I’m studying the 10 commandments right now. That might seem odd, but they are an incredible guide for the good life. If you think of them as rules, they can seem like barbed wire keeping you from the “good” grass on the other side of the fence. If you think of them as the fence around an Disney World, you know you never noticed it. You were having too good a time.
So, what are the first three commandments about? God. There is no other God, don’t make an image of Him, it will be woefully inadequate. He is far more amazing than you can imagine. Give up trying to make Him, He made you. The third one is about taking His name in vain. Don’t try to use God for your oath taking when you mean to deceive. So essentially the first three are all about serving an amazing God.
So what is the first thing this Amazing, Creator God want of us? Some difficult impossible act of sacrifice? Some tortuous long task to be completed? Keep the sabbath. Take a day off. Rest. Wow! What a meanie! What a difficult hard awful thing to ask of us. Rest. Must have sounded, or at least should have sounded amazing to a nation of slaves escaping Egypt. It should sound amazing to a busy, driven, over worked, group of leaders. God loves us and wants us to slow down long enough to sleep and rest and delight in life and in just being in His presence. Sabbath. We should all love it. Kathy and I are going to start it again….Monday.