Tag Archives: Sabbath

Do some good today (Luke 6:9-10) September 29, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Proverbs 26-27

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 6:9-10
Jesus: Here’s a question for you: On the Sabbath Day, is it lawful to do good or to do harm? Is it lawful to save life or to destroy it?
He turned His gaze to each of them, one at a time. Then He spoke to the man.
Jesus: Stretch your hand out.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Jesus made a habit of doing good. He also made a habit of going to the synagogue or the temple on the Sabbath. He knew the importance of both. He knew we were created to do good for others as a demonstration of the love God pours into our lives individually and collectively. It’s important to show God’s love through actively doing good for others. The Pharisees, though, began to obscure the lines. They didn’t understand the two fit together the way Jesus did. They knew we should do good for others, but not at the expense of the Sabbath rules.

Are we guilty of the same, today? Do we let rules get in the way of doing what’s right? The Pharisees’ traditions about how far you could walk, how much weight you could carry, what kind of activities you could perform, all led to this farce concerning the purpose of the Sabbath. Jesus knew the Sabbath was created for our good. To make sure we rested from our labor and recovered from the toil that came as part of the curse on humanity for the sin of Adam’s race. We needed that day of rest and a reminder that God gives us our both our purpose and our ability to carry out that purpose.

The scribes and Pharisees, those who should have known best, perverted the Sabbath and made it something God never intended it to be. They made it a burden just to make it through the day without violating one of the many rules the religious rulers set in place. There were so many, it was impossible to keep up with them and many of them didn’t make sense even to God. Like allowing a person to get his ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath, but not allowing that same person to take a meal to a sick friend on the Sabbath. How does that make sense? Isn’t it more effort to get the ox out of the ditch? And aren’t people more important than oxen?

Do we do what the scribes and Pharisees did and pervert God’s intent for our setting aside time to remember Him? Do we forget that our purpose is to worship Him and demonstrate His love for us by doing good for others? Do we focus on rules instead of doing good and get those roles reversed? Do we get so hung up on our petty traditions that we forget that people are the most important thing around us?

It’s a lesson that’s so easy to forget. I think that’s why the gospels included this story. I’m not sure Jesus intended to heal anyone that day. I’m not sure He expected to face down the Pharisees once again on that Sabbath day, but then again, He’s God, so He might have known all about it. In any event, Jesus saw the opportunity to help a man in need. He saw the chance to do good for someone and He took it. Why? Because doing good for others is how we can best demonstrate God’s love.

Did Jesus break the Sabbath? Not so sure He did. Paul and the writer of Hebrews say Jesus was sinless. If that’s so, then His actions on the Sabbath certainly did’t constitute sin. And if His actions on that Sabbath day were in violation of the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, then it would have been a sin, right? So what the Pharisees saw as wrong in their perverted sense of what it meant to keep the Sabbath and what God intended for us in keeping the Sabbath are obviously in opposition to each other.

So which pattern should we follow? The rules and regulations that burden us and make us look pious to those around us or those that Jesus showed us, doing good for others? I think the answer is clear. Does that mean we should go out and work to make a living on the Sabbath? There are some that must work on the day that some hold as the Sabbath. Firefighters, police, healthcare workers, and a host of others don’t have a choice as they provide essential services to our community. But many of us do have a choice and should set aside a regular day to stop and remember God and recover from our routine labor.

Jesus said it best, the Sabbath was made for us, not the other way around. It was made as a time for us to not just consider God and His love, but to demonstrate it to a world that needs it so much. Is it right to do good on the Sabbath or harm? It’s a pretty easy answer. Go do some good for someone today and everyday. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

It’s more than just rest (Mark 6:31) July 28, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Proverbs 13

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 6:31
Jesus (to the disciples): Let us go out into the wilderness for a while and rest ourselves.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

The fourth commandment is an interesting one. It tells us to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. It tells us to do all our labor during the first six days of the week and to rest from our labor on the seventh day. When God gave Moses and the Israelites that command, they worked hard just to survive. Tilling the land, harvesting crops, preparing meals, protecting themselves from wild animals and marauding enemies, these men and women worked from before sunrise until after sunset at hard labor to survive. It’s not the same as what we think of as hard work today.

Even in our “hard labor” jobs, we have tools and mechanical aids that lighten the load significantly compared to what those Israelites used to eke out their existence. You’ll remember it was later in Israel’s history that the Philistines took away their metal tools, so they didn’t even have those to plow the land. Not like our tractors and combines and robotic factories today. No nail guns or power saws or machines to tamp and mix cement for construction. These folks worked hard.

God commanded them to rest from their labor on the seventh day. The interesting thing about that ancient Hebrew word for labor, though, it’s also used for serve, service to God, worship. The Israelites considered their everyday labor a means of worship. A way to serve God through the use of their hands every day. For six days they were to give their hard labor of service to God in a physical way, then on the sixth day, God commanded them to rest, set it apart, make it different, keep it holy.

We don’t do the kind of physical labor people did in Jesus’ day. I’m not sure we could keep up with them today. I’m not sure we could keep up with our grandparents in terms of physical labor on a day to day basis. We’ve gotten pretty soft as the generations have passed along. We think eight hour days are too long, even though a lot of us spend too much of that time stealing from our employers by checking our Facebook, Tweeting our friends, Instagramming with our social circle. Recent surveys tell us the average worker really actually works less than five hours of that eight they get paid for every day.

We think we need our four weeks of vacation and sick leave if we’re just tired of working. We figure fathers need paternity leave since mothers get maternity leave. We really don’t work like our ancestors did and I don’t think they complained nearly as much as we do about wages, time off, unfair working conditions, and all the other things we seem to complain about today.

Still, the commandment is valid. In our weakened condition, we still get overwhelmed by the stress and strain of the world just as our ancestors did. We don’t have to work as hard to survive anymore. God has allowed us to use our mental capacity to invent tools and equipment to ease the physical burdens of life. But we still suffer through the same temptations, emotions, and evil our ancestors did. In fact, we probably face more evil because we have more leisure time on our hands.

The question becomes, what do we do with that leisure time and what do we do when we rest from our labor? Now few people work six days a week at their jobs. 40 hours is the standard and most people have the whole weekend free. But what do you do with it? Do you honor it and make it holy? Do you remember, like the Israelites that your labor, whatever it might be, is service to God, and then your rest is a time to remember Him and should be made holy, set apart, different?

God didn’t need rest from the labor He expended to create the universe. He spoke and light appeared. He spoke and water separated the firmaments. He spoke and the sea stopped at the coastlines. He spoke and all the vegetation and animals in the world came into being. Then He made man in His image. God just said the words and things happened. God spoke. He didn’t need rest from what He did. But He commands us to honor the Sabbath because we need rest.

We need a Sabbath to stop from our self-imposed busy-ness and remember Him. We need a Sabbath to do something different from our every day labor to give our physical bodies and our minds a chance to recover from the labor we gave to Him the other six days of the week. We need a Sabbath. That’s why God commands us to remember it, use it, honor it, set it apart and make it different and holy.

How are you doing with that fourth commandment these days? 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Come to me (Mark 3:3) July 14, 2016

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Proverbs 10

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 3:3
Jesus: Come to Me.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

As usual with eye witnesses, Mark gives us a slightly different account of the encounter in the temple with the man with the withered hand. The Pharisees want to see what He will do since it’s the Sabbath. He’s already scorched them with His answer about His disciples eating a handful of grain as they walked through the field on their way to the temple. But now here is this man with what is described as a withered hand. We don’t know what kind of disease, illness, deformity, or accident caused his hand to be withered, but we know he had little use of it and wanted relief from his malady.

We also know crowds already knew Jesus could heal sicknesses, injuries, deformities, and maladies no one else could heal. Jesus was a miracle worker and this man needed a miracle if his hand were to return to normal. But healing on the Sabbath. Talk about taboo. That would break all the rules. Doctors didn’t practice on the Sabbath. They just didn’t. So what would Jesus do? The stage was set. The Pharisees gaped from one side of the courtyard. The man with the withered hand looked pleadingly from the other side of the courtyard. Jesus stood between them. The crowd line both sides watching the standoff.

Jesus knows what the Pharisees are thinking. “Will He dare to break the law again and heal this man on the Sabbath? Let’s see if His compassion overtakes His sense of their Sabbath Law in the temple.”

Jesus says, “Come to me.”

I can see the man staring across the courtyard seeing the eyes of those Pharisees burning into him with raw hatred. He wouldn’t be taking more steps than allowed on this holy day. He was careful to measure his steps so he would have plenty left to cross the courtyard and even go to the pool of Siloam if Jesus asked him to. He planned this day well because he heard Jesus might be here today. His friends had seen Him coming to Jerusalem and so this man hoped beyond hope he would find Jesus here today.

He looked at the Pharisees again. Then he looked at Jesus and into His warm, compassionate eyes. He saw the love He had for all humankind in those eyes. He saw something in His countenance He just couldn’t resist. The Pharisees might ban him from the temple the rest of his days, but he would listen to this gentle man with the power of God resting on Him.

He heard the Jesus’ command ringing in his ears. Looked one more time at that band of Pharisees and compared their religion and lack of joy with the faith of this man who spoke like no other and the joy that radiate from Him. He stepped forward and followed Jesus’ command to come. He saw no other way to find the healing He knew this man could provide. The Pharisees wanted revenge. This man wanted healing and peace.

I expect half the crowd sided with the Pharisees that day. They needed their rules. They needed the regimentation the law gave them. They needed someone to intervene for them because they could not or did not want to live up to the law. So they needed the priests. But Jesus wanted them to have a personal relationship with God. He wanted them to talk to God as if He were their father. That’s what He did and He wanted them to do that too.

Jesus wanted them to look beyond the routine and see the possibilities when you let God take charge and do things out of the ordinary and do God-like things instead of just the things man can do. So part of the crowd stood on the side with the man wanting healing. They needed freedom. They needed healing. They needed peace. They needed real relationship with God instead of just their religion.

So what does that tell us today?

I think it says there will always be those, even within our organized religions that want to keep us trapped in rules and regulations. Even if there are good things that should be done that disrupt the ordinary, those will cry out against those good things because of the rules they live by. And they will consequently lose great blessings and the joy of following Jesus.

I think it says we will occasionally have opportunities to hear Jesus tell us to come to Him, but we will have to overcome the glare and ridicule of some tough opposition. The opposition might be fierce and even do everything in its power to destroy us, but if we will stand faithful and follow Jesus’ command, the reward will be well worth it in the end.

I think it says we have two choices, we can cower to the influence of those who want to rule our lives with the way things have always been whether right or wrong and find their favor, or we can follow God and find His favor. There are but two choices. Like the man with the withered hand, make the right one. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

We need the Sabbath (Mark 2:25-28) July 13, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Psalms 81-83

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Mark 2:25-28
Jesus (turning toward the Pharisees): Do you remember the story about what King David and his followers did when they were hungry and had nothing to eat?
They said nothing, so He continued.
Jesus: David went into the house of God, when Abiathar was the high priest, and ate the bread that was consecrated to God. Now our laws say no one but the priests can eat that holy bread; but when David was hungry, he ate and also shared the bread with those who followed him.
The Sabbath was made for the needs of human beings, and not the other way around. So the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

I wonder how many of our religious rules and regulations we get wrong. The Pharisees, the priests, the scribes, those in positions of authority within the constructs of the religious order of the day built their whole existence on upholding and enforcing their understanding of those rules. If people didn’t believe in those rules or live by them at least most of the time, then their livelihood disappeared.

The Mosaic law described how the priests and the tribe of Levi would gain its wealth. They would get a portion of most of the sacrifices the people made to God. That was their pay as the intermediaries for God. It was their wages for caring for the tabernacle and then the temple and the synagogues after the desporia. If those rules and regulations fell apart, how would the priests and scribes make a living? They might have to figure out some other kind of work to feed their families.

It wasn’t that the work of the priesthood was easy. They often started their day at two or three in the morning to begin preparing the fires for the altar, sharpening the knives, cleaning the utinsels used for the various rituals of the day. The traffic in and out of the temple every day was pretty significant. It was much more than the town hall or the city court house or even the nation’s supreme court. This place was the center of everything for the Jews. So things were busy and the priests and their families were responsible for keeping it running smoothly.

So we might understand a little about why the Pharisees came down so hard on Jesus and His disciples. They were breaking the rules. God said not to work on the Sabbath and they grabbed a handful of grain as they walked through the field because they were hungry. The Pharisees considered taking that handful of grain off the stalk harvesting so they were breaking the Sabbath.

But the Pharisees forgot why the Sabbath came about in the first place. God didn’t get tired and need rest after He brought everything into creation on those first six days. He set aside the seventh day for humankind to rest. God has infinite energy and power. He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t rest. He doesn’t take a day off. But He knows that we need to stop from our labors and remember who brought all of this into being in the first place.

Part of our problem today is we somehow forgot about taking time off to remember God and His goodness to us. I don’t think it really matters what day of the week it is, we just need to stop and spend time remembering Him. And that hour and a half on Sunday morning doesn’t cut it if that’s all the time we give to Him. We need to stop, slow down, quit our busy-ness, set aside time to meditate on God and the blessings He gives us. We need to remember the Sabbath, not as a day on which we must follow a bunch of dos and don’ts, but as a time to worship and praise our Redeemer.

I wonder what would happen if we started remembering the Sabbath again? I’m not too sure we know how anymore. What if we spent one whoe day in worship and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ relaxing in the company of each other, hopefully safe from the evils of the world as we share in that one day together each week? What if we stopped doing all our household chores and our shopping and our sports and other activities we didn’t have time for during the other six days of the week and spent that whole day on things related to our salvation instead of on things related to ourselves? Would that make a difference in our spiritual lives? Would it change the dynamics of our families? Would it change our churches?

The Sabbath isn’t about making or breaking rules and regulations. Jesus made that clear when He spoke to the Pharisees that day. But have we gone too far by just forgetting it all together? Maybe it’s time we pull out that Exodus verse and see what it’s all about again. Maybe it’s time we remember God set aside a day for us to focus on Him instead of doing the things we usually do every day. Jesus said the Sabbath was made for the needs of human beings. It’s about time we start realizing just how much we need to use that day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Which side will you take? (Matthew 12:11-13) March 14, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Genesis 40-43

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 12:11-13
Jesus: Look, imagine that one of you has a sheep that falls into a ditch on the Sabbath—what would you do?
(to the Pharisees) You would dive in and rescue your sheep. Now what is more valuable, a person or a sheep? So what do you think—should I heal this man on the Sabbath? Isn’t it lawful to do good deeds on the Sabbath? (to the man with the shriveled hand) Stretch out your hand.
As the man did so, his hand was completely healed, as good as new.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Do we get mixed up in what is really right and wrong? The Pharisees did. Jesus used this opportunity with their condemnation of His disciples for their gathering a handful of wheat to teach them a lesson about God’s goodness. What is really important? Doing good or setting and keeping stupid rules? Granted, the rules help to keep us in line most of the time, but sometimes, the rules just don’t make sense. That’s what He was trying to tell these holier-than-thou leaders. People are more important than rules. Relationships are more important than rituals.

Jesus caught these busy bodies at their own game. If one of your sheep falls in a ditch on the Sabbath, wouldn’t you rescue it? Of course you would. It’s important to you. It provides wool. It will provide meat on your table. Sometimes it becomes almost a pet. You would rescue that poor fallen sheep from the ditch despite the fact that it violates the letter of the law of the Sabbath. You wouldn’t let it lay there and die!

But these religious leaders were so lost in their rules they didn’t see that they forgot the people they were supposed to minister to. They forgot their mission was to share God’s word and His love to the lost in Israel and in the surrounding nations. They just played ‘gotcha’ with their rules whenever they saw someone putting a toe across the line.

It’s interesting that in this Sabbath day miracle, the Pharisees plot to kill Jesus because of His terrible violation of their law, but read carefully and you’ll find that Jesus did nothing to break the Sabbath. He didn’t lift a load. He didn’t walk farther than the law allowed. He went to the synagogue to worship on the Sabbath as He was accustomed. And there Jesus met a man with a shriveled hand.

What does Jesus do? He speaks to the man these words. “Stretch out your hand.” That’s it. Jesus didn’t touch him. He didn’t have any of his disciple touch him. Jesus didn’t bring in any salve or balm or medical instruments. All He did was give the man one simple direction. “Stretch out your hand.” Nothing more. Does that sound like He broke the Sabbath rules? It doesn’t to me. What did Jesus do that was so grievous? The man with the shriveled hand did all the work. He’s the one that stretched out his hand. Jesus just said four words to the man.

The Pharisees from this point on plotted to kill Jesus because of his healing on the Sabbath. Wow! They said He broke their rules. But did He? I’m not so sure. And even so, Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He can do what He wants on that day. He’s the one that put in place. He’s the one that declared it a day of rest, but also the one who told the priests to minister to the rest of the tribes of Israel on that day. They could work without punishment, why not Him?

So what does all this mean for us? A great deal of things are wrong with our society today. We could go down a long list of pet pieves Christians have against different segments that our government ignores or even promotes that we know from God’s word are just not right. We see the degradation and disintegration of families, abortion, unemployment often encouraged by the way our welfare system operates, misuse of basic rights such as separation of church and state resulting in the discrimination of Christians in a world sliding further and further into the clutches of evil.

And we see some who call themselves Christian standing up against these injustices. But the way they do so, is equally wrong. When anti-abortion groups bomb abortion clinics or the homes of workers in those clinics, they are just as guilty of wrong doing as the abortionists? They are just like the Pharisees Jesus condemned that day. Just like those Pharisees, they forgot that people are more important than the rules. That doesn’t make abortion right and we should still stand against it, but not by protesting with equally sinful, illegal, wrongs against others.

Should we protest the disintegration of families? Absolutely! But not in ways that tarnish the name of our Savior. Two wrongs do not make a right. Jesus conquered with love. Jesus didn’t break the law to bring real justice to those who suffered. He didn’t strike out against the leaders in ways that negated the law. Remember, Jesus came to fulfill the law and to teach others what the law means in relation to our interface with God and with others.

Jesus came to leave a legacy of real peace between us, our fellow man, and God. That doesn’t happen by breaking laws. It happens through extending God’s love to everyone we meet. It happens by remembering that every person is someone God created and deserves our respect and attention. It happens when we make people more important than the law and God more important than anything else in our lives.

Which side will you take? The Pharisees’ or Jesus’?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

What are your hangups? (Matthew 12:3-6) March 12, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Mark 1-2

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 12:3-6
Jesus: Haven’t you read what David did? When he and his friends were hungry, they went into God’s house and they ate the holy bread, even though neither David nor his friends, but only priests, were allowed that bread. Indeed, have you not read that on the Sabbath priests themselves do work in the temple, breaking the Sabbath law yet remaining blameless? Listen, One who is greater than the temple is here.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

What is your religious hangup? Maybe you have several. I remember growing up we had a lot of “don’ts to contend with.” They weren’t bad rules. They kept us out of trouble. They helped discipline us. But some of them really didn’t make a lot of sense and were carryovers from a generations past and didn’t really apply anymore.

As I’ve grown older, I realize the importance of some of those taboos and the frivolity of others. I’ve also come to see these words of Jesus as they apply not just to the disciples picking grain on the Sabbath, but to a lot of our rituals and rules that sometimes help us remember different aspects of our faith, but are in truth just rituals to jump start our memories. They mean little in themselves apart from the memory and meaning they bring to us in regard to our relationship with God. The Sabbath is really just another day on the calendar unless you spend it in a vibrant, meaningful relationship with God.

Baptism is a wonderful ritual, but if you go under an unrepentant sinner, you come up a wet unrepentant sinner. It’s only a ritual to help us recall an important event in our lives, that of giving ourselves fully to God. Dying to self and living in Christ. There is no other purpose for baptism. It’s a great thing. It’s an important thing. It’s something we follow Christ in doing. But if we’re not careful, it can be just another ritual. And you know what, God doesn’t really care about rituals. He cares about relationships.

Maybe your hangup is clothes. We used to talk about going to church in our Sunday best. I don’t see that much anymore. We have made Sunday dress pretty casual. I kind of like Sunday best. I like to think God likes me to dress up for Him at least as much as I’d dress up to go to an important job interview or a meeting with an important dignitary. But I don’t get hung up on clothes. Jesus met with people in rags and He met with people in regal attire. It made no difference to Him because He looks at the inside, not the outside. I do believe we should dress with modesty in mind as scripture tells us. But then again, whose definition of modesty are we using?

Maybe your hangup is jewelry. I have to tell you, I’m not much on body piercing of any kind. Maybe it’s partly because I really don’t like pain and all that stuff in ears and eyes and noses and tongues and elsewhere looks terribly painful. Can I tell anyone else it’s wrong? Nope. It’s my hangup, not necessarily yours. Don’t expect to see me with earrings anytime soon, but I won’t ask you to take out your nose ring either. It’s one of those things that really doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things.

Maybe your hangup is music. What happened to the great hymns of the church? Why do we only hear choruses with the same five words sung twenty times? I like the old hymns. But then if I think back fifty years, the songs we introduced were heresy to the older crowd then, so maybe I just need to get over my likes and dislikes of music styles and be happy that people are singing the praises of Jesus no matter what beat or how few or how many words are used. It’s about worship and relationship, not about the music, anyway, right?

So what’s your hangup? What is it that you just can’t get over someone else doing that you think must be wrong? Take a look at it again from Jesus’ perspective. Is it one of those that He would same the same thing He did to the Pharisees about their comments to Him about the Sabbath? It’s not that observing the Sabbath is wrong. It’s not that your particular hangup is wrong. (sorry, I probably shouldn’t call it that). But sometimes the things that we think are just so important, are not. God wants more out of us. He wants a relationship with us and that doesn’t come through those rituals and rules and habits we think are so important. Relationship comes through listening and talking and doing things together. And since He’s God and we are not, doing the things He wants us to do. It means reciprical love. You know God loves you, He wants you to love Him back.

Can it be that simple? Can our spiritual life be summed up as simply as that? Yes! His word says it is so simple that even a fool doesn’t need to miss it. So unless you want to call yourself dumber than a fool, it’s not that hard to figure out. Let Him be Lord!

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Remember the Sabbath for the right reasons (Luke 13:1-17), September 30, 2015

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Today’s Scriptures

Today’s Bible reading plans include:

Ready – Luke 13:1-17

Set – Zechariah 8; Luke 13

Go! – Zechariah 7-9; Luke 13

Luke 13:1-17
1 As He said this, some people told Him the latest news about a group of Galilean pilgrims in Jerusalem—a group not unlike Jesus’ own entourage. Pilate butchered them while they were at worship, their own blood mingling with the blood of their sacrifices.
Jesus: 2 Do you think these Galileans were somehow being singled out for their sins, that they were worse than any other Galileans, because they suffered this terrible death? 3 Of course not. But listen, if you do not consider God’s ways and truly change, then friends, you should prepare to face His judgment and eternal death.
4 Speaking of current events, you’ve all heard about the 18 people killed in that building accident when the tower in Siloam fell. Were they extraordinarily bad people, worse than anyone else in Jerusalem, so that they would deserve such an untimely death? 5 Of course not. But all the buildings of Jerusalem will come crashing down on you if you don’t wake up and change direction now.
6 (following up with this parable) A man has a fig tree planted in his vineyard. One day he comes out looking for fruit on it, but there are no figs. 7 He says to the vineyard keeper, “Look at this tree. For three years, I’ve come hoping to find some fresh figs, but what do I find? Nothing. So just go ahead and cut it down. Why waste the space with a fruitless tree?”
8 The vineyard keeper replies, “Give it another chance, sir. Give me one more year working with it. I’ll cultivate the soil and heap on some manure to fertilize it. 9 If it surprises us and bears fruit next year, that will be great, but if not, then we’ll cut it down.”
10 Around this time, He was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest. 11 A woman there had been sick for 18 years; she was weak, hunched over, and unable to stand up straight. 12-13 Jesus placed His hands on her and suddenly she could stand straight again. She started praising God, 14 but the synagogue official was indignant because Jesus had not kept their Sabbath regulations by performing this healing.
Synagogue Official: Look, there are six other days when it’s appropriate to get work done. Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath!
Jesus: 15 You religious leaders are such hypocrites! Every single one of you unties his ox or donkey from its manger every single Sabbath Day, and then you lead it out to get a drink of water, right? 16 Do you care more about your farm animals than you care about this woman, one of Abraham’s daughters, oppressed by Satan for 18 years? Can’t we untie her from her oppression on the Sabbath?
17 As the impact of His words settled in, His critics were humiliated, but everyone else loved what Jesus said and celebrated everything He was doing.

Today’s Devotional

From today’s background scripture God might say:

How easy to get hung up on the words of your traditions and forget the spirit of My laws. I instituted the Sabbath as a day of rest for three reasons. First, I wanted you to stop your normal activities to focus on Me. Spend time together worshiping Me. So I commanded you to set aside the Sabbath to do just that.

Second, I knew that physically you need a day of rest. You cannot go on day after day without taking some time to rejuvenate. Working seven days a week without end will wear out your body, mind, and spirit. You need to stop and rest. The Sabbath gives you that one day a week to stop from your labors and rest.

Third, I knew that unless I forced you to look beyond the every day routine, you would become engrossed in the material things of life instead of looking up to the heavenly. You would become enamoured with the world instead of enamoured with Me. I wanted you to break away from your daily business to spend time with Me in community with others to know the joy of worshiping Me.

The Sabbath is important, but it is important in understanding the importance of relationship and community with Me and others. It’s not about rules, regulations, and traditions. It’s not even about the form of worship you desire or participate in. It’s about Me. It’s about My plan for humanity within a community of believers sharing together in worship and remembering what really matters in this world and the next.

Remember the Sabbath for the right reasons and keep it holy. Set time aside and remember Me. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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