ELUL DAY 12 – MEDITATIONS
POINTS TO PONDER FROM DAY 11
- After reading the last three meditations, has it become very clear that God wants us to put paganism and idolatry completelly out of our lives?
- Has it also become clear that our current culture needs to be taught all over again about the sins of paganism?
- Do today’s believers and followers of Yeshua know how many pagan practices are going on right now in local worship congregations?
- Why have we let ourselves become deceived? We are The Church, The Bride of Christ!
- Also, why are we not behaving in a way that our Groom would be proud of when He returns for us?
- There is a lot to consider here. How will you be praying for God’s True Church to wake up to the message God hates paganism and pagan practices?
- Write your thoughts here. Please begin to lift up prayers of repentance for the Church during this season of repentance and consecration. It is vitally important. The Church needs real prayer warriors that will never give up.
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ELUL DAY 12 MEDITATIONS
WORK – SIX DAYS SHALT THOU LABOR AND DO ALL OF THY WORK
THE OTHER SIDE OF KEEPING SABBATH
Moses is still up on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments directly from God. He has heard the fifth commandment which states we should observe the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. There is, however, another part of that commandment many people never seem to hear. Most forget about verse nine of Exodus 20 which proclaims “six days shall you labor and do your work.”
That part of the equation is just as equally important. If we are going to set aside a day to rest, we are also to be keeping the six other days of the week by working. That was God’s own original pattern. It is also the pattern He set for our times today. It would be careless to observe and keep the first portion of the commandment but leave the last portion out as if it were not necessary at all.
GOD CREATED MANKIND TO WORK
We human beings are made to work.
God created us to be that way.
Our Creator wants us to be useful in tending to the earth and taking care of those that we love. He desires that we be available to our brothers and sisters when they need our help. Our Father wants our actions of work to be self-sustaining, in that we are constantly providing for our needs by the labor of our hands, minds and hearts.
We are truly blessed when we understand we are able to work and provide for ourselves and our families. Do we even begin to understand this blessing?
Maybe not. Perhaps that is why God gave us a few rules called “commandments” which help us to understand things better. Our understanding is broadened because we are actually required to do them. It is in the “doing” that we learn how to live.
A COMMANDMENT FOR EVERYONE
God gave this commandment to ALL of us, not just part of us.
No matter who we are or what our standards in life may be at the moment, we ALL have something useful and good we can be doing to make a contribution to the betterment of society as a whole. We are all purposefully designed to be active and doing some form of work.
If we do not work as best we can when we are able, we break one of God’s commandments. Breaking a commandment equates to living in sin. The sin of doing nothing can sometimes be as great a sin as sins that actually require us to complete certain tasks. Idle hands seem to be the devil’s workshop.
True work isn’t always about pay. This doesn’t mean that someone who doesn’t get paid for the worthwhile things they do are living in sin. All work doesn’t receive pay. It is still work. I have this strong feeling that what we do not get paid for on earth will be given back to us in multiples when we reach eternity.
Unpaid work is how God contributes to our heavenly retirement fund. Just think of it as a heavenly 401K and rejoice. Also, God’s interest is higher than any you would receive on earth. Working for His Kingdom is a very good investment.
If you are a care-giver, a stay-at-home Mom, an elderly person who volunteers, or possibly a handicapped person who uses your attitude to cheer other people, you know you have work to do. You can count on your Father in Heaven to recognize and appreciate the fruit of those labors.
WORK ISN’T MEASURED BY A PAY CHECK
Let me be a bit repetitive so that this sinks into our sometimes twisted thoughts about a person’s “work.” A housewife works just as long and hard, if not harder, than a person with a professional career. Mothers tending to children work harder than anyone on earth. A senior citizen may not be able to do a lot of physically demanding tasks. However, they can mentor and advise people with the wisdom they have gained through a life well-lived.
People who are not able to find paid employment can offer their services in other ways. This serves as their work until they do find employment. I’ve known many handicapped people using the gift of giving their time to listen to others. They are often able to turn a physically perfect person’s life around. This “work” can become their mission from God.
A smile is a gift that everyone can give. Many people often have nothing but a smile to offer. However, that smile can become their work. This is their purpose from God. They must take it seriously. One smile can make a huge difference.
Everyone has a part to play in God’s Kingdom. If you can’t think of anything more worthwhile to do, just try smiling at someone. Try your hand at making someone laugh. We all have SOME type of worthwhile work we can do on this earth. God meant for all of us to be using the capabilities and gifts He has given us for good in sustaining life.
He COMMANDED us to be about our work for six days of the week. This is a vital portion of the fourth commandment.
A COMMANDMENT BRINGING BALANCE
Learning how to work is learning one of the dance steps to life.
Are you doing this?
The two sides of this fourth commandment (work and rest) balance out our lives.
We work and we rest. Again, we work and we rest. Work is the rhythm Heaven has composed for the first six days of our weeks. Then we rest for a day. Life is the dance. This is the rhythm. Staying in sync with God’s patterns makes for a much happier life.
In regard to work within the process of working and resting, we often find it takes doing one thing to be able to fully appreciate the other. These are the laws God put into motion. Such laws help us to realize the activity of work is best for us. It improves our lives in every way. Work also helps to contribute to the lives of others. Keeping this commandment of work and rest brings balance into our daily lives.
Keeping Sabbath makes our work a pleasure.
Keeping work makes our Sabbath a joy!
BUSY PEOPLE ARE HAPPY PEOPLE
This concept of work and rest seems to be lost on today’s society. That is a very sad fact.
When a society leaves God out of every equation of life, the first thing to go is the work ethic of the people. They begin to make government their god. Many of today’s citizens stand with their hands out and their minds empty. In this type of society, there is more time for anger, resentment, and hate.
People who work are too busy to hate. They don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves!
Those who make a life habit of purposeful work are all about loving those that they labor for. Their lives are about helping those who have no means of helping themselves.
Keeping the work six/rest one pattern God originally established turns the worldly chaos of too much time into peaceful moments and happy memories.
LOOKING BACK IN HISTORY
There was once upon a time, and not so very long ago, a time when blessed and free people earnestly followed scripture and tried to do what they thought pleased God. They did these things because of what they learned from studying the Word of God.
Work was seen as good, honest, moral behavior.
People worked in order to be accountable to God.
They had a healthy fear of God. Everyone KNEW if they did not work and do their part to maintain the world, they were breaking God’s fourth commandment. Then society evolved to a place where many began to say “God doesn’t really matter. As as long as I’m “good” I can pretty much do as I please.”
After that realization came into play people began to make their own definition of “good.” This new definition of what was right included neither work nor a Sabbath rest.
BECOMING THEIR OWN LITTLE GODS
This type of world-view focuses on a fearless immorality. In today’s society, the work ethic appears to have changed. Many do not feel they need to be making a contribution. Actually, they usually feel just the opposite. Today many feel they automatically deserve to be happy. Some think they should be given provision simply because they exist. These types of people are very pleased to be their own bosses and to answer to no one except themselves.
This seems to be an attempt by some to re-make the world. It is the way they attempt to change the basic rules of the universe God set into motion when He began creation. The new majority tends to believe all of this ancient talk about work is just an old worn out fairy tale. So, they quit having a work ethic. This part of society stops paying attention to those things that “other people” decided were moral. No one realizes that “the other people” are only responding in obedience to God.
Now huge sections of society insist on making their own rules. They do so without thinking about the fact that they set themselves up as their own little gods. Just as long as it makes them happy. Such people believe they are entitled to a work-free life. In this entitled lifestyle they choose to answer to no one.
Such individuals tend to see work as a punishment instead of the blessing that God intended it to be.
Then they wonder why they can’t find happiness.
CREATED IN GOD’S IMAGE
From the place of their own selfish reasoning, many of the masses miss out on something very crucial to human happiness. They miss out on the fact that work can bring value and meaning to a person’s days. It appears these types of personalities can’t see that work increases the glory of mankind. Work makes our days much more interesting and rewarding.
Real truth reveals the fact that the greatest work within all of us can glorify and honor God.
These people, by making up their own laws, miss out on the joy of providing for a family and loved ones. They miss out on the privilege of being able to help another fellow human being who is having a hard time or a bad day. One of the things they miss the most is the opportunity to begin to repair and restore the world.
In this ungrateful lifestyle of never working, everything is simply taken for granted. There is nothing special to look forward to or hope for in the future. By rejecting God’s ways they miss the dignity that comes from being created in God’s image. Also, they miss the joy that comes from being creative with the talents God created within each individual person. In this type of lifestyle it is impossible to discover and explore everyone’s unique and distinct abilities.
The blessing of seeing what work can do for civilization and society as a whole is totally lost to this workless mindset or world-view.
WORK IS THE BLESSING OF THE FREE
Open up your mind and take a survey of the whole world. What countries seem to be suffering and in despair? Are these not countries which have demanding governments of strict controls? Do they not seem to be greedy governments which have failed to implement a Godly work ethic among their people?
There are starving people living in poverty all over the globe, Many of these come from countries where their citizens are oppressed. The people are not allowed the freedom to work as they desire. These people do not live under the freedom of a system that promotes free-enterprise. There isn’t much they can do to make their lives better and more abundant. They have no opportunity to use the talents God gave them.
No answers are available for these people. The cycle of poverty goes on and on. This cycle happens because either they are not allowed to choose their own work, or they do not share the mind-set to work and improve their situation. If these people groups share God’s view of work, they cannot implement it because the governments have oppressed the people. No one is allowed the freedom to live out God’s ways and reap the joy which comes from a continuous pattern of time’s rhythm of work and rest in their daily lives.
In such places, every day is just the same old drag. Nothing ever changes. Fresh new things never happen. Nothing they do actually matters. They lose all motivation to thrive.
This isn’t the way God intends for us to live. In God’s economy all work is important and all work is rewarded.
OUTSIDE HELP IS USELESS FOR THIS MENTALITY
This isn’t ALWAYS the case, but much of the description above is true for many places in the world where people are forced to live in poverty. Well wishers go on missions, hoping to make a positive difference. They see good changes come about, but when they leave everything regresses back to poverty and want again.
The people have not been taught the pattern of work and rest as provided by God.
Poverty and oppression isn’t the way God wants His people to live.
GOD WANTS US TO HAVE JOYFUL AND ABUNDANT LIVES
God wishes for each person to have an abundant joyful life. He desires that people live in communities where they are able to use the gifts He has given them in their daily lives. Our Father and Creator set up the commandments so that we can learn the best ways to live and work. The problem is simple. Nations choose not to follow or accept the commandments. Their people suffer.
It is greedy and selfish men who have brought poverty and troubles upon mankind. Such have perverted the natural patterns of God which help a worker to thrive and survive in abundance.
GOD’S PEOPLE TAKE SABBATH RULES FOR GRANTED
On the other hand, there are those countries and people groups who DO have the freedom we speak of. Yet, the people abuse it and take it for granted. Perhaps too many generations have had life too easy. The generations have not taught the ethics of work to their children.
So, many do not appreciate their right to work. Therefore, they do not understand God’s best ways to provide for themselves and their families from the fruits of their labor. Honest work and a decent job seem to be beneath a person’s dignity. Some just want everything handed to them on a silver platter. Unfortunately, all others have to be about the work that makes those silver platters available.
None of us should be considered “elite” and above the standards of others.
There is no cast system in God’s Kingdom. Everyone must do their fair share.
THE FRUITFUL HARVEST OF WORK
Contrary to what today’s cultures may have taught us, God’s way is one of equality and equal distribution. There is equal distribution of work and equal distribution of rest for everyone who wants to obey Him. All who work get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
Work is one way God gave to us to help redeem the problems from the curse caused by man falling prey to the ways of the enemy of God. Our work by itself can’t actually redeem us, but, coupled with the perfect work of Christ we can have hope.
It was the holy work of Jesus on the cross that brought redemption for our sins. His work on this earth brought us salvation for our souls. The work of Christ is the most important and the most fruitful work that has ever been done.
Unfortunately as mere humans, we cannot repair our own souls. We are too sinful. Our days are full of imperfections. Christ was the only perfect, sinless life who ever lived in the body of a man on this earth. Saving us was His work. He did it joyfully and willingly. Yeshua Messiah wanted to do this work for us. He loved us that much.
FOLLOW THE BEST EXAMPLE
Messiah is our best example for the good and righteous life we all seek. We find Him beside us all the way, both in resting on the Sabbath and in working through all the six other days of our weeks. Yeshua did his work all through the week. On Sabbath He rested and enjoyed time and worship with other believers.
The work we all have to offer, combined with the work of Christ in our souls, helps us to temporarily repair the decay caused by sin. This will be very helpful until the time that Jesus returns again and makes all things new.
The laws of God keep and redeem the earth and the creation. To work six days a week is one of those laws.
These laws have been broken over and over again. They were broken to the point of the ruin of all the souls of mankind. However, Jesus came to repair this. Once He repaired our souls, we became strengthened enough to participate with Him in this holy process of keeping God’s commandments. Some of us began doing our work at the required times so that we can be doing our part to restore what He has designed for us to be.
In this very small way we play our part in the redemption story. We all have a part which works along and beside the work of Christ.
Yet, there are still so many broken pieces which must come together. God’s way is the only way it will happen.
TIKKUN OLAM
Keeping God’s laws in grace and love are how the brokenness begins to be restored.
The love of Yeshua Messiah finishes what we cannot do by ourselves.
Jewish people have a saying: “tikkun olam.” These words are often spoken and taken out of context. They mean “repair the world.”
In order to even begin to repair the world one must begin to reverse the curse of sin within the world. God gave us the commandments to help us with this task. He sent Messiah to finish what could not be accomplished any other way.
With the help of Yeshua, we all have a part to play on the stage of the world. We have a part to restore what is left of what God created and to make others aware that the life and love of Christ is being fulfilled.
Work was the curse that came to us by breaking the law of God. Now by “work” we begin our part of the restoration of the world from this curse. It is a great and mysterious reversal that is a constant and continual process of the saving of the souls of the earth and the restoration of the earth itself.
We must use our physical bodies, our minds, our hearts and our souls to work with God in the process He is using to save us and all of creation. Each time we keep a law in obedience, it then counteracts the death and destruction process of the earth we have caused with sin.
IT STARTS BY WORKING FOR SIX DAYS
Repairing the world starts by working six days and resting on the seventh. We must pattern our lives just as Our Father did in the beginning. Believers and followers of Messiah must follow God’s patterns of how to spend our time.
The fourth commandment is all about keeping God’s time and His ways during the times of our lives. This is just as important today as it was in the days of Moses, maybe even more so. We know time is drawing to an end. In these last days we (those who belong to Christ) are anxiously awaiting the coming of our Groom, Jesus Christ.
The whole earth seems to sigh and say with those prophets of old; “How long O LORD?”
VERSE
Colossians 3:22-24, Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye service, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God; And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.
PRAYER
Lord, please teach us how to be thankful for our work. We trust You to provide our daily bread and we know it comes from Your blessing of the fruit of our labors. Amen.
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