The One Year Bible - Day 17

We have a teaching about the Sabbath today in Matthew 12 and a reminder about a major difference between us and God, something we were reminded about last night. With humans, it is all about "doing", for God, it is much more about "being". Why? Because, as Jesus said, it is out of the heart that people produce evil, the outward part of a man does not make him clean or unclean. In other words, doing good Christian things like praying, reading the Bible and going to church do NOT make us Christians because they are outward. Human beings like these things because they are provable and visible. God realises however that if our insides are changed - and that includes minds, emotions, spirit, character and relationship with God - then the outward works will follow completely naturally and unforced. If we find certain things in our ministry hard, it is probably because has more work to do inside us, something we don't always give time for.

In the case of the Sabbath, as Jesus said elsewhere, "Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath", it was a plan by which people could rest and be restored and be fruitful in their work, not something you blindly follow for the sake of it.