Holy Habits: the sabbath pt 2
You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your habits.
Your consistency in your holy habits will lead to explosive growth.
Consistency breeds victory
“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”
Exodus 20:8-11 NLT
If God needed the sabbath, and Jesus needed the sabbath, then you and I need the sabbath.
“Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you.”
Exodus 31:14a NIV
Exodus 20 he commands us to remember it in exodus 31 he tells us to observe it or keep it.
Sabbath has a dual purpose, not only stopping, but to delight in something.
When we stop, we rest, we reflect, and delight in God. Our desire for Him is awakened within us.
1.) we need to practice the sabbath once a week.
“Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!”
Mark 2:27-28 NLT
Most peoples lives are filled with restlessness instead of restfulness.
2.) The difference between a day off and the sabbath is rest and worship.
It’s not that you just need a day off, you need a sabbath.
“We have become perhaps the most emotionally exhausted, psychologically overworked, spiritually malnourished people in history.”
“But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 NKJV
What renews your strength? Rest and worship.
It’s not an event of worship, it’s a lifestyle of worship.
The only day God blessed was the day of rest.
3.) God commanded the sabbath, He blessed it, and He called it Holy
“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Genesis 2:2-3 NIV
4.) You must break the cycle of accumulation and accomplishment.
For six days, work with everything you have. On the 7th day, it’s time to break the cycle by resting and worshiping in His house.
“Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.” So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
I Kings 19:5-9 NKJV
Sabbath rest will give you strength for your journey.
