DAY 178- BIG PICTURE IN A YEAR - THE WILDERNESS
Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.
Deuteronomy 5:12
Reading: Deuteronomy 5:13-15, Hebrews 4:9-11
Perhaps you feel you are in a ‘wilderness’ time in your personal journey. If that is the case, then today’s study will be particularly helpful to you.
The book of Deuteronomy is a record of sermons that Moses preached to the new generation that was on the verge of going in to possess the promised land. These sermons were a repetition of all that he had already taught them, and the previous generation, in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers.
In today’s reading, we see Moses reminding them of God’s command to keep the Sabbath, the first of the feasts that God called His people to celebrate every week. This first feast was the biggest reminder that they were no longer a nation of slaves, under the rulership of a Pharaoh who forced them to work everyday, so that from childhood until they died of exhaustion, they knew only hardship. More than any other thing the blessing of work had been used by Satan to create a mindset of worthlessness and hopelessness. They were slavish in their mentality and expected nothing of God’s abundant provision. Teaching them to start their work week with twenty-four hours of rest, was God’s way of renewing their slavish minds.
If you are in a ‘wilderness’ time, may I advise that you focus on learning what it means to trust God, to rest in His faithfulness and love? The best way to start is just as those escaped slaves did, by celebrating a festival of rest every week. Then, begin to regard your work differently. Can you see that the job that you have is the provision of God? Can you trust Him by working in that job with a good attitude and by taking a day of sacred rest and joyful worship as a family?
Prayer
Lord thank You for work. You are my God and my provider. Forgive me for every negative word spoken about work and every time I have not rested or modeled rest in You to my family.
For the family
Today watch this video about the sacred feasts given to the people of God.