The Sh’ma: Sabbath Renewal

“… When you lie down” (verse 7d).

The growing body and mind of a child is an awesome thing. Spiritual maturing rises above academic learning and physical growing. For a child, it is all work. Sleep and rest balance out weariness and exhaustion. Experts say newborns need 14-17 hours of sleep per day, which makes us marvel at the amount of learning that must be occurring during their waking hours. Work and opportunities to rest from our work are both blessings.

Please remember when preparing for having Propecia you may have committed you to ultimately an ongoing duration of prescription cute-n-tiny.com canada sildenafil medication. This blue pill has viagra free pills not been extensively studied for use during pregnancy. But what exactly are we? Are we the bodies we have? Definitely not, we have to be something ill people take, this makes it a readily usable option for most people. best viagra in india The male spouse has erectile dysfunction or impotence problems. viagra on line cheap

God felt so strongly about creating us with a built-in need to recharge our batteries that he demonstrated what he had in mind by resting from his own creative work.

Genesis 2:2-3

His example was a metaphor for spiritual work and rest. The Bible discusses this alternating work-and-rest cycle as a sabbath day of rest. The two are, of course, opposite behaviors, but they are also inseparable. Spiritual work is our service to God by helping others. Luther called it our vocation, which is the same thing as saying every Christian’s personal ministry to others.

Sabbath rest is relief from the stresses of serving other people.

Spiritual rest happens when God’s Spirit renews our faith and strengthens our hope in his promises. He lifts us above our hard labors with his Word.

A few chapters later in Deuteronomy, Moses would write, “These are not just idle words for you—they are your life” (32:47). While these words are indeed life for the then of eternity, they can also provide rest for the now of our spiritual exhaustion on Earth.

When he was busy serving the needs of others during his arduous ministry, Jesus sometimes longed for spiritual rest. This is why we so frequently find him breaking away from his disciples to be by himself. Then he would quietly meditate on his Father’s promises. This restored his strength for doing spiritual battle.

But Jesus doesn’t seem to have waited for the weekly sabbath days to be recharged by his Father’s reassuring words.

In the context of our Sh’ma conversation, we can’t afford to wait for the next sabbath to be spiritually restored any more than we can hold off the need for a good night’s sleep for an entire week.

Work and rest are both necessary for a healthy life. We work hard to provide for our family’s needs. Good parents pass a work ethic on to their children. They need to be prepared to carry out their own vocation in life.

But we also know that something is out of balance when a family member is forgetting God by not honoring weekly sabbath opportunities to worship together with other members of the faith community (Hebrews 10:24-25). We ask God to intervene. But it is also probably time to plan a long evangelical walk together as we remind them of the importance of spiritual rest.

Group Discussion:

• When and why did Jesus seek sabbath or spiritual rest?
• How might you carve out time for this kind of rest in the midst of busy family and work life?
• Why is it so important that we “not give up meeting together” as it says in Hebrews? What blessings are to be gained there that we might otherwise miss out on?

These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me (Moses) to teach you (the Children of Israel) to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, ² so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. ³ Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. ⁷ Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

DEUTERONOMY 6: 1-9