Sabbath

Monday, October 9, 2023

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.  You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God.  On that day no one in your household may do any work.  This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you.  All your male and female servants must rest as you do.  Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day.  Deuteronomy 5:12-15

The Ten Commandments are urban legends to many people, a series of trite, religious no-no’s, fraught with threats of what will happen to you if you trespass.  There used to be those Blue Laws, where businesses had to be closed, no selling on Sunday.  Those who chose to skip worship on Sundays were something of a pariah in the last century.  Many pastors would deliver blistering sermons on how heathens would pass-by the church on their way to heaven-knows-what kind of evil practices.  (In full-disclosure I did my share of a somewhat lower-temperature veiled-threat of those…a gentler kind of God will get you if you transgress against His Sabbath rule!).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have a very strong-commitment to worship attendance; I believe a Christian cannot grow without consistent Bible Study, worship, and devotional life.  I mostly call it The Surrendered Life.  However, I do believe many people mistake the Sabbath as being the rules of no-no’s, rather than the blessing of do this! 

The difference between the no-no and the this-do is in what God intended for His creation.  With Sabbath, the point is cycles and limitations.  A closer study of why God doesn’t want us to touch some things, and not do some things is that they are harmful to us.  Electricity is good when used properly; it is death when you grab a live wire for the thrill.  Sabbath for the human is a preventative measure against forfeiting a two-fold blessing.

1.    We were designed to rest periodically.  Everything in nature cycles.  Our bodies need rest in these cycles…time to kick-back, recharge, and enjoy.

2.    We need reminders because we are so prone to distraction.  A chief purpose in God’s commandment to keep the Sabbath holy is a reminder of how we need worship, so we will keep our perspective of what is important, right, pure, lovely, and wholesome.  Without those positive grace-reminders, we will degenerate from being children of God, and become wide-open to the enemy’s temptations.

For You Today 

Feeling a little weary?  Sabbath is waiting.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image(s) courtesy of Russell Brownworth (own work…and feet)                   

Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©