Exodus 23:12 (ESV Strong's)
“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.
Subject: Work and Refreshment
When God made the heavens and the earth He did it in six days. That is a lot of work for that amount of time. On the seventh day, He rested. God did not rest because He was out of energy, had a big day the next day, or wanted to catch some game on the tube. God rested for one simple reason: To give us a pattern for our lives. God did not need to create the sun and the mood to make a 24 hour day. He did so because He created a people who need rest. We were created for rest, yet we do everything in our lives to avoid it. God established a law for the nation of Israel to force them to rest on the sabbath. In the above verse it tells us why: So that we "may be refreshed.". Yet, ever since the industrial revolution, our modern society, has moved farther away from any day of rest to a 60-70 hour work-week. All the researchers tell us that a good nights sleep and scheduled time for refreshment (down-time) is profitable and beneficial to our well-being and work product. Yet, we press on to more and more work. Almost ever invention in the modern society has been to make work easier (the vacuum, the microwave, email), yet, we plunge deeper an deeper into more and more work. Perhaps God's example and His command are more important than we think. When we are to be taking time to refresh, we pride ourselves on NOT refreshing. God set the seasons and times to give us rest. Jesus took time to rest. Yet, our pride, ambition and demand makes us proud that we send emails while we are on vacation.
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