“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may have rest and the slave born into your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.”
Exodus 23:12
The Ten Commandments reveal fundamentally who we are as God’s creatures. We are to worship God exclusively and reverently. We are to honor our parents, marriage, and the lives and belongings of our neighbors. And once a week we are to take a day of rest. The Lord must consider this important to who we are if this is one of His basic commandments. The leaders of Jesus’ day did, too, though they missed the point.
Isn’t it wonderful to think that God loves us and cares about our well-being so much that He wrote rest into His law? We are finite creatures who work so that we might live but do not live merely to work. Our rest should be a blessing to us, not an end unto itself. An oppressive Sabbath of trying to earn God’s favor is not restful. As much as we want to make the Sabbath a day of worship for God, God wants it to be a day of refreshing for us.
Now think even beyond Sundays. The best example of godly rest is in Jesus’ accomplished work for us. Rather than trying to earn God’s favor on our own, we rest in all He’s done for us.
Isn’t it wonderful to think that God loves us and cares about our well-being so much that He wrote rest into His law? We are finite creatures who work so that we might live but do not live merely to work. Our rest should be a blessing to us, not an end unto itself. An oppressive Sabbath of trying to earn God’s favor is not restful. As much as we want to make the Sabbath a day of worship for God, God wants it to be a day of refreshing for us.
Now think even beyond Sundays. The best example of godly rest is in Jesus’ accomplished work for us. Rather than trying to earn God’s favor on our own, we rest in all He’s done for us.
Scripture Focus
Mark 2:23-28
Insight
“There remains… 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.” (Hebrews 4:9-10)
Bible In A Year
- Isaiah 61-62
- Psalm 101
- Acts 24-25
