Week 1, Day 7 - The Sabbath Attitude

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the Earth." Psalm 46:10

REFLECT

It's Sunday morning. A pastor goes to the lectern in front of his church in Lancashire, England, opens a document with the peculiar title "The Declaration of Sports", and begins to read slowly. He reads reluctantly because he thinks it's ridiculous, yet has no choice in the matter - King James I of England has commanded the document be read in the churches. The same king who sponsored the translation of the King James Version of the Bible was in a petty tug of war with the Puritans over what Christians could or could not do on Sundays (their Sabbath). While the Puritans were legalistically restrictive, James's Declaration of Sports said that believers could in good conscience dance, leap, engage in sports, and drink ale on Sundays.

When you connect the historical dots from Puritans to Seventh-day Adventists, we can better understand why we have gone to such legalistic lengths to set certain behavioral restraints on the "Shabbat". However, it is still apparent that we don't do well when we try to make the idea of Sabbath about regulations. That emphasis has certainly clouded God's intentions and the true essence of "Shabbat".

The essential carry over from the Old Testament to the New Testament and to our age is that it is wise to have the "Shabbat" to worship, remember, cease from regular activities so we can re-charge and re-connect with God and with the important people in our lives. But Sabbath is more than a day to remember and experience all that God is. Sabbath is also an attitude we carry with us every single day. Allow me to illustrate.

In his excellent book The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath, pastor and author Mark Buchanan says that there are two dimensions to this command of God: Sabbath day and Sabbath attitude. Sabbath attitude is simply this: rehearsing the truth that God is sovereign and we are not. I absolutely love that notion.

This may seem like a simple proposition and one that we already know well. But the truth is we do not know it well. We are continually trying to control more things in life than we are able to do. We continually try to understand God's sovereignty from our limited human perspective. We readily spew out answers to life's complexities like we really do know the answers. We are comfortable in environments where we control the temperature, the lighting, the surroundings.

But listen! When God says "Shabbat," he is saying: "Stop and remember that I am God and you are not."

Trust it! Believe it! Rest in it! That will do more to revolutionize our lives than making laws about what we can or cannot do on Sabbath.

MAKE IT REAL

Make two columns on a single piece of paper and write "Things I can do" at the top of one side and "Things only God can do" at the top of the other. Then list particular things in the next 24 hours that fit each of these categories. Pray for God to bring a "Sabbath attitude" into today.

Week 2 - Proclamation