The Lord's Day

Ex. 31:12-13  The LORD then gave these further instructions to Moses:  “Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever.  It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.

We have come a long ways since the Lord gave these instructions to Moses.  And….I don’t think we have helped ourselves at all.  It is no longer widely accepted that there is a need to set aside a day of the week to restore our bodies and souls.  Sunday is treated like any other day of the week.  Somehow we have gotten the idea that as long as we crowd the Lord somewhere into our busy schedules we are alright.  We don’t regard the Lord’s Day as a sign of the covenant between us and God.

God made a covenant with man, that if we acknowledge Him and embrace Him as our God that He would be with us and make us holy.  He would make known to us our sin, convict us of it, forgive us for them when we repent of them, forget they existed, and take up residence in our hearts.  His promise to us is that if we repent of our sins and let Him be our Savior and Lord He would never leave us or forsake us.  God promises us that if we submit to His authority over us that He would take care of us and get us safely home to heaven.

When we observe the Lord’s Day, we are acknowledging these things.  We are declaring that God is our God and we love and respect Him enough to set aside a day in our week when we will focus on Him and all He has done, is doing, and shall do in our lives.  It is a day of soul refreshment.  It is a day of worship first and foremost.

The Lord gives us a day of rest and restoration so that we do not lose sight of Him and our need for Him to have control of our lives.  He desires to make us holy, but before He can do it we have to get away from the rush of life and let Him.  We reap what we sow and our lack of concern to obey God in setting aside a day for Him makes us shallow and an unholy people.  The Lord takes our need to be holy before Him seriously, and so should we.  Observing the Lord’s Day is one way in which we show the Lord that we do.  We can only be at our best when we rest in Him.