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The Daily Word of Righteousness
What Sin Is, #10
"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. (Isaiah 58:13,14—NIV)
The Lord Jesus is our example. He lived and moved in the rest of God, that is, in the center of God's Person and will. This is the full application of the commandment to keep the Sabbath.
We personally have seen how the Orthodox will not throw a light switch or press an elevator button on Saturday so as not to desecrate the Sabbath. Such behavior is not part of God's eternal Character. It is God's will that His creatures live always in His Person and will, delighting themselves in Him; not that they be concerned about pressing the button of an elevator on Saturday.
Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23—NIV)
To enter the Divine Sabbath is to deny ourselves, take up our cross each day, and follow the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus kept the Law of Moses perfectly. If a blemish had been found in Him He could not have served as the Passover Lamb.
Yet Jesus healed on the Sabbath. He worked on the Sabbath and the religious leaders took careful note of this. But Jesus was not breaking the fourth commandment by healing on the Sabbath because He was doing His Father's will and delighting in it.
Under the Law of Moses we were commanded to cease from our own works on the seventh day of the week. The new covenant is much more demanding than this. We are to cease from our own works altogether and seek the will of Christ at every moment of every day.
The Lord Jesus lived, moved, and had His Being in the perfect will of God. This was true at all times. We also are to dwell in the center of God's will at all times and in every situation.
Those who set aside the seventh day as particularly holy do so to please the Lord. But I think a better way is to make each succeeding day holier than the preceding. The problem with religious activities of any sort is they tend to remove our gaze from the Lord Jesus and dwell on that which we can conduct apart from the Lord. I would rather be in constant contact with Christ so when I rest I rest in Him and when I work I work in Him.
If Jesus guides us into a religious observance, then we are in the rest of God. If however the Lord does not guide us into a specific religious activity, but leads us in another direction, then we must continue with the Lord in order to remain in the rest of God.
To be continued.