Where the rubber meets the road, part V

The people of Israel also made a commitment to apply God's truth to their work. Here is our focus verse for today:

“When the neighboring peoples bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. Every seventh year we will forgo working the land and will cancel all debts." (v 31)

Sigh.
We all try to get around the rules.
We try to find the "wiggle room." We're always looking for the loopholes. Whether at work, at home, or even in our spiritual lives (say it ain't so!). The Mosaic law prohibited the Jewish people from working on the Sabbath. It didn't say anything about buying from foreigners on the Sabbath, so there was a kinda loophole there. But the people knew in their hearts it wasn't right. So they agreed to stop doing it; and they agreed to let the land lie fallow every seventh year and forgive all debts from fellow Jews on that year. All of this was found in the law as they listened and heard it explained. So they agreed to apply God's truth and make some practical changes in how they did business.

God had said, "Six days shall you labor," and then on the seventh day we were told to rest. While Sunday is not the sabbath, it still is a day for rejoicing, witness, resting, and celebration. It still preserves the idea of rest for our bodies. In fact, both the sabbath and the seventh year are God's way of teaching us that we need rest in the midst of our activity. It's easily demonstrated that if we don't rest periodically, we cannot maintain our health. So the seventh day is still a very wise thing to observe. Applying this to our own lives, we are to work, to make decisions, and to act and make choices. But we must remember that our activity will never be enough to accomplish what we hope. God must be at work in it as well . . . He will back up our labor and use it in ways that we cannot imagine. We don't have to worry about doing it all ourselves -- we are to do what we can and then expect God to use that.
The seventh year is an interesting concept, too, since it teaches us to rest in God's supply of our needs. God has promised this:

Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. 20 You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” 21 I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. Leviticus 25:18-21)

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

This is God's way of teaching His people (and us) that we cannot do enough to supply all of our needs, but He can and He will. One of the great lessons taught to us in God's Word is that He will supply.
Just to recap -- applying God's truth to our lives will extend to our work, our way of doing business. Just because Sunday is not the sabbath, and we are not under the law, doesn't take away from the fact that God designed us to need a day for rest and for worship. Sunday is the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10) and it's perfectly proper to set aside our normal work routines and gather for worship and praise. Sunday is also a good day to spend time with family and other believers, and to spend time with the Lord that we may not be able to set aside in our busy weekday schedules. It's a great time to put our feet up and rest, too!

While there is no direct application for us of letting the land lie fallow, or of forgiving debts every seventh year, we can see that these practices encouraged the Jews to trust God in their business dealings. They had to trust that He would make up the difference in the crops that they didn't plant and harvest. They also had to trust that He would provide the money that they let go by forgiving debts. Often when we obey God in the business world, we pay a price in the short term. (Been there, done that.) Honesty often costs us! But as believers, we can trust that the God who sees everything we do will take care of us. He will reward us (could be in the short term, or in the long) when we obey Him. Our business practices should reflect our Christian commitment and be a testimony of our faith, even if it is costly or inconvenient.

We have more to look at in this chapter! See you next week!