sabbath^(2/3)

Space to explore my feelings

Beyond my times of reading the Bible, I now needed time to pay attention to what was happening within me each day so that I could bring that to God also. Rather than keeping busy to avoid my inner pain and disappointments, I needed space to explore my feelings and wrestle with anger, shame, bitterness, grief, jealousy, fear, or depression–in an open, contemplative way before God.

We need to stop so we might create familiarity at all times

The reason we need to stop and be with God is so we might create a continual and easy familiarity with God’s presence at all times–while working, playing, cooking, taking out the garbage, driving, visiting friends, as well as during worship, prayer, and Bible study.

Sabbath is a social imperative

💬 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. Exodus 20:8-10 (ESV) The Sabbath commandment in Exodus is corporate.…

Keep the sabbath remix

The first renewed concept of the Sabbath for the present day came from a sermon I’d heard in Turkey from a pastor in Minnesota. He talked about drinking craft beer and cooking dinner for friends because these things brought him joy and rest. He referred to Isaiah 58:13 and called out that the Sabbath isn’t only a rule about not working; it’s a delight. 💬 If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and **call the Sabbath a delight** and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; Isaiah 58:13 (ESV)…

After this(1) there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate(2) a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids–blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years(3). When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?…