April 2026 - Luke 22 through John 18

As I sit here in my living room in the dark hours of Tuesday morning, I am struck once again by the enormity of God’s Word. I’m also struck by the fact that, once again, I am behind in my Scripture journaling as we get ready to start another month. But the reason I’m behind is because I keep getting so caught up in the story of Jesus!

This is the story that changed the world. This is the Man who changed the world. And we have an amazing book that invites us into that story. I feel like I can’t say it emphatically enough: PLEASE. READ. YOUR. BIBLE!

It will change your life, I promise!

In an effort to encourage you, I want to share what happened this morning as I was reading in Luke about the triumphal entry. I decided to read the cross-references, and it felt like I put on scuba gear and took a deep, deep dive into the ocean. There was so much to see—almost too much—and it occurred to me that so many are missing the best view because they don’t go deep enough.

Please hear me: I’m not criticizing anyone’s devotional practice (okay, maybe a little, but it’s for your own good, so stay with me here), but I would be remiss if I didn’t share my experience with you. It’s like when you go to a great restaurant or vacation destination and want everyone to know about it because it was so good—you just can’t help but share. So here goes…

Luke 19:36–37 says: “As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road. Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen.”

If you’re like me, you probably slid right by that highlighted phrase, just like I slid by the reference to the Mount of Olives in Luke 19:29. But here’s where doing some extra reading pays off. According to the notes section of my Bible, those references are very significant: “The staging ground for Jesus’s climactic arrival into the city of Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives, immediately to the east of the temple. This location is biblically significant. The glorious presence of Israel’s Lord left the temple during the Babylonian exile and departed to the east of the Mount of Olives (Ezk. 11:23), and his eschatological return to his people is likewise portrayed as coming from the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14:1–11). Thus, when Jesus descends the mount and enters the temple, he is symbolically enacting this decisive return of God to his people, now clothed in flesh.”

Our God is a God of order. Do you see it?

His glorious presence left the temple and departed to the east of the Mount of Olives, and when Jesus got up on that colt (another mind-blowing deep dive) and came down the path, He came from the east of the Mount of Olives. What this is saying is, first, Jesus is God, and second, He is returning to His people.

If we know anything in the natural about departing and returning, you can’t come back from a different place than the one you departed to!

The significance of the Mount of Olives is further seen in that this is the first of three visits to this location during the last week of Jesus’s earthly life. He will deliver His Olivet Discourse here (Luke 21:5–36) and pray in anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is also located on the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives is also where Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts 1:1–10, as well as the place where He will return at the second coming. Zechariah 14:4 states: “On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south.”

Maybe this does nothing for you, but for me it shows the intentionality of God. It reminds me that there are no wasted words in the Bible and that I am missing out on so much when I don’t read it deeply.

I spent last weekend working on a retreat, and I think the decisive factor in its success hinged on the attention to detail. A million little details had to be thought through months in advance in order for the participants to have the best experience possible. But not only did those details need to be carefully planned, they also needed to be executed with a heart of sacrificial love and service.

The details, in and of themselves, mean nothing if they are not carried out in love. And of course, this is where God excels beyond our wildest imagination. Every detail of the Bible was first and foremost a detailed thought in the mind of God, and then each thought was lovingly and sacrificially brought to life for our benefit.

It’s Holy Week, a week in which our Lord endured horrors beyond what we can imagine—a week full of details that our good God thoughtfully planned so that you and I could be adopted into His family and credited with the righteousness of Christ.

Every one of these details is written down for us in His Word to encourage and sustain us as we live in this broken and fallen world.

Take the time to read it—and then please share it.

For your printable plan:

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