Day of Rest

Take a Sabbath Day...

Exodus 20:8 (the 4th commandment)

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy."

Every think why God put this at the 4th commandment? There are ONLY 10 and he chose this one to even be on the 10 commandments, let alone, #4! So...is it important? You bet!

God has really been speaking to me lately about rest and time. Time is so valuable, I think we all forget just how precious it is. I have been, once again, listening to some old pod casts on my ipod lately. I have been richly blessed by going back through them. The one I listen to this morning was on this very topic...

It really spoke to me, well because I don't rest...NONE OF US DO according to this passage above. Think about it...
Do you HONESTLY take a 1 day, a 24-hr. period COMPLETELY OFF of work?
You might sure, yeah, I take off work...
Okay, but when you are home, do you do the laundry, do you do dishes, do you clean, do you work on project at home, remodeling, quilting, doing homework, so on so forth? Do you? I bet somewhere in there, we do a few dishes, we clean something, or we work on that project that has been looming over our heads...
right?

Right!
Taking a Sabbath day, means to take a complete 24 hrs. OFF...and to do nothing! :) Hey, we all need it and love it when we can, so why do we grumble or freak out that nothing will get done if we do take that time off...
Well...again, think about it...

We have 6 DAYS to complete ALL our work. We are to work VERY hard in those 6 days and then on the 7th, we are to rest, completely. And we can rest, because we just spent 6 days to the fullest getting everything accomplished. And you know what else...even if you don't get everything accomplished, God will honor you and bless you for taking a day of rest for Him.

It was very cool how Andy Stanley put this...he said, when he was in school the professor challenged the students to do just this...take a sabbath day. Andy was like, "are you kidding me, if I do that, then I'm really going to be behind on my school work". But he did it any way. And you know what? God provided him the time and he got his work done in half the time he originally was before he was taking a Sabbath day. Andy has stuck with this every since. Once that Sabbath day starts, he drops everything he was doing and just gives it up to God and says, Lord, I've worked so hard for 6 days, now I rest and I trust that whatever is to come next week that I am not prepared for, you will help me through. And God comes through every week!

Are we willing to take a Sabbath day? Are you willing to work so hard for 6 days so that when your sabbath day comes you can just stop and rest on Him? Are you willing to give up a job so that you won't work for 7 days and trust that God is going to provide for you and your family by honoring Him with the Sabbath?
I challenge all of us to look at our lives and take a Sabbath day...for an entire month...so each week, for a month, take a sabbath day. And at the end of the month, see what God has done for you. I"m not saying great things will come out of this by any means, but I am saying if we Honor God, He will provide the rest for us that we need, but we need to Trust.

Taking a Sabbath day doesn't have to be on a Sunday, it can be whatever day you want it to be. It can be a Monday, or a Wednesday or a Saturday. But whatever day you pick...and make it your Sabbath day. And on that Sabbath day, don't work, don't do those dishes, don't clean...do as the verse says... "...six days shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates..."


I am challenging myself with this very thing! God is telling me to work my days I am to work and to rest the day I need rest. I find myself so bogged down with projects and things to get done at home, that I get discouraged. But I work so hard to get them all done in 6 days that I am to work, then the 7th I depend on God and rest in Him.
Can we do it?