This is how EVERYONE (especially your spouse) will know you are not keeping a holy day (one of God’s greatest gifts for us):
- You will not be able to see, nor understand what God is up to in your life. You will feel defeated and exasperated at every setback or delay. You will frantically try to push against circumstances and curse what you cannot conquer.
- You won’t hear God’s voice. You’ll hear from TV, radio, e-mail, advertisers, Linkedin, Facebook, My Space, Twitter, Blackberries, Blueberries, I-pods and MP3s, but you won’t be able to discern what God is saying for direction. You’ll be confused, overloaded and over-connected.
- You’ll be spiritually dried up. You cannot fake green, healthy growth, nor a fresh Word from the Word.
- Your body will be weakened and you will grow old faster than you should be. You’ll know when you see your eyes in the mirror. Who are you kidding?
- You’ll have a sense of rootlessness, as if you have been pulled from the place you were once planted. You won’t know where you belong.
- There will be no fruitfulness right now. You’ll have only the past to point back to.
- You can’t praise your way out of a paper bag and even though you consider yourself a witness for Jesus, you are not in any way, shape, or form evidence of Jesus Christ and His grace in your life.
Why are you the one exception to the need for a Sabbath, a day set-apart, holy to the Lord? Why are you exempt from receiving the blessing God set up for you to refresh, renew, restore, re-establish, and rest? It doesn’t have to be like this.
The simple solution.
Work 6. Rest 1.
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.” Hebrews 4.9-11
“There remains…” Check out the previous verses to see WHY it remained – and don’t do that!
Wait until I tell you what I have been learning from Psalm 92!!!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I wonder if people can tell I have been cheating here and there…:{ Don’t ask Dave. PLEASE!
UPDATE FROM JEANIE/2-26: Yes, maybe I should have called this post, “How everybody knows when I am a Sabbath-breaker,” but hey, *SMILE! Especially if you are connected all the ways I mentioned in #2 above, because then, you truly are ON CANDID CAMERA! Everybody sees you-by your choice! And they all know. Hehehe…And it takes one to know one.
I hope you’re not done exploring this one…
What does “rest” mean when it comes to Sabbath? For instance, I don’t feel too rested when, on a Sunday, my life is filled with “working” in church.
I know what you mean….Sundays are tiring and yet when I get home after church, I eat, then take the longest nap I can. This is the one day I don’t set the alarm when I nap. I don’t cook on Sunday nights and try to let the rest of the day after church be unplanned. Thankfully, we do not have church on Sunday night so I don’t have to leave again. I know this is not a full day Sabbath, but I rarely plan anything for Monday mornings either, so I can rest all morning if I need to. And most of the time, I do. I have also found that protecting time annoys others. Especially, my broker who thinks I should do open houses every Sunday and doesn’t get the whole Monday morning thing.
The resting one full day, not doing anything, thing, has changed our life. I work Monday thru Friday, but now, at night, I spread out the house chores, mostly Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are “working” nights, as I prepare for the restful day. Some weekends, the day is on Saturday and other times it falls on Sunday. Either way, we don’t do anything, I don’t think we even get out of our PJ’s… it is a blessing – thanks for wisdom!