How Keeping The Sabbath Day Holy Blesses My Life
Today I’ve been asked to talk on “How The Sabbath Day Blesses My Life”.
Recently I was invited to spend the long weekend with my friend and her family in Renmark. I was really excited to spend the weekend with multiple friends doing activities on the river. I was super excited until we found out the trip consisted of being there on a Sunday. If I went on this trip I would miss out on church, my brother's Sacrament talk, taking the Sacrament and family dinner. That day my friend Makayla and I had also been asked to teach a lesson in Young Women’s.
After several prayers, discussing it with my parents and the help of the Holy Ghost I decided it would be a better idea if I didn’t go to Renmark. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to go, but I knew I had made the right decision.
Sure enough everyone who went on the trip had plenty of fun, but the day they got back everybody that went on the trip had all caught Covid! By choosing to go to church and keep the Sabbath Day holy I was able to take the Sacrament and feel of the Spirit AND not catch covid and have to isolate.
That week when Makayla and I gave our lesson in Young Women’s, it was on The Ten Commandments. The fourth commandment from Exodus 20 verse 8 is:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
It was almost like the lesson topic we had been given was trying to teach me a lesson as I prepared it.
The Lord made the Sabbath Day when he was creating the earth. He worked for six days then rested on the 7th. He told us to remember it, not just as an ordinary day, but as a day to keep holy. It is easy to forget the Lord, but when we have time set aside for Him on Sunday we can remember him.
In the Bible Dictionary the definition for 'holiness' is “according to the Old Testament, things or places were holy that were set apart for a sacred purpose. The opposite of holy is therefore common or profane.”
I like the way it says things or places were "set apart" for a "sacred purpose". It makes me think that going to church has a sacred purpose and is not just something we get dragged along to. Sunday is set apart from the other days and is not a day like the others where we go to work and school, it’s there for us to remember Heavenly Father and Jesus.
The Sabbath Day isn’t just all about going to church. It’s about keeping the whole day Holy. Elder H. Aldridge Gillespie of the Quorum of Seventy said in General Conference:
“Today is the Sabbath. It does not end when we leave this session; it does not end if someone calls on the phone or knocks at our door inviting us to come out and play, go for a ride, to a ball game, or shopping; it does not end because we are on vacation or someone is visiting us, whether member or non-member.
The Lord commanded: “Go ye out from among the wicked. Save yourselves. Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
The Sabbath lasts all day!”
Some of the things I like to do on the Sabbath are spend time with my family, do family history, go on walks, read my scriptures and do Come Follow Me with my family and cousins. The blessings might not seem that big, but I know that they are there. I think it’s a blessing in itself that we get to go to church and do all these other activities. I don’t have to worry about other stuff like school and homework. On Saturdays we drive around a lot in a rush and usually struggle to do everything on the agenda, but come Sunday we can just relax and think about Heavenly Father and take the opportunity to feel the Holy Ghost.
It is important that we do keep the whole day Holy.
As the Lord was giving the Ten Commandments to Moses in Exodus 20, He also said:
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
I know that I receive blessings and that we all receive blessings through keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Jesus made the Sabbath and set the example in resting, so I know he wants us to keep the Sabbath Day holy and that it is important.
In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen
From a Sacrament Meeting talk given in Adelaide, South Australia
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