Why should we Keep the Sabbath? Aren't all days equal? Aren't all days for God?

As I have started to keep the Sabbath in the last 6 months, many have turned to me to inquire about my beliefs around the sabbath, questions like "are you trying to be justified by works?" or why I'm "keeping the law of Moses" if christ fulfilled it and so on... And to be honest, I was more than expecting such questions and responses since we often see the sabbath as an outdated, for jews only commandment, and a matter of legalism when done, but as I explored in my previous post and will continue to do so here, this can't be farther from the truth. I'm not going to adress the issue of the sabbath being still relevant in this post, as i covered the basis for sabbath observance here.

Credit for the photo to Lawton First Baptist Church, Oklahoma

Now, a quick recap: the sabbath was kept since creation, not only God himself set the sabbath appart  and made it holy, but also Christ seemingly expected christians to keep it during the destruction of the temple (in 71 ad, almost 30 years after his Death and Resurrection), also the apostoles kept the sabbath all through the book of acts, historical records show that the early church kept the sabbath right up until the 3rd century, and that the Christian worship on Saturday was only completely replaced with Sunday worship by the Roman State and not before the 5th century... not at all by Jesus. That groups ever since have kept the sabbath alive although heavily persecuted by the Catholic church. Also we have bishops, cardinals, and Catholic texts confirming that the Catholic church changed the sabbath to sunday under their own authority, not by God's command.

Alright, so what then? this means we should keep ceremonial law? By no means! we must understand that keeping the sabbath is not keeping some ritualistic law, as mentioned in the book of Genesis, is a day of rest and to cease all work, to be in special communion with God and to enjoy his work. This is not to say that we should keep the sabbath as Jews do, with hundreds of regulations, prohibiting everything from pushing a button to carrying stuff on your pocket. Prohibiting turning on or off a light and prohibiting tying your shoes. And so on and so off. Biblical Sabbath keeping, as defined in the Old testament, is actually less regulation intensive... basically, No work, (by extention no study), no cooking, no cleaning. Thats pretty much it. On this day, rest. This day, is one created by God himself, and that existed even before Sin did. The sabbath has been a part of creation since the very beginning, its not only a forshadowing of things to come. Its God setting a part a Day to be with his creation, with no worries, no distractions, simply, be together and enjoy eachothers company. On that day, Adam and Eve (and eventually us in the New Earth) we will be able to neglect looking after God's creation for one day and simply enjoy it. Like an artist finishes a masterpiece and simply takes a step back and looks at it and marvels, so should we do during the sabbath. Stop worrying and marvel, enjoy God and rest.

Now, lets think it as a metaphor, God worked, and then, invited us to a date, he would take us on a date every week, the only condition is that we remember to have this day free in our calendar.

Just as a Husband and wife might work from 9 to 5, then do some chores, talk about the house budget, cook and then lay exhausted in bed every night without much free time, but set their aniversay appart to just spend time together and enjoy each other's company, so did God. He set appart a date, a special day, for us to have a break from work and to just, enjoy. A reminder of the work He did and that He is the Lord and Creator of everything. The sabbath, is then not a ritual pointing to Jesus, nor a ritual necessary for righteousness and ritual cleanness, but rather, a matter of keeping what God declared Holy, as Holy. Is a day for communion between God and his people. A day to devote to God and rest. Forget about chores and budgets, and just enjoy God.

Even if so, why keep the Sabbath? what difference does it make?

I mean, you are probably thinking "I enjoy God's pressence every day! and we should not restrict God to one day!!" First... no you are not... I bet ya there are many many days where you dont even think of God and if you do, its for a moment. Secondly, its true, we should not relegate God to a single day, but thats not the point of the sabbath. The sabbath is just to assure us that we have one day for God. One day every six, that no matter what is happening in our lives, we have the time to pray, study his word, enjoy and think of what He has done for us... You know how many christians say "I just dont have time to read the bible!", well, the Sabbath is the answer to that. Thats exactly what it is for. We trade our 9 to 5 for a date with our Eternal Father. We trade listening to our bosses go on about that spreadsheet or that new account you are managing, for listening to God speak to us. 

Also, even if you are retired, super rich, or taking a year off, and have plenty of free time, the sabbath is special, why? ... well, let me be extremely clear on this:

 ACCORDING TO GOD, BREAKING THE SABBATH 

IS A SIN. ONE AT PAR WITH ADULTERY,
MURDER OR BEARING FALSE WITNESS.

Thats not a popular statement, I know its not, but its true. Why? because keeping the sabbath and not doing any work on that day is part of the Law spoken by our very Lord. And regarding sin, 1 John 3:4 reads:

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth 

also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

Well, lets read the 10 commandments then, Exodus 20 verses 8 through 11 reads: 

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: 

in it thou shalt not do any work [...]

wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Doesn't matter what we say or feel. God set the 7th Day as Holy, and we cannot change that. Thus, breaking the sabbath, no matter the reason (unless to do good, which is actually lawful) is in reality Sinful. 

We accept that we should not Kill, nor hate, that we should not lie, nor cheat, that we should not neglect those in need nor be covetous, that we should not commit adultery nor be sexually immoral. Even if the culture around us says that many of those things are good and should be done, we hold our bibles and fiercly defend our faith, as we know for a fact they are sinful. 
However, when it comes to one of the 10 commandments Yahweh personally listed for his people, and made sure to always to tell us to "Remember the Sabbath"... we tend to side with the world on that very issue God Says "Remember".

So then, if not keeping the sabbath is sinful, why not keep it? why is this point of the law so hard for many to accept? I leave this questions for you to ponder over. You might say "tradition", "catholic influence", "work of the devil", or any number of reasons, but I want you to ponder, why we have no issue accepting that not lying is something christians should do, but keeping the sabbath is always met with such fierce opposition.

I pray brothers and sisters, that you might come to realize, that the Sabbath is just another thing that falls under the "Go and sin no more" statement Jesus made. Even if we struggle with it because of work, tradition or comfort, even if it means giving up much to keep the sabbath, we should strive to die to our sin, whether that is lying, stealing, or even breaking the sabbath; but keep in mind, even if we fail even when we did our best, Jesus still forgives us, salvation is not on the line here, making God happy might be though. Even then, we should not willfully sin and if we wish to continue sinning, according to Paul, maybe we havent died to sin and rose with Christ quite yet.... 

Sin is to be despised, abhorred, actively defended against, Sin should be something we steer clear of, Jesus even uses the image of us cutting the limb that causes us to sin and throwing it away (by the way... by God's love... dont mutilate yourself, it was just a metaphor... dont do it please). God knows I'm no saint. I have plenty of character flaws, but I love him, I love the Lord, and seek him as much as possible, so when i learned through intensive scripture study that the Sabbath was not really only for Israel, nor finished, God knows I kept the following Sabbath (Saturday), God is my witness that I stood firm to the only Job offered I had at the time, putting the only place giving me a chance on the line, just to keep the sabbath... and God rewarded me with great managers who were outstandingly comprehensive and were willing to give me a job, although it meant having one less worker during friday nights and saturdays...

Now, the elephant in the room is obvious.... you might be saying "well, its all good, but arent we saved though faith alone? Arent we supposed to not care for this kind of things and focus on our heart and not on our deeds?" "Aren't we supposed to care for weightier matters of the Law, as Jesus says?" well I briefly touched on this here and there, but I'm already working on an article on that issue specifically right now... How obedience relates to Salvation. So check soon to see if its already out, or you could suscribe up there in the top right corner. In the meantime, take a look around, check my other articles and over all things.... read the bible and please pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you... ponder over why we accept some rules like not lying, yet abhorr this particular one. Until next time.

I hope God Bless y'all