DELIGHT IN MY DAY
Today’s Text: If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. (Isaiah 58:13,14)
Today’s Thoughts: God doesn’t want us to trample on His Sabbath. He wants us to spend it with Him. He gave it to us as a rest-day to spend in worship to Him and to take a pause from our own busy and pretty selfish lives. He gave us a whole seven days in each week. He only asks us to give one of those back to Him. And yet we must keep Him by our side every single day. We have six days to sort out our busy lives, and then one whole day to rest and recharge for the next week. God has a special blessing for those who come to spend a day with Him. He wants each of us to take the time to build a close and personal relationship with Him. God has promised a reward for those who obey His command to keep His Sabbath, and what God has promised stands forever. He gave us the Sabbath as a benefit to us; He wants us to delight in spending that day with Him. I invite you to try it. Delight in God’s Sabbath day.
Today’s Testimony: Out of all ten Commandments, I think the fourth one is the one we most often push aside. Most people don’t set aside a full 24 hours for the Lord. They don’t feel the need to, and don’t believe we have to. So today I’d like us to talk a bit more about keeping the Sabbath holy.
When we discussed the fourth commandment we shared what we should and shouldn’t do on this day, so we won’t go into that again. Firstly, let us talk about which day is the Sabbath. There are so many theories going around that many just don’t know anymore. I would say look at the calendar to see which is the seventh day of the week, but calendars are changing these days so even they confuse us. And yet even then, some say, “How can we be sure that the calendar hasn’t changed over years?” “How do we know that what we may view as the seventh day of the week is the same seventh day that Jesus blessed at Creation and kept while He was here?” That is an extremely valid question. I want to spend one full day with the Lord every week, and I want it to be the only day that God blessed – I hope you do too. So for me, amongst all the other evidences I have, this stands as the most persuasive that Saturday truly is the seventh day of the week – the Sabbath blessed and set apart as holy since Creation…. Ever heard of animals that keep Sabbath? I’ve heard of a donkey that wouldn’t budge because those intended to use it to work wanted to keep the Sabbath. They couldn’t work without the donkey, so they were let off from their work. I’ve heard other similar stories too. Now we could say, “Well, in those situations God could have been honouring the convictions of His people who were living up to what they believed.” Fair enough. But what about the bees in Brazil? They live far away from civilisation. Their bee-keepers live in small huts while the bees live in tree stumps as they always have. Bees are known to work hard, and these bees do, but only for six days of the week. On Saturday, the seventh-day Sabbath, these bees remain in their hives. They don’t go to collect nectar, and they don’t do anything in their hives either – they rest. Who told them to rest on Saturday? Could it be that God wants to tell us something through these bees? If God’s “sinless” creation (by the way – these bees don’t sting, just for interest sake) keep Saturday as God’s Sabbath day, I choose to do the same.
Why most people go to church on Sunday instead of Saturday is something we’re not going to deal with now. My Bible doesn’t say anything about God’s holy Sabbath changing from the seventh day to the first day of the week and I believe that seeing this day is so important to Him He would have mentioned any change at least once. If you were Satan wouldn’t you want to turn the world away from worshipping on the only day that God blessed and from keeping that day holy as God commanded? Could it be that that was and is Satan’s goal? Just some food for thought. Like I said, we’re not going to dig into that now.
Now we need to discuss the time for Sabbath-keeping. According to Leviticus 23:32, the Sabbath should be celebrated from evening until evening. When God made the sun and the moon He set the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. At the end of each day of the Creation story we read that “the evening and the morning” were whichever day. To put it simply – we now function with the day being from midnight till midnight, but God set the day to be from evening (the moons time), till evening (the moons time). This means that a Biblical day lasts from sunset to sunset. The Sabbath therefore is from sunset on what we call Friday until sunset on what we call Saturday.
The Sabbath was given to us as a rest-day in commemoration of Creation. It is a day to remember our Creator. I have a twin sister. That means that I don’t get my own birthday – I have to share. When I was young I asked my mom if I could celebrate my birthday a few days later because I wanted to have my own day to feel special. I was very disappointed when she told me that wasn’t possible. Fact is – we can’t change the day we were born. The Sabbath is planet Earth’s birthday. I plan to worship my Creator on that day and spend it with Him. I hope you do too.
Today’s Task: I’m going to be keeping the Sabbath this week. Will you join me? Please do. God wants to spend this special day with you. Please don’t disappoint Him. There is a special blessing for all those who delight in this day. I invite you to keep this Sabbath and all those to come. Delight in spending the Sabbath with the Lord and you will be blessed.
Today’s Thanks: Lord I thank You that You have given us a day to rest and recharge. Help us to take advantage of this blessing. I thank You that You, the Creator, want to spend time with us, the creation. Lord You want a close and personal relationship with each and every one of us. You have even set aside one whole day to build that relationship and I praise You for that. I thank You that You love Your creation so much. Lord help us to love You with all our hearts and to do whatever You ask. I praise You for the Sabbath. Amen.
