Remember the Sabbath

 “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 male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 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. (Exodus 20:8-11 NLT)

We live in a 24/7 world.  We have devices that can communicate with us anywhere we are.  We're constantly inundated with noise, information, and other demands for our attention.  Our cell phones are like screaming children demanding attention.  Our televisions are constantly on - we don't even notice them.  It seems we always have to be plugged into something.
That is not God's intention for our lives.  God created us to have a rhythm to our lives.  We were designed in His image.  And He rests on the seventh day.  We need our rest and we must find it in the Sabbath.
God gives the Sabbath to the people of Israel as a gift to share with those around them.  He refers to the Sabbath as a day of complete rest, the Lord's gift to you, and a sign of the covenant.  In Exodus 31:13 he says, "Be careful to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you from generation to generation.  It is given so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy." And Sabbath day wasn't just given to the Hebrew people.  "It is a permanent sign of my covenant with the people, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth but on the seventh day He stopped working and was refreshed." One of the things I really love about the way God gave us the Sabbath, is that he inscribed it with his very own finger!  It must be really important for us to get this concept, because it's repeated over and over again throughout the Old and New Testaments.  
There was a time when anyone who was a good person would go to church every Sunday. This is not the case anymore.  Some people have to work on Sunday.  Some people sleep in on Sunday.  Some people work in their yards on Sunday.  Some people go out to eat, others go shopping.  All of those are things that you can do on a Sabbath, but that's not what God told us to do.  In fact the Lord was pretty serious about what we could and couldn't do on His holy day.  He said that it should be a complete day of rest; a holy day dedicated to the Lord.  He said, "you must deny yourselves and show reverence toward my sanctuary."  The Sabbath is "an official day for holy assembly" and "must be observed wherever you live." It is a day to bring offerings to god, "in order to fulfill your vows by presenting them to the Lord."
My favorite thing that he tells us to do on the Sabbath is to enjoy it!  "Don't pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord's holy day.  Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day, and don't follow your own desires or talk idly." In other words, we are supposed to seek God and take our delight in him.  Many of us act as if God just isn't any fun.  Being in the presence of the Lord should make us happy.  But we have to STOP all that we are doing in order to hear God giggle with us.  In his book 2/46, Matthew Sleeth calls the new Sabbath "STOP DAY" because STOP seems to be the only thing we understand.  We must STOP everything.  We have six days to run around like maniacs, but on that seventh we have to STOP.  We need time to take personal inventory, and ask ourselves the question John Wesley asked his class meetings: How is it with your soul?  And after we've answered that question, we need to ask ourselves "What have you done lately for the poor, for your family, for your church?" And last but certainly not least, "What have you done for yourself?"
It isn't easy to shift from the 24/7 life to the 24/6 life.  It requires sacrifice on our part and we don't like that.  Just remember the sacrifice that was made for you on the cross!  In this age of instant gratification, we forget the benefit of slowing down to listen for a bird to sing or watch for a deer.  God's time isn't the same as our time.  God is eternal.  We are finite.  We have only this life to enjoy the benefits of God, and absorb all His blessings.  I challenge you to begin to live a 24/6 life, but I warn you.  When you stop seeing it as a duty, you might just began to enjoy yourself.  You'll also find that your blood pressure lessens, your breathing slows, and your mood lightens.  Down through the ages kings and governments have tried to do away with the Sabbath, but the people always bring it back.  We need a stop day in order to be physically, mentally and especially spiritually healthy.