For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

    My parents did not gift me with wealth or property, but God gave me a wonderful wife. I would rather that than the other way around (wealth and property from my parents and a quarrelsome wife from God).

    It may appear to us that the godly are disappearing from the earth, but God has seen the violence done to the helpless. He has heard the groans of the poor. God will protect the oppressed, even when the wicked strut about as if no one can touch them.

    Today Paul applies the point he made in yesterday’s passage about Jews to everyone. Everyone has sinned. Everyone has failed to live up to God’s standard of righteousness. Our sins are such that not one of us can be made right with God on the basis of the good we have done. I have no basis for saying that someone else is a greater sinner than I am. As far as God is concerned there is not a finger’s worth of difference between us when it comes to sin. We are not going to get to heaven on the basis of what we have done.
    We can only be made right with God by believing that Jesus sacrificed His life to redeem us. There is no act we can perform to make ourselves right with God. God declared us righteous in the basis of Jesus’ death. I have no claim to being better than another because it is only the act of God which allows me to be made right with God, an act which is on offer for all who will accept it. Paul finishes today’s passage with an important point. Just because we cannot gain righteousness by following God’s commands does not mean that we ignore those commands. Rather, the faith which brings us righteousness gives us the power to uphold those laws as God intended.

    Despite being told that he would not be the one to build the Temple, David began stockpiling supplies for the project. He even set people to quarrying stone. Then, recognizing that one of the primary jobs of the Levites (transporting the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and the associated supploes) would no longer be necessary once the Temple was built, David assigned them tasks relating to maintaining the Temple.