A Day of Rest
Imagine having to work around the
clock, seven days a week for your entire life without ever resting. Life would
be monotonous, not to mention grueling. We need rest periodically. That is why
we go to bed at night, take weekends off, and go on vacations.
Even God rested after creating the
universe. "And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done,
and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done"
(Genesis 2:2).
God does not need to rest the way
human beings do because he is almighty and never grows tired. But out of his
care for his creatures, he rested and instituted a weekly cycle, using the
seven-day creation as the prototype.
God has set aside the last day of
every week for us to rest from our weekly routines. This day of rest is called
the Sabbath day.
God commands the human race to
keep the Sabbath day as a special day of rest: "Six days you shall labor,
and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath
to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or
your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your
ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that
your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you" (Deuteronomy
5:13,14).Our Creator loves us and knows that we need to be refreshed after six
days of hard work. He does not want to see anyone being overworked.
The Lord Jesus tells us that God
had us in mind when he set aside and commanded Sabbath-keeping. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" (Mark ).
He made the Sabbath for us. What a precious gift from our Creator!
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