A Sabbath Day

SUN., JUNE 23, 1996, 5:35 AM
FARM, STUDY

This is a Sabbath day, and there is one at the beginning of each week. It is interesting, isn’t it, that while this day originated as the “day of rest” after I created the earth and all that is herein, as the Creator God, you Christians moved it, in your calendars, to the first day of the week. So it went from the Jewish practice of the Sabbath being the final 7th day of the week, for rest from work to the Christian practice of it being the first day of the week, dedicated to Me, before a week of work.

Your Christian tradition is not severe in what you should and shouldn’t do on this Sabbath day. During your childhood, in the Methodist church, it was your family practice to go to Sunday School, but only rarely to the worship service that followed. ( 5:50 / 5:54 ) As your children were growing up you usually went to both Sunday School and church, so Sunday morning was usually reserved “for Me”, as it still is.

Yet the rest of the day is rarely observed as “holy”… and the Commandment is “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”. Your life work is not one of physical labor, so resting in the Lord is not so vital as for one who would work hard for the other six days. Instead yours is a job in which Sunday, your Sabbath, needs to be, at least partially, a day of work… in preparation for the work week ahead. Today, for example, is one of those days. You “rested” yesterday, on the original Sabbath, but today you must attack the mess of your office, get started on the next exam, and prepare for another concentrated, stressful week of conducting a class.

You don’t often come to Me for a Teaching on a Sunday morning. Wouldn’t that be quite appropriate… listening to the Spirit even before the formal worship service? But then I’ll say that these Teachings are of such consequence that any day that commences with this experience is a special, holy day, at least in potential. Our original practice was for you to come for this time of hearing and writing the first waking hour of the day. This makes it comparable to the Christian Sabbath, remembering Me as a starter for the week ahead. Andy’s way (if she’ll get back to it) is hearing Me the last hour of a day (often into the early hours of, technically, the next day), thus being comparable to the Jewish Sabbath or that of the 7th Day Adventists. Because I call these times with you important I accept your coming at other times (as you did yesterday… or after breakfast and Bible study on a Wednesday morning), comparable to mid-week worship services or times of Bible study on other than Sunday morning.

So what do I want this commandment to mean to you? What is keeping it, and what is breaking it? These are legitimate questions, for these commandments, while often characterized as absolute, are meant to be quite relative… because I have created, I allow, and I encourage diversity in My human creations. I do not want everyone of you to be identical to every other one. Even among Christians I don’t really desire for you all to be Orthodox, or Catholic, or Pentecostal… or Presbyterian.

For you I want this Sabbath day to be a day or worship, of study, and of preparation for the week ahead. It can be a combination of thanks for the week just completed and anticipation of the week ahead. It should be both the alpha and the omega, the sunrise and the sunset, the birth and the death. It is a day of transition, and for you I want that transition to surely include Me.

I want you to be more aware of this as a special day in the week. This doesn’t mean that you must not work on this day, but, rather, that when you do work, of any kind, you should see it as special because it is on My Sabbath. It is a holy day, so actions on it are holy. You mostly forget this, so consider this a reminder.