At this time of year, we must reflect on our commitment to God and the purpose of keeping the Feast of Tabernacles and all the holy days He has consecrated for our benefit and to His honor and glory. While the Feast may have aspects of a vacation—being away from home, free from work or school, with extra money, staying at a hotel, eating out, and engaging in unusual activities—its purpose is far more serious and spiritual. We must ask ourselves if we truly believe and display our conviction by sharing this holy time with the Father, the Son, and one another in the way and place God has determined for us to serve Him and our brethren. Though factors such as age, health, and unforeseen, insurmountable difficulties may make attendance difficult or impossible, we must not let physical circumstances dictate our actions without diligently seeking God's will to avoid failing in our duty to appear before Him. Just as the Sabbath is not optional holy time, neither are God's holy days. We must examine ourselves to ensure our deceptive hearts have not demoted God's solemn and holy time to a mere elective. When God calls a holy convocation of His people, we should do our utmost to be there, recognizing that these feast days are set apart by Him to be observed as He commands, helping us to become holy as He is holy.

Treating attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles primarily as a chance to get away from work or to amuse oneself constitutes keeping holy days in a carnal manner. Placing too much emphasis on outside activities and entertainment over God's purposes for His Feasts distracts from hearing His messages and fellowshipping with members of His Family. Complaining or murmuring during the festival season represents the opposite of fearing God and rejoicing before Him.

Ancient Israel was skilled at rejoicing during the Feast but did so in vain, failing to accomplish what God intended. Their festivities were rejected despite offerings and songs because idolatry, especially Molech worship, corrupted their practices and destroyed proper relationships with God and man. Burnt offerings falsely signaled wholehearted devotion while justice was absent. Meal offerings suggested dedication to others that did not exist. Peace offerings claimed fellowship that could not occur amid false worship. The drink offering representing life-expending service was omitted because self-centered enjoyment left no interest in serving brethren. The sin offering was also absent, indicating no recognition of spiritual poverty or need for forgiveness. Their joy had the wrong focus and was not governed by fear of God. They attended merely to have a good time while putting on a show of piety, then returned home unchanged to continue idolatry, injustice, and unrighteousness. Their pretense at communing with God produced no lasting appreciation of His faithfulness.

Preparing for the Feast of Tabernacles begins with understanding that God's rejoicing is not limited to happy, exuberant moments but includes the satisfaction He feels even when administering painful judgment for the sake of ultimate good, as seen in Deuteronomy 28 and 30. This foundation matters because rejoicing at the Feast is commanded as a choice and discipline, not merely a spontaneous emotional response, since the Hebrew word for rejoice suggests a momentary brightening tied to God or His ways rather than sustained happiness. A crucial preparatory principle is that the Feast does not occur in a vacuum. Amos 5 demonstrates that Israel's prosperity coexisted with moral corruption, and God rejected their feast days because their conduct throughout the year contaminated their worship. This shows that one's attitudes and behavior leading up to the Feast directly shape the experience at the Feast itself; one cannot separate daily conduct from festival observance. Personal reflection on a particularly unsatisfying Feast in 1974 illustrates this principle. Having no spiritual or physical responsibility, no arrangements to fellowship with others, and being consumed with personal interests like visiting family, sightseeing, and travel produced spiritual emptiness rather than rejoicing, despite pleasant physical circumstances. The lesson drawn is that the Feast is not a vacation, and self-focused attendance—giving nothing—results in leaving spiritually empty. Numbers 29 reveals that God required more sacrifices for the Feast of Tabernacles than for all other feasts combined, indicating that sacrifice—giving oneself at cost for others' benefit—is central to this Feast's meaning. Since sacrifice is the essence of love, and Deuteronomy 12 and 16 repeatedly link rejoicing with sacrificing before God in community with family, servants, Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows, true preparation involves cultivating a mindset of giving rather than self-gratification. Psalm 126 provides a symbolic picture: worshippers bringing sheaves represent sharing the fruit of labor and God's blessing with others. Preparation for the Feast, then, means bringing not only material offerings but spiritual fruit—the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5, including love, joy, peace, and kindness—cultivated throughout the year, and deliberately sharing it with fellow worshippers through bearing one another's burdens, as instructed in Galatians 6. Ezekiel 36 extends this preparation into the Millennium itself, showing that God's cleansing and gift of a new heart require human cooperation to produce fruit; the Feast, as a small-scale picture of that future age, similarly demands the use of tools God has given to overcome inevitable problems with the right attitude rather than bitterness or self-pity. Since God commands rejoicing, this proves the attitude is subject to human will and must be actively produced, not passively expected. Ultimately, preparing for the Feast means resolving to imitate God's character of outgoing concern, giving, serving, and sacrificing, offering oneself in practical service, prayer, and generosity toward others, so that the Feast becomes a genuine demonstration of love for God rather than self-serving indulgence.

Holy days can be kept in a carnal manner when God is left out of them. An advertisement for "Succoth at Disneyland Resort" offered theme-park rides, fireworks, concerts, singles matchmaking, medical-credit conferences, and kosher cuisine, yet God was missing from it; the focus was on the Jewish people and Israel, and Succoth became just a nice vacation. This is the way of Belshazzar, who profaned the holy things of God by drinking from the temple vessels and gave no glory to the God who holds his breath in His hands. The Feast of Tabernacles is a God-commanded assembly in which to rejoice before Him and give Him glory, with Christ as its focal point. Carnal men with hardened hearts have short memories. Even Israel did not keep the Feast with the right fervor until the returned captives in Nehemiah's day, released by another miraculous deliverance, kept it with very great gladness, having studied the Law. Veiled minds in the world, and even among the Jews, see only a holiday. Those called now behold God's glory with unveiled faces and are being transformed. They must therefore examine whether they come before Him clean and whether they are walking in the path, and use the Feast to see that their focus is on Christ, on becoming holy as He is holy, and on learning to serve.