For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    The proverb writer continues his condemnation of sexual immorality. I wonder to what degree one could take his description of the immoral woman as a warning to women not to be that woman.

    Do we recognize our success as coming from God? Or do we do as the psalmist did the first time he did well and think, “Nothing can stop me now”? It is God’s favor which makes us secure, if we turn from Him, He will turn from us. However, when we call out to Him, He will rescue us. His anger lasts only until we learn to rely on Him. His love is for eternity. God will turn our mourning into joy. Let us not be silent. Rather let us sing praises to God.

    Jesus continues His prophecies concerning the fall of Jerusalem, His second coming, and the end times. He tells His disciples, and through them, us, to pay attention because when we see the things He had just talked about happen we will know that His return is near. This tells us that we should study the Scripture and look at how events happening in the world around us match up with prophecies about the end. However, we must also be careful not to fall into the trap of thinking we have it all figured out. Jesus tells us that no one knows the day or the hour of His return.
    My father once summed up what I believe about this, a belief I am sure I got from him. He said that we should live as if Jesus will return in the next few minutes and plan as if we will live on this earth until we are one hundred years old. We do not know when Jesus will return. As a result we must be ready all of the time. We have been put in charge of carrying out God’s will here on earth, I pray that He finds me doing so when He returns.

    When I read about the three festivals here it struck me that they represent the three ways in which we should praise God. The first, the Passover, is a celebration of what God has done for us in the past, the ways in which His power has delivered us from suffering. The second, the Festival of Harvest, is to celebrate our faith that God is taking care of us in the present. The third, the Festival of the Ingathering (or Final Harvest), is to celebrate that God will take care of us in the future, that indeed, He has already provided for our future needs.
    The passage goes on to remind the Israelites, and us, that God will be with them, and us. We must not worship the gods of the nations, the society, around us. If we are loyal to God and worship only Him, He will be with us and overcome our enemies for us.