I pray that you all have had a
blessed weekend and that your upcoming week will be fruitful as you allow God
to guide you through your journey.
After ushering in the Sabbath with
the lighting of the Sabbath Candles and the customary blessing over the children,
the Friday night Kiddush is recited. This prayer brings to mind Genesis
1:31-2:3 and reminds us that God sanctified the seventh day. Later in
this prayer we give thanks to God for choosing us for sanctification through
giving us His commandments.
The key elements are:
Six days God created everything that
was not Himself,
The seventh day He created nothing
and set that day apart as Holy,
The Sabbath is a memorial to His
creation AND freedom from Egyptian slavery,
He chooses His people for the
purpose of sanctification through an understanding of truth, and
We thank Him for choosing us for
this purpose.
I really want to focus on the last
element noted above. "We thank Him for choosing us for this
purpose". I would like each of us to stop for a minute and really, I
mean really, think about that. Can we honestly, to the depths of our
hearts, minds, and souls thank God for choosing us for the purpose of
sanctification? What does that really mean?
Let's take a minute and notice how
the Sabbath works and come to understand the incredible significance.
This day is a memorial to all that God created AND the freedom from
slavery. It is a celebration of the day in which God created nothing and
is the day considered as sanctified. In other words, for six days God
created all of the things that He would use to "point us to
Him". And then He gave us the seventh day to "spend with
Him". At the same time He is quick to point out how easy it is to
worship the created and forget about the creator. Our focus on the things
“He created to lead us to Him” ultimately is the chain of bondage that keep us
from spending our time "with Him". Herein lays the human
condition which leads to so much pain, suffering, and discontent. Simply
put, sanctification is the process of letting go of everything of this world
and everything created, even to the point of how people view us, the attention
we get, the things we have, and even our fleshly existence itself. With
that said, how would you define salvation?
The tough truth is this: Too
many of us spend too much of our time contemplating how many of the ways of
this world which we know to be unhealthy can we keep in our lives and still get
to heaven.
If this is true, are we really glad
that God chose us to be blessed with an understanding of His truth? If
this is true do we really believe that what He promises is even true? The
hard reality is this: Sanctification = salvation.
Oh boy, I already feel the nasty
responses heading my way so let me clarify. I am not saying that we must
be 100% sanctified in order to "earn" our salvation. What I am
saying is this: Faith is choosing to let God sanctify us as He uses the
circumstances of our lives to reveal to us His truth. I am saying that
Faith is allowing God to use the experiences of our life to show us where we
are too focused on the created (including other people) and how this is hurting
us, our loved ones, our community, and rendering us less useful to Him in
bringing His truth to the world. What I am saying is that if we don't let
God break our chains of bondage to His creation, we are not letting Him save us
from anything.
Making this personal I am going to
ask you again: Are you glad that God chose you? Are you glad that
He wants to show you where you are allowing yourself to conform to the ways of
this world? Are you glad that He wants to help you break the chains of
bondage that are hurting you and your loved ones? Are you willing to
trust Him in His promise, that His way is the truth and the life?
If you are then be honest with Him,
answer His call, look in the mirror He is holding up to you today, and let Him
show you a better way.
I pray this has brought you closer
to Him and somehow impacted your day in a mighty and powerful way.
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