. Reformed theology has always held these truths together: Christ’s atonement is sufficient for all but applied to His people with unbreakable power.
And here’s where this becomes deeply personal: if Jesus is your propitiation, then the wrath you fear no longer has your name on it. There is no leftover anger, no part of the debt waiting for you to resolve, no judgment hovering in the background. The payment has been made in full by the One who loves you more than you love yourself. So when you feel the weight of your failures or replay your sins, remember this: the wrath has been turned aside, and the Father’s face toward you is one of welcome. The gospel isn’t “try harder.” The gospel is “the payment has already been made.”
1 John 2:18 | Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come | In a lot of sensationalized Christian teaching, the word antichrist gets thrown around like a scare tactic. Every time a politician gains popularity, a foreign leader gains power, or culture shifts in a way we don’t like, someone somewhere claims to have finally identified “the” antichrist. But John’s point in 1 John 2:18 isn’t to make us obsess over a single future villain—it’s to make us wise about a recurring pattern.
Across Scripture, the theme of Babylon represents a kingdom set against the purposes of God: a kingdom built on self-exaltation, oppression, exploitation, violence, and injustice. Babylon isn’t just an ancient city or an end-times symbol; it’s a spiritual pattern that shows up in every age. And John says the spirit of antichrist—leaders, movements, and systems that oppose Christ and His kingdom—has already appeared. It’s not about hunting for one final figure; it’s about recognizing the ongoing, repeated emergence of this pattern in history and in our own time.
And that changes how we respond. Instead of bunker-style fear or end-times paranoia, John calls us to resistance shaped by the Lamb. Revelation shows that the Lamb conquers not by mirroring Babylon’s violence but through sacrificial love, patient endurance, and faithful witness. The warning about antichrist isn’t meant to terrify Christians, it’s meant to train us. It’s a call to see where the kingdom of Babylon still shows up in the world, where power is used to crush rather than bless, where injustice is protected rather than healed, and where leaders set themselves against the way of Christ. And it’s a call to stand against those patterns not with outrage or worldly strategies, but with the self-giving love of Jesus. As His people, we get to participate in His victory—spreading His kingdom one act of mercy, one word of truth, one costly obedience at a time.
Thursday
Zechariah 2 | This text speaks into the moment when God’s people had returned from exile and were looking at a Jerusalem that felt small, vulnerable, and unfinished—and God steps in to say, “You don’t see what I see.” In the immediate context, this chapter is a promise that God Himself will be a wall of fire around the city and the glory within it, protecting His people while they rebuild and reminding them that His presence, not their strength, is what makes them secure. But down the horizon, this vision stretches into something much bigger—a picture of the future city of God where nations stream in, where God dwells with His people openly, and where His glory fills everything. It’s a glimpse of eternity breaking into a discouraged moment in history. God is saying, in effect, “Don’t measure your future by what you see right now. I’m building something far greater than you can imagine, both for you and for the world.”
Zechariah 3:8 | Zechariah points us straight to Jesus when he talks about the Branch—the One who would grow up from seemingly nothing and bring God’s restoration with Him. Joshua the high priest and the leaders around him were just signposts, but the Branch would be the real thing: a Messiah who doesn’t just rebuild a temple made of stone, but rebuilds people by cleansing them, covering their guilt, and making them fit for God’s presence. It’s a reminder that all of our hope hangs on a Person, not a project. And the good news is that the Branch has already come, already borne our sin, already begun His renewing work.
1 John 3:15 | This verse can sound harsh at first, like John is laying down some kind of legalistic rule that if you ever feel anger or bitterness, God slams the door in your face. But that’s not what he’s saying at all. John isn’t giving a checklist for earning eternal life; he’s describing the fruit of a life that already has (or doesn’t have) the life of Christ in it. In other words, hatred is evidence of a heart untouched by grace, while love is evidence of a heart brought to life by Jesus. He’s not saying, “Stop hating so God will accept you,” but rather, “Because God has accepted you and placed His life in you, hatred no longer fits.” This is gospel logic, not legalism. The command to love flows out of the new life God gives—not the other way around.
Friday
Zechariah 7:4–14 | In this passage, God exposes the difference between empty religion and the kind of faithful obedience that actually reflects His heart. The people want to know whether they should keep certain fasts, but God presses deeper—He asks whether their worship has ever really been about Him at all. True religion, He says, isn’t found in rituals performed out of habit or self-interest; it shows up in lives marked by justice, mercy, compassion, and care for the vulnerable. God reminds them that their ancestors ignored these very things—hardening their hearts, neglecting the poor, refusing to listen—and that’s what led to their exile in the first place. The warning is clear: religious activity without love becomes noise. But for those who know the gospel, who have tasted God’s kindness and mercy, the call to do justice and love mercy isn’t a burden, it’s the natural overflow of God’s love at work within us. True religion is simply the kingdom breaking out in everyday life.
1 John 4:10–11, 19 | Christian love never starts with us—it always starts with God. John makes that clear when he says that love is the defining mark of God’s children, not because they’re naturally more loving, but because they’ve been loved first. Jesus doesn’t look at us and say, “If you love well enough, I’ll let you belong to Me.” Instead, He gives us His love upfront—freely, fully, undeservedly—and that love becomes the root system out of which our love for others grows. This is why verse 19 can say, “We love because He first loved us.” Our love is not the price that buys God’s acceptance; it’s the evidence that His love has taken root in us. God’s initiating love is the soil, the water, the sunlight—everything we need to grow.
This is exactly what Jesus taught. When He gave the “new commandment” in John 13, He didn’t say, “Love others so that I will love you.” He said, “Love one another just as I have loved you.” His love comes first. Or think of the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18: Jesus uses it to show that people who truly grasp how deeply they’ve been forgiven naturally extend forgiveness to others. Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 4:32, “Forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” The pattern is unmistakable all across the New Testament: God pours His love into us, and that love spills out onto others. We don’t grit our teeth and try to manufacture compassion; we look at the cross until our hearts soften.
And when that happens—when God’s love actually settles into our hearts—it changes the way we see people. It makes us patient with weaknesses, gentle with failures, generous with our time, and honest about our sin. It frees us from the exhausting cycle of trying to earn God’s approval because we already have it in Christ. And from that place of security, we’re able to love others without fear. Not to get something in return, not to perform, not to prove ourselves, but because God loved us first. That’s the miracle of Christian love—it’s not squeezed out of our willpower but produced in us by the God who lives within us.