Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for you this week is that you find time in your often busy schedules to spend in fellowship with our Lord.  May you be refreshed by entering into His rest.  Read on to see where we’ve been and where we’re going.

For the second week in a row we had to contend with storms, but thankfully this time the results were not as serious and everyone made it home.  We ended rather abruptly so that people could stay ahead of the weather.  Linda sent along a great lesson to encourage us to carry on the work that God started in this church, using another example of an unlikely person leaving a lasting impression on the world around him.  In observance of Father’s Day, we did our traditional gift presentations and I shared with you some of the lessons I learned from my father.  You can find both in our Podcast and the message is also on Facebook.

It was great to see Tim come in last Sunday without a wheelchair.  He continues to improve.  I just spoke with Lupe on the phone and she is in good spirits.  She does not feel ready to come back to church but she is up and around and able to see to her own needs.  Her family has been taking good care of her.

Some time ago I was reading from Exodus 31, and I noticed something I know I had read many times before but that time it got my attention.  God commanded that Sabbath breakers should be executed!  There were several things in the law that one could die for, but most of them make some level of sense to me because of the harm those sins do in the lives of those who commit them and to those around them.  Sabbath breaking didn’t seem to me to belong in that category.  So my question was, “What am I missing?”  What makes the Sabbath so important, and how, if at all, does it relate to us as Christians redeemed by the blood of Jesus?

Most of the church today has relegated the Sabbath to the dust bin of Old Testament history.  If we mention it at all, it is within the context of Jesus’ run-ins with the Pharisees over what could and could not be done on it.  It’s a relic of legalism and nothing more.

Yet we have a history of applying some of the same stricture to Sunday as the Jews to the Sabbath?  Though they have largely disappeared from modern society, laws that restrict what one can do on Sunday used to be commonplace throughout the country.  Others insist that we must keep the Sabbath on Saturday and have formed their own sect to institutionalize the practice.

What would Jesus say to all of this?  I think it could be summed up in the last two verses of our primary text for this Sunday, Which will be from Mark 2:23-28.

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”(NASB)

The Sabbath is of great significance, but as we often do, we turned something meant for our good into a tool of division and oppression.  It was meant to signify something far greater than an enforced day off, whichever day you choose.  It was meant to draw us to the source of life!

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!  🙂

Love y’all!

Larry