Number four...

So, to add some light-hearted comedy to this study, I have to tell you that I was fully intent upon posting this on the 25th... Christmas Day... which was a Sunday this year.  However, since it is the Commandment about keeping the Sabbath holy, and this is the Sabbath to trump all Sabbaths (because it's Christmas on a Sunday!), I decided it would wait.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work.  But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:  For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:  wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

Exodus 20:8-11

This is the last of the long Commandments, but it is packed with some pretty distinct and clear detail.  As I read it again and again, I am aware that there is no option for doing work on the seventh day in my home.  And that means that the laundry has to remain undone, or be done prior to this sabbath day.  The dishes need to be complete ahead of time, or they can wait.  The yard needs to already be finished, or it can wait.  And for all you folks out there, like me, who have trouble letting things sit when they could be done (like dishes and laundry and yard work), please understand that the Commandment is not intended to create slovenly living.

Hang on for this one, because it's a doozie: you rest from your work and labor so that you can focus totally and completely on the Father.  He deserves for all seven of the days in the week to be 100% about Him, but He gave us this land to work and subdue and be masters over, and that means we must honor that gift through the work of our hands.  But on the seventh day, we focus entirely upon Him.

Now here's another fun little twist that maybe you'll hear for the first time today.  You need to stop the working of your mind, as well.  And you say, "but that's just thinking, right?"  Wrong.  The active thoughts on everything that is NOT God the Father serve no purpose.  And the effort spent thinking about how you "should" look and act according to the rules of men is aimed at achievement of the pleasing of men, and that makes it contrary to God's purpose in creating us to worship Him, and only Him.  So you have to stop thinking about what you're going to wear, or what he/she wore that is inappropriate, and "I would never let my child walk out of the house looking like that, I mean can you believe that... we need to pray for that family."  Sound familiar?

The sabbath is intended to bring us back into focus on the main theme of life, our chorus in the song of living, if you will, and that theme is God.  (Go ahead, be shocked that the theme of your life is not yourself... it took me a minute, as well.)  That is why we rest and keep it holy to the LORD, rather than making it about something we can do ourselves. 

Now, I heard a teacher say once that it doesn't necessarily have to be Sunday that is kept holy, for those folks who work on the weekends.  It can be a Tuesday, if that is your day to consecrate to the Father, and rest from all your labors.  I understand the logic of that, and I'm grateful for the teacher who said it (honestly I cannot recall who it was, but thanks if you're reading), because I work every other Sunday.  So I need a seventh day that is not set on a Sunday every other week, just as many people do. 

But the point, in my observation, is that we should take one out of every seven days and consecrate it entirely to the Father in prayer and reflection, with no work or works at all during that day.  This certainly will not be an easy task for any of us, but I look forward to making it happen along with each of you!

As an added thought, I would like to point out for those who may not have seen it that these first four have all been pointed directly at our right relationship with God the Father.  Notice (in paraphrasing summary): no other gods, no idols, no light use of His name, sabbath kept holy to Him.  He is the first four of the ten, and it is written this way to make one thing evident to all of humanity, and that is that God is more important than anything on this planet, living or dead, animate or inanimate, and you must be able to see that.  It is vital that we all see that.

God bless you all!!