The Best Gift
We can ever be thankful to God for the gift of life, and everything good and lovely. But the most precious of all gifts He has given man is the gift of Himself. His presence, and involvement in our lives is the greatest of His gifts. In the garden of Eden the scripture tells us how God walked in the garden at the cool of the day (morning and evening) to commune with our first parents. God knew we needed instruction, guidance, and fellowship. Not only did we have a need, but He wanted our fellowship.

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” Revelation 4:11

Among all the gifts that one can give in a relationship is the gift of their time. All the gifts that money can buy will not equal the spending of time together. This is a gift God gave to man. Besides spending morning and evening with man every day, God also spent man's entire first day of life with him, as well as every seventh day after that. (Man was created Friday, and at sunset, the seventh day, the Sabbath, began.)

Consider the fact that time is governed by the celestial bodies and their relationship with one another.

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” Genesis 1:14

The day is determined by the rotation of the earth, the month by the rotation of the moon around the earth, and the year by the rotation of the earth around the sun. But have you ever wondered where the week comes from? The only reason we can point to is the fact that creation week was seven days. Let’s bear in mind also that it took God just six days to create the heaven and the earth. So why seven days? God created one more day, and concerning this day we are told “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:3

This day was created for the express purpose of blessing us.

“Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.” Ezekiel 20:12

This is the day upon which God especially wanted us to remember Him. God knew we would be prone to forget, so He said “remember.”

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work... 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.” Exodus 20:8-11

God is jealous of our time on this day. He says:

“If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the lord hath spoken it.” Isaiah 58:13-14

A Particular Day
God has set time apart, one whole day a week, for the people of this planet. Ought we not set apart time for Him? Will just any day be okay? God didn't simply say, “Remember to spend time with me,” and leave it up to us to decide when was convenient. He specified a certain day of the week He wanted us to devote to Him. And lest this time be confused when translated into different languages, he calls it by its number, the seventh. This day of the week is His memorial of creation. It points to His creative power, and testifies that the same power that created the heavens and the earth, can re-create us, and change us into His likeness.

Is there any confusion as to which day the seventh is? The day the Bible writers, the prophets and apostles, as well as Jesus Himself kept, was the day we call Saturday. This day has been kept from the time of Christ continually by Jews and some Christians. There is no confusion which day is the seventh day, for the Scripture says that Jesus rose on the “first day,” and the whole world recognizes that as Sunday. That makes Saturday the seventh day.

Ten Commandments
Scripture is entirely silent concerning any change of the Sabbath to any other day. The excuse some give that the law was done away with at the cross is without any true Scriptural evidence, and it is unreasonable. The Sabbath is the fourth commandment of the Moral Law. If the law was done away with, then we are at liberty to kill and steal and commit adultery and take God's name in vain etc. No one ought to assume that the Moral Law was done away with. Why do some Scriptures seem to indicate that the law was done away with? Because it is talking about the special Jewish laws that were for the specific purpose of bringing to mind, and explaining, the prophecies concerning the coming of Christ. These laws covered things such as the feasts and sacrifices, as well as the National Civil Laws that pertained specifically to the Jews as a nation.

The Ten Commandments, written with the finger of God on tables of stone, are expressive of the whole duty of man to God and man to man. They were not done away with. They are summed up in the two principles,

• Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
• Love thy neighbour as thyself.

Can we love our neighbour as ourselves and still steal from him, commit adultery with his wife or kill him, breaking the last six of the commandments? Then neither can we love God with all our hearts without observing the first four commandments including the fourth which requires us to set apart the time that He has asked us to spend with Him.