Sabbath: The Rhythms of Rest

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Genesis 1:1-31, Exodus 20:8-11, Exodus 16:14-31, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Psalm 92:1-15, Isaiah 58:13.

Memory Text: “Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made” (Genesis 2:3).

Who can imagine what the acts of creation — light amid darkness, oceans brimming with life, birds suddenly taking flight — must have been like? And the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve? We can’t even begin to grasp how God did it.

But then, after all of this active creating, God turned His attention to something else. At first glance, it did not seem as spectacular as leaping whales or dazzling feather displays. God simply made a day, the seventh day, and then He made it special. Even before humanity would dash off on our self-imposed stressful lives, God set a marker as a living memory aid. God wanted this day to be a time for us to stop and deliberately enjoy life — a day to be and not do, to celebrate the gift of grass, air, wildlife, water, people, and most of all, the Creator of every good gift.

This invitation would continue even after the first couple was exiled from Eden. God wanted to make sure that the invitation could stand the test of time, and so, right from the beginning, He knit it into the very fabric of time itself.

During this week, we will study God’s wonderful invitation to enter into a dynamic rest, again and again, with every seventh day.