Joshua 1-3 | Mark 16
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour 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…” Exodus 20:8-10
Some of us reading this devotion are workaholics. We are driven to work because that is the way we earn enough to make a living, to pay the bills, to feel secure. Even though God provides for the birds of the air, He does not gather all the seeds and dump them into their nests, the birds have to do something.
In the middle of the Ten Commandments is a law about the Sabbath, where the Israelites were commanded to work for six days and rest on the seventh—God placed a boundary around their work. Unlike life in Egypt under Pharaoh, the Israelites were not supposed to give themselves to endless productivity. As we progress through the Torah, God expanded this principle of the Sabbath and it took on a much bigger importance. There were annual festivals, where every Israelite was to travel to the place where God’s name would dwell—Jerusalem—three times a year to celebrate God’s provision and activity in their lives. These festivals were the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of the First Fruits and the Feast of Tabernacles. It was not just weeks of not working, it also required taking the whole family and going to worship and celebrate God’s provision in Jerusalem, leaving the home and community untended and unprotected.
If we live in Toronto, Canada, our capital, Ottawa, would be the equivalent of Jerusalem. Could we imagine taking off whole weeks in a year with the entire community to go to Ottawa? Even when I (Brett McBride) go on vacation, I have three neighbours watching my home. Do we realize that God was calling the Israelites to do something that was so counterintuitive when they came before Him to celebrate Him and His provision? God was asking them to trust Him, to put celebrating Him first before anything else in their life.
On top of the Sabbath and annual festivals, God introduced the Sabbath year. Exodus 23:10-11 tells us, “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, but during the seventh year let the land lie unploughed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it…” For a whole year, the Israelites were not to do their farming work, but let the land rest and allow the poor to get food from it. From all of this, God was reminding the Israelites that their provision did not come from themselves but from Him who is able to bless them richly as they are obedient to Him.
Do we depend on our own efforts, strengths and abilities or trust the One who has blessed us with everything that we have?
PRAYER
Almighty God, thank You for the Sabbath that reminds me that I should not be trapped in the mindset of endless productivity. My provision in life comes from You and not my own ability.