“And he said unto them, the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” Mark 2:27-28

In Jewish culture, Sabbath is 25 hours between Friday evening to Saturday evening. It is a time for rest and spiritual connection. They prepare for the Sabbath all day Friday before sunset by cleaning, preparing meals and lighting candles. Jews do not cook or use electricity on the Sabbath so all this must be done in advance. Along with no electricity, they refrain from doing any basic work task such as hammering, sewing, they do not watch TV, answer work calls or check emails. The best way to sum it up, they rest, attend worship, spend time with family and eat. That is it.

When I think of Sabbath, growing up in the bible belt, my idea of it is, you get up to go to church, come home and eat, rest for a couple of hours and get back up and go back to church and it’s actually very exhausting and can become legalistic. Example, When I tell people that we do not have a Sunday night service, they gasp and want to desperately know why as if I have confessed to the most despicable southern Baptist sin. It became legalistic when we thought that church attendance put us at the top of Gods list of “good Christians”. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE church, and I am very partial to our church. Our Sunday morning services are a breath of fresh air to my soul, but most importantly, it is the time we give to God to worship Him for he is SO WORTHY. I am also so excited about our increase in dinners, fellowship and a good meal is just a match made for Sundays! I also love that God made sabbath for you and me. He gave us a day for us to set aside the distractions of this world; to rest our minds, emotions and bodies so we can better serve throughout the week.

When we actually take a deep dive into sabbath and why it was given to us and how we can use it for our benefit, I think it would do us so much good.

This does take work. I try to make a crockpot meal or a make-ahead casserole, get my ducks in order so that after church, I get my belly full and just rest. I will admit, I do not rest from TV, I love a good Nascar race and a good MLB game. I do though, put aside my phone and really try to turn my brain off from my Monday to-do list. If the weather is nice, I enjoy my afternoon cup of coffee while sitting in the rocking chair, take a walk around the yard and just keep my heart and mind in a state of rest and connection to God, but I ain’t gonna lie either, ya girl naps real hard too. Nothing like waking up on a Sunday afternoon and trying to figure out what day or even year it is.

So, if you are in the resting category for sabbath, you go girl! If you, like me, tend to gravitate to the busy side and don’t let yourself truly rest, it will take some preparations and changes, but I know you can do it and I want you to do it. I want that for you, and I know that God does too.

Down below I am going to link in a sermon that I recently watched. I have only a handful of preachers that I listen to as I work throughout the day. They all have different styles of preaching, but I appreciate those differences and their stance on the truth of the Word of God. I get kinda tickled when I explain them to others, preacher Tyler Gaulden is what I like to jokingly call my “Bapticostal” preacher, Voddie Baucham is my present-day Apostle Paul (Voddie did pass away in Sept 2025, really broke my heart for us, not for him though) and Josh Howerton is fairly new to my list but I have enjoyed his preaching.

The Most Ignored Commandment in the Bible | Pastor Josh Howerton

As I end this, I do just want to Thank God for keeping us all safe this morning. Having a tornado warning in our area is rare and very scary. I prayed that the Lord would keep us safe, let it pass by and He did just that. It does make me chuckle a little though, a confirmed tornado, thunderstorm and now pouring the snow all in one day. Western NC is not for the faint of heart!

Love you all,

Elizabeth Grace.