“11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore, the
LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:10 – 11 KJV)
“Worship- Is to quicken the conscious God, to feed
the mind with the truth of God, to open up the heart to the love of God, to
devote that will to the purpose of God.” (William Temple) The word “Sabbath”
and “Seventh” does not come from the same original word. The Hebrew for
“Sabbath” is “Shabbath” meaning “Intermission” or “Cease”… from work. You may
not know how much encouragement you gave to pastors when you showed up on
Sundays for worship.
Few years ago, the world watched as three gray
whales, icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska, floated battered and bloody, gasping
for breath at a hole in the ice. Their only hope: somehow to be transported
five miles past the ice pack open sea. Rescuers began cutting a string of
breathing holes about twenty yards apart in the six-inch-thick ice. For eight
days they coaxed the whales from one hole to the next, mile after mile. Along
the way, one of the trio vanished and was presumed dead. But finally, with the
help of Russian icebreakers, 2 of the whales swam to freedom. (Copied) In a
way, Worship is a string of breathing holes the Lord provides his people.
Battered and bruised in a world frozen over with greed, selfishness, and
hatred, we rise for air in church, a place to breathe again, to be loved and
encouraged, until that day when the Lord forever shatters the ice cap. (Craig
Brian Larson, Arlington Heights,
Illinois. Leadership, Vol. 11, no 2)
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy
God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy
manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is
within thy gates;” (Exodus 20:10 KJV)
