Made for us....

I've just been reading the 2nd chapter of marks gospel and was struck by verse 27:

'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'

Amazing! A whole day made for us so that we can delight in God, it was made for us! I reckon that too often Sunday becomes a day when we do more restricting than liberating. For example don't go to this place or don't watch that. If negative rules are the extent of the sabbath then it's going to be dull. There has to be a postive as well as a negative. We most seek our joy in God especially on Sunday. This comes from regulating what we don't do but more importantly what we DO do.

Matthew Henry says:

The sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery. God never designed it to be an imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves.

'If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your [worldly] pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the Lord honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own [worldly] pleasure, Nor speaking your own words, Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord' (Isaiah 58v13)

'For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome' (1 John 5v3)