Today will be a Day of Rest

So we are doing a series on the Ten Commandments at church (which they have named "Written in Stone"...they are so clever), and last week the preacher covered one that in all sincerity laid a pretty big burden of conviction on me. It was the one about the Sabbath. Yep...take a day of rest.


Here are the points that he made:

• The Old Testament believers celebrated the Sabbath on Saturday because it was the seventh day of the week and God rested on the seventh day.
• The New Testament Christians began celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday in honor of the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday.
• "Sabbath" simply means "rest" and is not specific to a day.
• God rested on the seventh day. Did he need to? No...he's God. Creation did not cause Him any fatigue. It was out of example
• There will always be more to do (yeah...this one hit home). You will never actually catch up.
• A study was done by the US Army that found that all the soldiers they were studying dropped off in efficiency after 7 days of straight work. Yep...on the 8th day, they did not perform as well.
• The interesting part about the study is that the soldiers were unaware of their drop in efficiency...they thought they were still performing up to par.
• The study probably costs millions of tax-payers dollars, but it's been in the Bible for 4000 years (I had to throw that one in).
• If we feel we can't afford to take a day of rest, we are claiming that we work harder than God (since He rested).
• A day of rest is not a day of laziness--it's quality time spent with your family and/or doing something that relaxes you. Taking your family to church does not qualify as work (although it may feel like it)...as it is spending time fellowshipping with God and spending time with your family as well as setting a healthy example for your children.

So, today I'm taking a day of rest.

Do I hear you questioning why I'm blogging on my day of rest? Does that qualify as work? Yes, for me it does and ha ha...this post was written on Saturday night and scheduled to post on Sunday morning. =)

Update on Monday: I've gotta' say that the day of rest really did me a lot of good! I took a day off from everything that was not family oriented. I didn't even get on the computer! (gasp) I feel refreshed, energized, and I didn't feel the least bit guilty about not "accomplishing" anything since the plan was not to. This is indeed a good thing!

Photo credit: agross96