ESOCS Devotional 7 February 2024 – Sabaath, God’s Delight
MEMORY VERSE: “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD, honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words.”Isaiah 58:13
TEXT: ISAIAH 58:13-END
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
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In today’s passage, we find God addressing one of the grievances that He held against Israel, not keeping the Sabbath sacred. Israel had desecrated the Sabbath and had turned it into just another empty religious observance, just like their fasting. Instead of setting the day aside to focus on Him, they were following their own desires and pursuits.
Instruction in the Bible as to how to keep the Sabbath is not given in specific detail but in broad principles that cover a multitude of specifics. If we are being led by God’s Spirit, we should be able to determine what is right. Maybe not the first time around, maybe not the tenth time around, but eventually, we will see that we are doing something wrong and make a change. Or, if we find out that we have been doing it right, we will probably intensify our efforts to do it better. If we are being led by it, God’s Spirit will gently compel us towards the perfection of the One from whom that Spirit emanates.
How can one call the Sabbath “a delight”? Like everything else in life, we delight in what we recognize as being valuable and in what we do well. Doing something well is fun. Doing something poorly is a burden, and we wish nobody were around to see us do it so poorly. On the other hand, if we do something well, we want to make sure that everybody watches us. This is not a wrong principle because if we are doing something right, we will be a fitting witness for God. The Sabbath must be regarded as holy. It is different; it is not common. We must hold it in deep respect—the same kind of respect contained in “the fear of God,” the kind of fear that prohibits us from falling on our knees before a statue because it is idolatry, which we do not want to commit because of our reverence for God. We need to have a similar respect toward the Sabbath. This attitude should dominate during this period of time.
- You can make the Sabbath day a delight through keeping it sacred for God and paying attention to those things He hates and never do them. This is part of the love and true fear of God.
- Lord, help me to cultivate the true consciousness for the things that make me your true child.
Further Reading: Micah 3:1-end; Matthew 13:10-23; 1 John 3:1-11
ESOCS Devotional 7 February 2024
