One of the Bible’s premiere disciplines is keeping the law for the weekly Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). Other than the law to observe Passover, this is the most often repeated law in the Bible. Observing the Sabbath the way the Bible directs helps create a humble, vulnerable and open spirit where we can experience God’s guidance. If you turn from doing your pleasure on My holy day and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy of the Lord, and honor God by not doing your own ways or pleasures or words, I will bless you, Isaiah perceived God saying (Isaiah 58:13-14).
It is in keeping the weekly Sabbath as the Bible directs – preparing (all natural, Bible defined) food in advance, arranging to not have distractions, giving an offering to God, praising God in song and music, reading God’s word, meditating, resting (for at least 25 hours) and humbling ourselves to be open and vulnerable in repentance and expectation to our Heavenly Father’s guidance and nudges – that we participate in the way of approach designed for us to show respect and love to our Heavenly Father and to sharpen our ability to understand God’s communications to us.
God told Moses to tell the Israelites to keep the Sabbath loyally for all generations because it is a sign between God and His people (Exodus 31:12-13, 17). It is also a signal to our own soul that we are seeking spiritually. If you haven’t been keeping the whole seventh day Sabbath the way the Bible directs, this is a delightful experiment. Presuming that you already keep the rest of the Ten Commandments, keep the Sabbath laws for four consecutive weeks and keep a daily journal during that time. At the end, re-read your journal and see if you can discern the Spirit of God working in your life during those weeks.
Jesus surely knew the value of the Sabbath. The Sabbath healings God led him to were a test for the Jews, because it was God Who was doing works through Jesus (John 5:16-17, 14:10-11). Jesus was not working. If they had understood Jesus’ teachings about the intentions of the laws, and if they had sought God’s guidance, they would have passed the test. Jesus said, pray that you don’t have to flee in the winter or on a Sabbath after the destruction of the Temple (Matthew 24:20). He knew the power of this one day a week when we set ourselves apart from the world to be still and perceive God’s guidance to us.
In Leviticus 26:33-35, 43 God warned that Israel would be destroyed if it didn’t keep the Sabbath. In 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 it is reported that that is what happened. God told Jeremiah that the country would lie desolate 70 years until it paid off its Sabbatical Years debt (2 Chronicles 36:20-21). (The sabbatical year is a year when the land is supposed to rest. It is every seventh year in the seven year cycle. See Leviticus 25:1-7; Exodus 23:10-11; Deuteronomy 31:10-13).
The Sabbath is part of God’s design so we can always find our way back to our Heavenly Father, no matter how far away we stray. It is built into this solar system’s rhythm, and into our rhythm. The moon, with its life giving tensions, keeps a rhythm of four quarters of roughly seven days each. When we prepare with honesty and humbly submit to this discipline that God has prepared for us, we align ourselves with this natural rhythm and find it easier to perceive guidance from God.
