Sabbath Reflections with Randy Skeete

The Sabbath commandment reminds us that God did not create us as selfish hermits, but rather He made us to be part of an interconnected web of humanity. Thus as we worship God , showing our love, we also need to be a blessing to those around us by showing love. So as you keep this Sabbath Holy, remember that you were made to he a blessing to those around you. May the Lord give us the strength to love abs bless others.

Everything God created was created to fulfill a particular purpose. Man was also created for a purpose: to Glorify His maker through Obedience to His will. As you observe this Sabbath day: it's time to ask whether you are living with the purpose of your Maker.

When we obey the command to Keep the seventh day Sabbath, We honor the Special day of the Only Holy God. And since the Sabbath is a special and different day of the the days, There's every cause for for it to be kept different as unto a Holy and Special God.

A Very simple way of knowing which day is the Sabbath day. May God give us the understanding and the will to obey His Commands.

From the very beginnings of life on earth, mankind has always been presented with choices. Choices to obey God or to disobey Him regarding matters of morality. God forces no one, He always expects willful choice to obey Him. In matters of keeping the commandments, including that of the Sabbath, We can choose to obey Him or disobey. But the more we daily choose to Obey Him, the more easier obedience becomes in subsequent situations. Let us consciously choose to obey God today in keeping His holy commandments which are ordained to life.

As Christians and Sabbath keepers, we are to always remember that we owe it a duty to God to conserve and take good care of the things He has created. The pangs of sin and the curse of the fall may be written over creation all around us but we are to remember that it's our godly duty to take care of creation in order to avoid any controllable adverse ecological effects. Sabbath Keepers must always be leaders in ecological care.

In the Old Testament, there was a crime that God abhorred the most. A Crime of crimes you can call it- The worshiping of Created things or idolatry. God always hates it when men give His glory and the worship due Him to created things. Today, there's a disguised form of idolatry in Christendom—Sunday worship which was instituted by Constantine in AD 321, instead of the true Seventh-day Sabbath instituted by God in commemoration of His Creator-ship. If only we will honestly accept God's word , He will always guide our feets from all kinds of disguised idolatry.

One powerful Sabbath keeping tip to give you a deep experience with God is to specially make time for meditating and reflection on God's wondrous acts of creation during the Sabbath hours. Delving into the creation story and gleaning lessons is a powerful way of bringing you closer to Jesus your Creator.

Many times when we think of the Moral laws we think of the commandments that forbid adultery, murder, stealing, but others like the honouring of parents and the Sabbath commandment are often not so much considered moral. But the willful breaking of the Sabbath is as much a sin and breach of morality as murder and stealing. The moral commandment that points to the Lawgiver is the fourth commandment and the keeping of the Sabbath is certainly the keeping of no least moral commandment.

God has planted His people in this world to convert the world to Himself. We Christians are supposed to be an Influence to Unbelievers. Of all the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath commandment most clearly portrays this thought. God said the sabbath must be kept with all the members of one's family as well as the “visitors within thy gates”. This tells us that as children of God, we are to set and bear the Standards for even our unbelieving visitors, friends and other associates . We are to influence the world heavenward and not the other way round. Happy Sabbath.

God is a God who loves to talk. Through His Word the worlds were created, through His Word He speaks to us today. Through His Word He gives answers to the difficult situations of life. When a Christian says God is silent to him. It's usually because he has closed his ear to God's words. God is ever speaking through His Word. He loves to get chatty if only we would love to open His word and listen to him speak.

The Creation model should always guide us in knowing what God's original intent for man was as far as certain institutions are concerned. To know the original intent of God for Marriage, Dieting, Work etc, we must always turn to the Garden of Eden to know how it was in that perfect unfallen world. This certainly applies to the Sabbath. The Creation model helps us to know the original day of Creation ie. The Seventh Day ,and the original intent of the Sabbath. ( see Genesis 2:1-3)

God worked six days and rested on the seventh, setting an example for humanity that just as he worked and rested , we are also to work and rest on the Sabbath. This applies to Salvation. Our savior has done His work and he calls on us to do our part in surrendering our hearts and will to Him. Anytime you keep the Sabbath, remember you have a part to play in your salvation for God cannot save you without your consent. Welcome to 2023. Stay blessed

As the year end , it's the best time to reflect whether you are honestly living in obedience to God's Ten Commandments especially the Sabbath commandment? In order to live in honest obedience to God's laws, we must be both intellectually convinced and emotionally attached to the keeping of God's laws. Don't just accept that the Sabbath day is Saturday, ask God for the Holy Spirit strength to keep it with all your heart and mind.

God blessed the Seventh-day and made it Holy. It was the whole 24 hour period He made holy. Thus, every second needs to be deemed as sanctified moments. The enemy would have us desecrate holy hours by disregarding the opening and closing hours of the Sabbath. But God wants us to jealously guard the edges of the Holy day as well as the holy hours in between.

A closer reading of Genesis 2:2-3, shows that God blessed and sanctified the Seventh day only after He had rested on that day. In other words, God took a secular day and made it special or holy. In Ezekiel 20:12, we are told: "Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them." How does the Sabbath become a sign of our Sanctification? In the same way that God took a secular day out of the seven and made it holy, God takes secular and sinful people like you and I, sanctifies and transforms us into His holy likeness. Listen for more!

The Sabbath commandment when taken literally calls upon us to rest on the seventh day of the week. A day of rest will only be logical if the day is a 24 hour period bounded by an evening and morning as indicated by Scriptures. And certainly so, the world has always run on a 24 hour daily cycle since creation. This Bible truth is therefore diametrically opposite to various widespread teachings of evolution which says that the world created itself in hundreds of millions of years! Anytime you keep the weekly Sabbath you are observing a weekly monumental evidence against the man-made doctrines of evolution.

In Genesis 1 , We are told that God saw that everything He had created all 6 working days was perfect. In other words, every day's work for Him was a work well done. That is the same mentality God wants Sabbath keepers to have. As we rest on the seventh day every week, we must make sure that whatever duty or task expected of us in the six working days has been honestly and dutifully performed. A lazy Sabbath Keeper is a misnomer! God expects our Sabbath rests to be a rest from work well done.

There's only one thing God requires of you you!-Obedience to His Commandments. Many people are complying to human standards or living in conformity to societal values.. But God wants an individual commitment to His standards through obedience irrespective of what others are doing. If you make up your mind to recognise God's authority and obey His laws including keeping His Sabbath, look not to what others are saying or doing. OBEY! Simply because God has said so.

The works of God are the foundation of our salvation, “our work” is to remain surrendered to God. The bible says “without me, you can do nothing”- John 15:5. And so the Sabbath is a day to remember that salvation is the work of God in the life of the surrendered person. The fourth commandment that calls upon you and I to rest on the seventh day identifies the scope of God's work, but it does not identify the scope of the work of humanity because our work is not the foundation of our salvation. It is the work of God in our lives!

The law of God (the 10 commandments) is a goldmine of spiritual information! Its the rule of life for God's people. Apart from the fourth commandment, the behaviour and thinking required to keep the all the other nine must be the same everyday of the week. However, the observance of the fourth commandments which includes a holy convocation among God's people requires a change in a person's behavior, thinking and speech on one particular day of the week, which is the Seventh day. This makes the fourth commandment the most observable of all ten. Thus, none of the ten commandment gives an outward testimony to unbelievers of our obedience to God than the fourth. In other words, the observance of the sabbath more than any other commandment gives a picture of what a child of God is like.

In the book of Genesis God clearly gave the Seventh-day a very special designation! Its worthnoting that after each creation day, the bible uses the phrase "and there was evening and morning" the first, second, third.......sixth day. However when it came to the Seventh-day, God chose to speak about it differently! Genesis 2:1-3 says "Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made." Although the seventh-day begins with evening just like the other six days, it was much special for GOD RESTED IN IT, BLESSED IT AND SANCTIFIED IT! This is why you should get to experience God, through Sabbath observance.

Almost all the things that God created on the six days of creation can somewhat be appreciated by our five senses. We can see the beautiful skies, the stars and the green vegetation. We can hear the sound of the wind and feel it on our skin. We can smell the beautiful fragrance of the flowers on the field. However, what God made or instituded on the Seventh day can mainly be appreciated only through faith. We require a higher sense, that is the SENSE OF FAITH in order to believe that God rested, blessed, and sanctified the seventh day and requires us to worshipfully commemorate that day as well (Genesis 2:1-3)

Just as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was forbidden to be eaten in the garden of Eden as a sign of man's obedience to God, God also instituted the Sabbath as a sign of our obedience to Him. He wants us to avoid any kind of serville work, business engagements or secular activities as far as the seventh-day Sabbath is concerned. Sometimes the observance of the Sabbath may come at a cost, we may feel we are losing some worldly gains by not working on that day. In fact we sometimes are tempted to desecrate the sabbath for our own welfare, but God's words are simple: HANDS OFF IT, JUST OBEY, AND I WILL PROVIDE!

Sabbath-keeping now done biblically is perfectly suited and applies perfectly to the New World and the new heaven that God will make. This means when you and I engage in sabbath-keeping, we are engaging in a behavior that will be performed in the new heaven and the new earth. The old heaven will pass, the old earth will pass, people will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye but the Sabbath will remain, because Sabbath-keeping on this side of eternity is perfectly suited for Sabbath-keeping in the New World, there will be no change. A change in the heavens, a change in the earth, a change in people, but the Sabbath remains unchanged.

What makes the Sabbath Day Holy from all the other days ?

Can we choose any of the seven days of the week as our Sabbath day?Not at all! GOD has a Special day which he calls His Holy day! And He calls that the THE SABBATH DAY or THE SEVENTH DAY, it is not a sabbath or a seventh day. If that were the case, Monday or Wednesday or Thursday would suffice because each of the seven days is a seventh of the week but only one is THE Seventh. As you keep the Sabbath holy which is the seventh day of the week. May the Lord bless you for your faithfulness to Him and your honesty in following His Word.

In Genesis 1:26, the bible says “and God said let us make man in our image”. The original purpose for God when He made man was to have us be just like Him in appearance and character. Even after the fall, He still wants us to reflect His image. We however make God in our image when we create for ourselves 'a god' who permits all things. We are to think, speak and act like God. We are Never to make God in our image. if we do this we will engage in the worst form of idolatry. Anytime we observe the Sabbath and commemorate creation, we are to remind ourselves that God made us in His image and he always wants us to reflect him. And never the reverse of it!

God is first introduced to us in scripture as the Creator before He is introduced as our Savior. Creation as therefore the fundamental reason why God is worthy of our worship. God actually rest his Divinity on the fact that He is the Creator. Psalm 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols, but it is the LORD who made the heavens. Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being. The Sabbath commandment is the only commandment which points to the Creatorship of God, and it is thus the cornerstone for the Divinity and worship of God. To recognize and observe the seventh-day Sabbath honestly , is to accept the Divinity of God and to proclaim that He alone deserves worship.

Many people who know the Sabbath Truth are afraid to keep the Sabbath holy. They think that observing a full day per week as God commanded may put their businesses, careers , education and families at a disadvantaged end. Do not be afraid to obey God thinking that obedience to God will cause a deterioration in the quality of your life. Surely this is not the case! The seventh day is the Sabbath! and rather than see it as a threat to your livelihood, ask God to open your eyes to see it as a way to fellowship with God, a way to honor God, a way to remind yourself that when you place your life in the hands of God, you are enjoying the greatest insurance policy anyone could devise in heaven or on earth.

Although the highlight of creation was the creation of humanity, you and I should remember as we observe the seventh-day Sabbath that we are nothing without God. We may think we are something in a worldly context but without God we are nothing! If you and I have any meaning, if you and I have any value, it is that God places the value in us. Of ourselves, we are only dust, Without God we are nothing but with God we are elevated to the level that we can reflect the very character of God.

We must rest in what God has done, both His Creation and His Salvation. We look at Calvary and rest in the work of the Saviour by accepting Him with all our heart and our soul. This is a rest that exceeds or goes beyond just the sabbath, it is a rest that becomes a lifestyle, trusting and resting as Adam verily accepted what the Creator did in providing a perfect environment, so are we to accept what Jesus Christ did for us on that cross and also by His resurrection.

Observing the Sabbath is an act of love we owe to God. This must take precedence over any other earthly decree that conflicts with the Commandments of God. Matthew 10:37 tells us, “he that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” The Sabbath commandment must take precedence over any other earthly decree, whether from the government or from the family circles. In observing the Sabbath you are recognizing the highest authority there is, that is the authority of God.

At every level of the physical and spiritual, we must approach based on faith! This means as you keep the sabbath holy, you are engaging in the act of faith at the very highest level, because the Creator is also the Savior. So, we have a double mystery, creation, and salvation housed in the very same person – Jesus Christ. We must come to him by faith. Sabbath-keeping is an expression of faith at the highest level,–faith in conversion, which is spiritual creation, and faith in the physical creation which is how the Creator made the heaven and the earth.

The Sabbath Teaches how to respect Time. How we manage time during the week, will affect how we preserve the holiness of sabbath time. Accordingly, time all through the week must be viewed by us as a precious commodity to be handled carefully that God will put His seal of approval on the way we live our lives.