OUR DAY

 

 

 

Suppose you have a terminal disease. You hear about a wonderful doctor who can cure you. You check him out on the Internet and at the library. You talk to others who have been healed by this doctor and you develop a faith in his ability. This miracle cure comes in a small bottle and you just have to drink it to be cured. In the end though, you decide not to drink this medicine. Can you then say you still have faith in the physician?  It would not even be correct to say you believe he’s a good doctor?  Because if you did you, would you hesitate to take the cure.

 

It’s not enough to just believe.

 

James 2:19

Thou believes that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

 

Faith is not just believing but actually being willing to put your life in someone else’s hands.  That kind of faith has to be an absolute certainty and that kind of faith comes as a gift from God. The Bible says it this way,

 

James 2:20

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

 

This is not saying that we’re saved by works. It is saying that if our so-called faith is not accompanied by a change for the good, then it’s not really faith to begin with. It’s like having a classic Corvette in your driveway. It’s sweet, cherry red, cool or really neat depending on what era you grew up in. The problem is that the motor will never start and the wheels won’t even turn so you can at least coast down the hill and pretend you are driving.  Faith that goes nowhere and has no positive effect on your life is just a dead faith, or no faith at all.

 

Now, sin is defined by the Bible this way,

 

1 John 3:4

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

 

It may be possible for us to grit our teeth and manage to not break any of God’s commandments, but even if we could, there would still be a problem.  In Romans 3:23, Paul says we have all sinned. Think about it this way. If I were making scrambled eggs for a bunch of house guests and after cracking 23 eggs into a pot, I added the 24^th egg and it was rotten. Then I whisked it all up and cooked them.  Would you eat the eggs? James puts it this way.

 

 

James 2:10

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

 

Our part in this thing may seem too simple, and that’s why we have a hard time with it.  We want to do something. And there is something we can do, and that is to study and pray.  Remember what it John tells us,

 

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

 

God’s law is like a mirror. It shows us our true condition. We are unrighteous and need cleaning up. When we believe that and tell God we understand, then He forgives us and starts the clean-up process. Our salvation has been a sure thing from the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior, and that’s called justification. But this cleansing process goes on as long as we live and is called sanctification. God will continually be changing us so that our character gets closer and closer to the perfect character of Jesus. God doesn’t want us to pretend to be holy. He wants to make us holy. It’s like this: I am not a doctor or medical person of any kind. Suppose I put on a surgeon’s clothes and wrote my name illegibly. I’d look like a doctor but would you want me to operate on you? Of course, not. That’s why the Bible says this,

 

Roman 12:2

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

 

Affirmation  is not what God wants. He wants to transform us into the real deal. He can do all this and more.  He can remake us.  If you want to build your faith in God’s ability to do this, look at God’s Ten Commandments.  Right in the heart of His law we find a great faith builder.

 

Exodus 20:8-11

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping 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, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

 

How does this build faith?  It reminds us that God created the whole World. Anyone with the power to do that can very easily change you if you want Him to.

 

 

The Bible says this more clearly in another place.

 

Exodus 31:13

"Say to the Israelites, `You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between Me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord, who makes you holy.

 

Besides reminding us of God’s creative power, the Sabbath gives us a day off with God’s blessing.  It’s like your boss telling you not to come to work on Wednesdays any more and you’ll get paid the same as if you did. One difference though, is that God specifically says to not work on the seventh day. Your calendar will show you that the seventh day is Saturday.  Exodus 20:9 said Remember the Sabbath Day.  This has two meanings. One is that we should never forget to keep the Sabbath holy. The second is to refer back to an event we may have forgotten. That event is found in Genesis.

 

Genesis 2:1  

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.  By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work.  And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.

 

The seventh day was blessed and declared holy by God right there on the last day of the creation week. I cannot make another day holy simply by picking another day that suits me better.  Notice here that the Sabbath was set up way before there was a nation of Israel. The Sabbath is not just a Jewish tradition. In fact Jesus says,

 

Mark 2:27

The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

 

The Sabbath was a gift to all mankind. It’s our day.  Our day to not work and to enjoy what God created for us – that is people and nature.  While we’re enjoying the day though, let’s include God.  It’s our day, but it’s also Jesus’.

 

Matthew 12:8

For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.

 

God makes a promise in relation to this.

 

Isaiah 58:13-14  

If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on My holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord’s holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob.  The mouth of the Lord has spoken.

 

If we call the Sabbath a delight and use that day the way God intended us to, then He promises to give us joy and a fantastic inheritance. 

 

I know that some people say that God’s law has been done away with, but Jesus says,

 

Matthew 5:17  

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

 

Jesus did refer to there only being two commandments.

 

Matthew 22:37  

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

But then He went on to say,

 

Matthew 22:40  

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

 

Love is the hook that holds up all God’s commands. Love is the only thing that can change us into Christians who keep God’s law naturally. God is Love and everything He does and everything He asks of us is based on Love. The law is there to protect us.

 

God could have made a huge memorial such as Mount Rushmore, to keep us reminded that He is our Creator and able to do all things. He didn’t do that though and the reason why is clear when we consider what happened to New Hampshire’s “Old Man in the Mountain.”  It was there a long time, but now it’s gone. The Sabbath is God’s memorial and cannot be destroyed.  It is a block of time, not a block of stone.  According to the Bible it starts at sundown on Friday and ends at sundown on Saturday. That’s 24 full hours to forget about work and the troubles of this life and concentrate solely on God and His goodness and the good things He has done for us. God wants us to enjoy this life. Jesus said,

 

John 10:9-11  

I am the Gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

 

Jesus wants us to have a full life. He made that possible by giving up His life. Part of that abundant life is the Sabbath. It’s our day.

 

Now, by talking so much about the Sabbath I don’t mean to take away anything from the other nine commandments. They are just as important as the Sabbath. Most of them however, are commonly accepted by every law-abiding person. We are not to murder, lie, steel, commit adultery, or be jealous of what other people may have.  Also we are supposed to honor our parents and God. We honor God by accepting Him as the only God there is, by not putting anything else before Him and by not taking His name in vain.

 

The Sabbath, on the other hand, is not commonly understood the way I have presented it here.  We believe it is very important and will become more so as the time of the end comes closer and closer.

 

So far in our study it seems that there is very little for us to do besides study and pray.  Is there anything for us to do?  Is there a purpose to our lives? Yes, there is, and we will see what the Bible says about it in the next study:  Care Takers.