My workweek wears me out. I like the activity and challenge of my job, but after five days of it, my head is tired, my body is tired, and I need a break. So after toiling away for six days of my week, I stop everything at sunset on Friday night and enjoy a 24-hour day of rest that rejuvenates me physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I’m glad God made the Sabbath day for you and me to enjoy.

I didn’t come up with the idea of a day of rest on my own. I learned about it when I began reading the Bible. Neither did I start keeping a 24-hour period of rest every seventh day because it seemed like a good idea to me—I did it because it was a command of God.

At first I was confused about what it meant to take a day of rest, or to do no work, or to keep a day holy. Should I stay in bed all day? Should I sit in a chair and read my Bible all day? I knew from reading my Bible that the seventh day was to be a day of sacred assembly (Leviticus 23:3). So I found out where God’s people met together to worship Him. I asked them if I could join them, and they said, “Yes, please come.” Then I went there, and I still do to this day.

Doing no work and keeping the day holy

Since joining others in worship I have learned a lot about what it means to do no work and to keep the day holy. Most of what I have learned has helped me to enjoy the Sabbath more.  But I have also encountered ideas that take the joy out of the day of rest and turn it into a test of endurance or a hardship. Sometimes these are ideas that try to please God by going above and beyond what He has instructed. God was displeased with the Pharisees, who zealously made additional rules about how to keep the Sabbath. Their rules and regulations were an oppressive burden on the average person. And, I suspect, they sucked much of the joy out of this special day of rest. So we should not become legalistic in our approach to the Sabbath.

Getting back to the original intent

With the Sabbath and other issues, Jesus addressed problems and misinterpretations of God’s instructions by taking His listeners back to the original intent. He said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:1).

Read the whole passage in Mark 2 and you’ll find the Pharisees were upset because Jesus and company broke one of the rules the religious authorities had come up with regarding “doing no work.” The Pharisees had ruled that picking a head of grain and popping it in your mouth was a form of work (harvesting crops). Now notice Jesus’ response. Rather than get down to their level to quibble about whether lifting food to your mouth was to be considered work and under what circumstances, etc., Jesus cut through to the core of the issue: the original intent.

Jesus told them, and He tells us today: The Sabbath was created to benefit people.

Consider this: God first gave the Sabbath command to a slave people He had just rescued from a life of bondage and hard labor. They were people who rarely, or perhaps never, got a day of rest. In Deuteronomy 5:13-15, we are reminded of this connection. Read verse 15 where the Sabbath command contains this clause: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”

A day of rest and rejuvenation

God wants you to have a day off from your work and have a day to focus on spiritual matters. The Sabbath is intended to be a day of physical rest but also a day of spiritual renewal and rejuvenation. This spiritual purpose is why we should set the Sabbath apart as holy and a day to assemble together for worship.

I began setting aside the seventh day of my week to rest from my work because I read God’s command in His Word. At first I felt awkward and unsure of what to do, or not do.  But I have always looked forward to my day of rest and rejuvenation at the end of each week.

I don’t know that I would have the good sense to rest and refresh each week if God had not told me to do so for my own good. I’m glad God made the Sabbath day for me to enjoy.