FredMcKinnon.Com

I’m being challenged every day as I read through the Book of Mark.  This morning I encountered the story in Mark 2 where the religious leaders challenged Jesus and His disciples because they “plucked heads of grain” on the Sabbath.  Jesus responded by saying “27 And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.28 So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”  (Mark 2: 27-28, ESV – YouVersion.Com)

It seems that Jesus’ response wasn’t challenging the existence of the “sabbath” so much; rather, He was challenging the layers of legalistic rules and regulations that the religious leaders applied to it.

Fast-forward to New Testament, modern-day Christianity.  What is our view of the “Sabbath”?

Immediately all of the church lingo comes to mind “every day is now a Sabbath”, “Jesus has become our Sabbath”, “the Sabbath was fulfilled on the cross”, etc. Blah, blah, blah – you see, I’ve been in church since I was steaming up my own diapers … I can quote all of the religious responses.  (and let me interject that I’m not trying to suggest that all of those responses are wrong!)

But this is my confession.  “I’m not sure I really understand all of those religious responses and how they truly apply”.

“Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy” is one of the Ten Commandments.  That means it’s important.  If that no longer applies, how about murder and adultery?  Are they no longer relevant?

I am not trying to wander back into the legalistic rules of the Old Covenant – God knew we could never keep those to begin with.  We needed the “Law” so that we could see our sin.  I do wonder if we carelessly throw it out completely, though.

I’d like your input.  What do you believe about “keeping the sabbath holy”?  Do you practice “sabbath” – and if so, what does it look like?  If you scroll down a bit, you’ll see “Leave a Reply” …  and that’s where YOU come into this discussion.

Last night Joy and I had a rare evening where all the kids were in bed before 8:30.  Both of us had plenty of work to do – but we decided to just have some time for the two of us.  We’d missed our morning prayer time together so we opted to watch a couple of Joyce Meyer episodes that Joy had saved on the DVR.

I don’t typically watch many “christian programs” on TV – and though I’ve always enjoyed Joyce Meyer’s teachings when I’ve heard them, I wouldn’t call myself a regular viewer.  She had author Gary Smalley on as her guest.

To say that I was challenged and pushed in my spirit would be an understatement.  Here is a 65+ year old man – a guy whose been ministering longer than I’ve been alive … and he’s sharing with the world how he’s battled lustful Read more »

Hey Everybody -

I just finished leading an hour of worship and prayer here at SSCC.  We do this every Wednesday at noon.  For obvious reasons we spent a lot of our time worshiping and praying about our economy and the current financial situation.

About half way into the meeting a lady came to the mic and begin praying some of the Psalms.  It’s electrifying to hear God’s Word being prayed back to Him.

After she finished I felt led to just encourage everyone that if they had a Scripture on their mind to stand up and read it out loud.  I repeated a couple of verses, my own paraphrase of them at least, and opened things up.

For the next while we had person after person speaking out and declaring God’s Word.  It was awesome.  At one point I found myself chuckling, thinking to myself “how could we ever be worried”?

My point – hearing God’s Word stirred my faith, my confidence, and made me ever-more aware of how incredible our God is.  It enhanced our time of worship in a big way.

So many times we think of “worship” as singing songs.  But the reading and celebrating of God’s Word is a beautiful act of worship.

“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12

With all that’s going on in our world these days – I’d like to hear from you.  What Scripture(s) are jumping around in your spirit today?

Fred