BURDEN OR BLESSING?

There are two institutions that God gave us in Eden…Sabbath and marriage.  There is a strong correlation between these two.  There is a blessing when each is regarded as God intended.

When two people meet and begin to date, they spend time to get to know each other.  As love develops, new love is usually spontaneous, full of hope and excitement.  When love is in the infancy stage, there is a natural desire to spend time together, as much as possible.  It is not forced; it is natural because love is there.

Once the couple decides to get married and spend eternity together, a lot of planning commences.  There is a dress and tuxedo to select, flowers and a cake to pick out, and so forth.  Other special people are asked to participate such as the maid-of-honor and best man.  After the wedding, the marriage ensues.  Marriage is the union of two, becoming as one in purpose and goals.  If the two want to remain close and have a strong relationship, they must continue to spend time together, to talk and share and grow as one body.  Spending time together is vital to the strength of the relationship.

The connection between the marriage relationship and Sabbath is easy to see if you just stop and think about it.  The wedding can be compared to the baptism.  After we “date” Christ, we develop a love that makes us desire to spend our life with Him.  All throughout the Bible, the imagery of the Christ as the bridegroom can be found.  So once we decide to marry Him, we study which is like our premarital counseling and then we set the date and invite our family, the church family, to come and celebrate with us.

Then we begin our life with Christ with our commitment in place.  This is where Sabbath becomes so important.  Our daily lives should have time set aside for Christ, for study and prayer, for devotion.  Each week we are given a full 24 hours to reconnect with God.  It’s like having a special date night with your spouse to keep your love and commitment strong.  Each Sabbath is a special time to renew our vow to God, to study and pray, and commune with Him.  A time to refocus our priorities.

Have you ever thought about how these two institutions are the only two given us in the Garden; before sin entered this planet, God is so good to provide the blessing before we even have the need. If we look at the Sabbath with resentment, as a burden, when we push the hours of sunset on Friday afternoon, clock-watching the Sabbath then it is like not being committed to our spouse in our heart.  Our pastor once asked the question: “which sunset do you look forward to the most?”  Isaiah 58 tells us about the delight of the Sabbath.

As one who grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist, going through Adventist schools and being a member of some wonderful churches, I didn’t always appreciate the true significance of the Sabbath.  As a kid, I enjoyed Sabbath School, potlucks, and nature hikes.  But in my post-college days, I didn’t always follow the guidelines I was taught.  The devil is so subtle in how he works to compromise us…watching tv a little past sundown to finish the show and then you find yourself starting the movie after sunset, and then you are skipping church and watching tv instead and you miss the fellowship of other believers.

I discovered that as I studied and prayed and grew closer to God that I more and more longed for the sunset on Friday.  A day of communion with God was the highlight of my week.  The rest portion of Sabbath is wonderful, but if our primary goal is to get involved in “lay activities”, are we really getting the blessing that is meant for us?

If we don’t spend time with our spouse, then odds are that the relationship will suffer and might even disappear if we aren’t careful.  Don’t take the chance of losing your relationship with God through neglect, losing that relationship means to lose your eternal life.

Long time Seventh-Day Adventists need to find a way, through prayer and study, to move beyond observing Sabbath by keeping the rules we were taught and into finding the blessing of time spent with our Heavenly Father.

The rules we learned about Sabbath in my home growing up were never forced on us, they were held out as an example.  Even though I spent some time not honoring the Sabbath hours, those habits of my youth stuck with me and turned into blessings in my life now.

The Scriptures tell us that even after sin is destroyed, we will observe Sabbath through all eternity (Isaiah 66:23). 

Jesus is our example of how to live a life here to prepare and be ready to go home with Him soon.  How did Jesus live a sinless life?  Through prayer and time spent with the Father.  He communed daily with God and Jesus kept the Sabbath, even in His death.  This time helped Him prepare for the trials and allowed Him to life a life free of sin.

God wants us to commune with Him, to strengthen ourselves in His love so we too can endure and overcome.  “For this is love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome” I John 5:3 

When Jesus reached His time of trouble in the garden of Gethsemane, He turned to the Father in prayer for strength (read Mark 14:32-38).  The garden is a symbol of the time of trouble we are soon to see.  We need to be spending time with our Father now if we are to be able to pass through that time, seeking to let God’s will be done in our lives, if we are to be overcomers with Christ.