Good morning!
Text: Exodus 15-17; Proverbs 1
The very first of the Laws given to Moses in the desert is actually given before the ten written on stone tablets on Mount Sinai. We come across it in Exodus 16 when God makes provision for the Israelites to receive daily bread – manna – for all of their forty years in the desert. They were instructed to gather the manna each morning, and eat it that very same day. Keeping any for the next day was forbidden – that is except for the seventh day. They were instructed to collect double on the sixth day, and none on the seventh.
“See! The Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” So the people rested on the seventh day.
This pattern – of six days work and a mandatory day of rest – is a pattern for all of life. In six days God created and on the seventh He rested. He tells us to do the same. “Thou shalt…” it says.
For me, two things are in view. First, God knows I need a day of rest, so he provided one. He made me, He knows my needs, and I would be wise to do as He says and rest a day out of every seven. Second, He also is the God who provides. He has told us He will meet all of our needs through our labors in six – and not more than six – days a week. When I decide I can’t get it all done, that I can’t make ends meet without doing some work on every single day of the week, what am I saying to God? “I don’t trust You?” Or what might I be saying about His provision? “It’s not good enough?”
Am I willing to surrender to His will and actually set aside an entire day each week for rest and worship? If not, why not? Makes you think.
in Him, Mike