The complexity of the Sabbath Day

The Sabbath day has always been an issue of controversy with most Christian denomination. It is not the observance of the Sabbath that is an issue but the day of observance.

According to scripture “six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. —-. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” Exodus 20: 8-11.

As can be seen the day is a gift to us from God in honor of His work of creation. The Sabbath is therefore a day that remind us of our dependence on God and is day that is meant to be spent in worship of God and on reflection. A time for refreshment and renewal because as human beings we need to be reminded to stop and rest.

The observance of the day should however not enslave us to rules and regulations as some do. For as Christ said, “ the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” Mark 2:27. In other word God created the Sabbath for our benefit and not for His. We are the beneficiary of the Sabbath because if we take time to rest and to focus on God we are restored both physically and spiritually.

In the Christian denomination Sunday is considered the day of rest by many but certain denominations like The Seventh Day Adventist church (SDA) take the rest on Saturday.

In the Western world it is hard to tell the difference between the Sabbath day and other working days because people work Monday to Sunday. It seems that there is no particular day for rest even amongst those who claim to be Christians.

Read more: http://relijournal.com/christianity/the-complexity-of-the-sabbath-day/#ixzz1KgZwM8rR

Have you entered the sabbath rest?

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His” Hebrews 4: 9-10.

Have you ever felt like the Lord was calling you for a conversation and when you obeyed you knew He was warning you or reminding you of something? Well that happened to me not long ago when I was feeling disturbed in my spirit but did not know why. I tend to be like apostle Peter sometimes, where I do mighty things in the name of the Lord but get overwhelmed when I take my eyes from the Lord and view my circumstances from a carnal mind and start drowning.

Let’s face it, the ways of the Lord are hard to fathom and only our faith in Him can sustain us. Sometimes one feels like the Lord does not take cognizant of time or has forsaken them and in the process worry unnecessarily. Jesus reminds us that “which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” Mathew 6: 27. This is where I was when the Lord called me for a conversation.

Sometimes the Lord closes certain doors in our lives that we perhaps previously found our self worth in. He makes us to be totally depended on Him living on a day to day basis. In the process God teaches us to trust in Him and to receive from Him. The Lord may do this by removing you from a place of comfort and move you to a foreign place away from your security. The challenges may be many but it is in this place that you learn to depend on the Lord for your sanity.

As believers we always claim to be depended on the Lord and it is easy to say that when we are financially alright, we are healthy, our relationships are working well, our children are doing what we expect of them among such issues. But what happens when such securities are taken away from us? Will our actions be compatible with what we say we believe? The only way we can know is when we are tested by having such confidence taken away from us.

According to scripture “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him’ Hebrews 11: 6. In the midst of our trials our faith conditions us to know that God is able to see us through and that He holds the key to our deliverance. It will be in the midst of these challenges that the Lord proves to us that He is all we need in the long run, for "He is".

James writes “ Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe -and tremble!” James 2: 18-19. James is saying that our faith will show in our works. It is not enough to have an intellectual assent about God, for even demons do that, but the truth of what we believe in will be manifest through our thoughts and conduct. And sometimes it is in our trials that our faith is proved.

Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/367661_have-you-entered-the-sabbath-rest#ixzz15CG0w5O4