Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat shalom everyone! The sun is starting to set here at the moment, and the delicious smell of food is drifting through the whole house. What a wonderful time during the week when we can just take a deep breath and spend more time together and in the Word! Time to recharge our spiritual batteries and just soak in God's love and blessings like no other time in the week!

Shabbat is such an amazing time during the week. We get to celebrate such an amazing feast once a week! How amazing is that! It's time to rejoice and really dig in deeper to our faith and spend more time with our Father. He set aside this day for us, so that we can be reminded of His love and goodness, and actually stop and spend time with Him. ''Shabbat was made for man, and not man for Shabbat. So the Son of Man is Lord even over the Shabbat.'' Mark 2:27-28

That is such a powerful verse. The Lord made Shabbat for us. We were not made for Shabbat, it was made for us, for our good! God knew from the very beginning, from the days of creation, that we as people can get sidetracked very easily, and without that weekly reminder set in place to remind us what is really important in life, we would soon loose the path.

Yeshua is Lord even over the Shabbat. What a wonderful time to just stop and rest, spending time with Him. He is in the Shabbat! Shabbat is often used to give us a tiny glimpse into what the millennial Kingdom will be like. We are blessed when we keep the Shabbat. But why?

Shabbat is the highest day on the entire weekly calendar. The entire week leads up to this day! It's such a privilege to prepare for Shabbat and be ready to enter into the rest it offers us and refresh ourselves in what's important.

''Have your belt strapped on an lamps burning. Be like people waiting for their master to return from a wedding feast, so that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Happy are those slaves whose master finds them alert when he comes. Amen, I tell you, he will prepare himself and have them recline at table, and will come and serve them. And if he comes in the second or even the third watch and finds them so, they will be happy... You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you don't expect.'' Luke 12:35-38, 40

Let us strive to be ready for the coming of our Master and the eternal Shabbat rest that accompanies Him! Let's have our Shabbat tables set and our lights and candles burning. Let's wash and put on our best clothes. Let's be ready to welcome the Shabbat into our homes in anticipation for the coming Shabbat!

Let's not make Shabbat a slave to the rest of the week. How often do we work like crazy all week and then slide in on Friday evening and just crash for the next 24 hours? ''Thank goodness it's Shabbat!'' we exclaim with a long outlet of breath. ''now I can recharge and be ready to do it again next week!''

Although we all do it, that's not really honoring Shabbat, is it? We're making Shabbat a slave to the rest of the week. We're making Shabbat stoop down and serve the rest of the week, serve our wants, and our egos. That's not sanctifying the Shabbat! The entire week leading up to Shabbat should serve Shabbat. Shabbat is the highest day in the week! Let's instead learn to work all week so that we can honor the Lord on Shabbat by keeping it in a God-honoring way. Shabbat is the highlight of the week, the day God scheduled to meet with us, just in case we didn't get to it during the week.

There's a very interesting concept I came across recently. Did you know that the Jewish people don't do their cleaning, and sometimes not even their cooking, on a Friday? It struck me as kind of strange, too. My Friday is generally the most chaotic day of the week! It's a full day preparing for Shabbat! Yet, that's not the way the Jewish people do it. They do all their cleaning and most of their cooking on a Thursday. On Fridays, married couples might go out to a coffee shop on a date, they might have a nice afternoon nap, and take time setting the table beautifully and dressing in their best clothes. Why do they do that? They do it because they want to enter into Shabbat well rested so that they can spend even more time in Torah study and prayer, instead of being so exhausted by the week's work that they can only do a little and then sleep the rest of the day away. They spend Shabbat resting, studying Torah, teaching their children Torah, praying, and spending time as a family.

I think that's a lot like what the Bible portrays, that six days you shall labor and do all your work, and rest on the seventh day. For 6,000 years, leading up to the eternal Shabbat, we are called to prepare for the coming of the King and the Kingdom. We aren't supposed to work like crazy so that when the Kingdom comes we can just collapse and say, ''Hey, glad to be here. About time!''

No, we work and prepare in anticipation for the coming wedding feast. Just like a bride prepares her dress and trusoe meticulously for the day of her wedding, we need to learn to prepare for Shabbat all throughout the six days of labor so that we can enter into Shabbat, not to treat it like the rest of the week, or worse. Let's strive to be like the servants who waited for their master's return, with our lights lit, our meal prepared, and ready to spend the rest of Shabbat with Him in joy and thanksgiving.

Let's work in the other six days of the week to enter into Shabbat ready to meet with out King. He is the Lord over Shabbat, and He's so excited to spend the rest of eternity with us! Let's be ready to honor Shabbat as it should be honored, practicing for the coming Shabbat by celebrating the weekly one.

Let's be ready and fully awake and energised to meet our Bridegroom!

May you all have a beautiful and meaningful, restful and joy filled Shabbat! Shabbat Shalom!