Commandment 4 - Sabbath

For me, this is perhaps the most difficult of all the ten commandments for me to write on.

The connection with marriage and family is not hard to see because it is obvious we should be involved in church with our families and committed.  It can help get rid of our selfishness and teach us to serve others.  That is the very simple message without getting into the deeper meaning and meat of this verse.

Some argue that this is a commandment of God that applies to us today, and to be right with God we absolutely must worship in church on the seventh day of the week, or Saturday.  Others say that the sabbath was changed to Sunday since Jesus rose on that day, and because of that, to be obedient to God, we must set aside all work and worship in church on Sunday to be obedient to God and to worship on Saturday is to deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Sunday.  Others argue back and say that Sunday is a pagan day for worshipping the sun, but if that be so, then what is Saturday or Saturn-day, or as some might say, Satan-day?

One thing we know for sure is that every day we have is a gift of God and we owe God every day of our lives completely. There is also some confusion as to what a rest is. I believe very strongly that we need to set an appointment with God regularly and we need to keep that appointment.  We cannot run every day of our lives full speed and mindless. We need to take frequent breaks to seek the Lord, pray, spend time with the Lord, spend time with our families, pray together, share together.

Really, this is a very pleasant and joyful commandment, and it is one we should keep whether we keep it on Sunday or Saturday. The important thing is to seek the Lord and set aside the time you feel is God’s desired time.

Here’s my feeling about this from my own experience. I know this is not from the Bible, but please bear with me on this.  Sometimes when I work, I get engrossed in what I am doing very deeply.  I’m very committed and very focused on the task at hand, and sometimes I can completely lose sight that my life and my work are for Christ and not for my goals or for the task that is immediately visible to me. A computer is failing or needs to do something for the sake of the business, so my focus is not on God or family or anything holy at all; it is on the machines and the business.

The good side to that is that the kind of work I do takes focus. The bad side is that this work requires breaks. If people in my line of work don’t take breaks willfully, they’ll take them in the cardiac ward of a nearby hospital or in the local graveyard, or they’ll lose touch with their families completely.

If there is no appointed time or if there is no commitment to that appointed time with God every week and even every day, then work will be less efficient and effective and the things precious in life will be lost.

We need to enter into that sabbath rest when we set aside all our striving and worrying and sweating and toiling and spend time with family and with God.