For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    Our parents can give us material wealth, but a wise and understanding spouse is a gift from God. I thank God every day for giving me a wife who understands both my strengths and my weaknesses.

    This is another passage which reminds me that what is going on in the world today is not something brand new. The psalmist speaks here of a society where the godly are disappearing, where it seems like everyone has turned to evil. He refers to a society where there seem to be no negative consequences to lying and doing wrong. However, the psalmist reminds us that God will judge the wicked and deliver the oppressed. The people around us may look with favor on those who do evil, but God will still hold them to account.

    Paul tells us here that everyone has sinned. We have all failed to live according to the standard which God has set for us. None of us has a basis to claim to be better than any other. No matter who we are, we do not have the right to boast about being righteous. Every single one of us has done something which stands between us and being right with God. However, God willingly offered Jesus as a sacrifice to fix the rift between us. He has made us right with Him by that sacrifice. Any righteousness which any of us has is a result of that gift given to us by God. I cannot boast about doing what is right because it is only when God’s Spirit moves within me that I do so. It is a testament to God’s wondrous love that I do what is right with any significant frequency and I pray to Him that He causes me to do so ever more often.

    David desired to build a Temple in order to honour God. However, God told him that he had been too much a man of war to undertake that task. The Temple honouring God was to be built by a man of peace. This is something for us as followers of Christ to bear in mind. Today the Temple which is being built to honour God is in the bodies of those who follow and obey Jesus. If we are to build ourselves into a Temple to honour God we must be people of peace, not of war. God is honoured by us demonstrating His peace to those around us.