HOW I KEEP THE SABBATH

I have a holy convocation, usually consisting of listening to "Coffee With The Radio Ranch Ranglers" on SFAWBN in the morning or listening to recordings of sermons I have. I try to attend Christian events taking place on Saturdays so I can keep the sabbath with fellow Christians.

I try not to do anything having to do with money. I don't roll change, try not to take money for sales, and try not to buy or sell anything on Saturdays. This includes patronizing any businesses, although if I'm at a Christian event and a fellow Christian who isn't a sabbatarian pays for something I will let them.

I just generally try to rest. I look upon this day as a day where I don't have to do anything I don't want to do.

I try not to think about my jobs.

I find if I do work for pay on sabbath I don't feel rested the upcoming week, but if I attend a Christian event, even if it takes up the entire day, I still feel rested.

Update 7/22/2019: Reading this post now, it sounds so legalistic and crass.

Since that time, I have relaxed my attitude about the sabbath considerably. While I still honour Saturday as the Lord's Day and try to minimize my dealings with making money, I don't have the strict attitude to the sabbath I had before.

This change in outlook started shortly after I began attending a Bible study at my local Pentecostal church a few years back. It is more of an informal Bible study and functions a lot like we see the early church's times of assembling functioning in 1 Corinthians 14, with everybody contributing, both teaching each other, selecting songs and giving testimonies. It was a couple months after I first started going to these Bible studies I realized that, for all practical purposes, I was assembling with the saints in more or less the manner God intended on Tuesday nights. I'll still listen to Christian music or teaching on the sabbath and am glad when I can attend a good Christian conference on a Saturday, but for all practical purposes, I keep part of the sabbath Tuesday night.

I actually quite regret my strict attitude toward the sabbath because it ruined my twenties and early thirties. I could have gone for coffee with Christian friends and had fellowship on a few occasions but I had that legalistic stricture in my mind about not buying or selling on that day. That attitude also hampered my going to clubs and other events at commercial establishments on the party nights of the week. Maybe if I hadn't had that attitude I might have found a girlfriend or at least some meaningful interaction with the opposite sex, something which has alluded me all my life and continues to this day.

Now my attitude is, "I sought the Lord this Saturday for a period of time; that's all that's required, whatever else I do with this day." I am by no means saying I do the bare minimum of worship, but I am saying I now recognize the point of the sabbath is, on the one hand, that man should commune with God, which we should do everyday, but if the busyness and requirements of life get too much the other six days, even if you have to work on Saturday or Sunday or whatever day you are satisfied in your own mind is the sabbath, the Lord's Day, then make sure to carve some time out of that day to exclusively focus on and exalt Christ.

This of course means I've also changed my attitude to having to work for pay on Saturday. As of right now I am totally unemployed, but if by a literal miracle I got a job and it required working Saturday, I would work on it but regard the day in the manner I advised in the above paragraph.

Paul told Timothy a man who doesn't provide for his family is worse than an infidel so, all you Seventh-day Adventists, that would today amount to, "He who does not provide for his own family is worse than a Catholic." You need to provide for your family so if you absolutely have to work on sabbath in order to accomplish this, do it.

That, of course, was the other big kicker about my attitude to sabbath observance. I finally realized that, since I don't work, not even the nickel and dime work from home stuff I was doing when I first wrote this post, there was no point having a strict attitude about the seventh day if I didn't work the other six.