²⁷ And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Rules….

We can always be caught up by lots of rules that instead of liberating us, binds us. I experienced first hand in Israel – Sabbath. I went to the comfort room and saw the Sabbath urinal. It was interesting because what makes the Sabbath urinal and the common urinal is that you don’t have to do anything to flush the urinal. Flushing the urinal is considered work.

Then I went out to the lobby and saw a Sabbath elevator. What makes this elevator different is that you don’t press the buttons. It stops automatically to all floors so you don’t have to literally lift a finger.

When Jesus said Sabbath was made for man and declared that He is the Lord of the Sabbath – he was going against the legalistic and oppressive rules the Pharisees had created during Sabbath. They had set up strict  Sabbath laws, which included 39 categories of forbidden activities. By doing this, the Pharisees had made themselves Lord of the Sabbath by lording over the people and telling them what they can and cannot do that on that day.

Sabbath in its essence is a time where we can wind down and spend time with God uninterrupted and worship God as a family. Practically, this means going to church with your loved ones and taking time together to serve the church community and creating memories with family, friends, and relatives that honors God. It can be the simple family dinner where you can talk about what God has been teaching you lately, or doing things as a family -celebrating the relationships God has blessed you with.

And as some Jews would think that Sabbath is just about a day of rest, let us not forget that the Lord declared that He is the Lord of the Sabbath which means that He is rest. The good news is that when I am in Christ, I am fully rested even in the midst of dangers and storms. We can always have rest in Him.

In this video, I shared about what rest is. I do hope and pray you will find rest in Christ as you go about your work on a daily basis.

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