Blessed Rhythm To Remember God

<Ex 23> 10 “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

“Let the land lie unplowed and unused” in the 7th year.

• To help the poor and the animals.
• God Himself is the Provider for all His creation.
• Put trust solely in God, instead of human efforts.
• <Lev 25> 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. 22 While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

<Ex 23> 12 “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.

<Ex 23> 13 “Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.

“Do not invoke the names of other gods”.

• This is the chief of all laws.
• The main thing God demands: LOYALTY.
• Loyalty shown by: (1) obeying God’s commands, (2) refusing to worship other “gods”. 
• “Be careful”!

<Ex 23> 14 “Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.

15 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

“No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

16 “Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.

“Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.

17 “Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.

18 “Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast.

“The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning.

19 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

Blessed rhythm to remember God weekly and yearly.

• In busy and easily distracted life, God made His people weave Him into their weekly/yearly schedule.
• Our schedule reflects our priorities.

1) Blessed weekly rhythm.

• The Lord’s Day – Set aside one day in a week to remember the Lord.
• Not just during crisis, but as consistent practice.

2) Israelites’ yearly schedule: Three sacred festivals.

3) Not just remember God, but also celebrate and offer to God.

Reflection

1. Is it easy for you to rest from your efforts and trust in God? How can you do this better?
2. Are you following any blessed daily or weekly “rhythm” in life to help you remember God better? What is that blessed schedule like? What are certain things that may disrupt that blessed rhythm? How do you usually deal with those disruptions?
3. Share how remembering the grace of God impact you. Have you lost that initial sense of gratitude for God’s redemption that His grace means less to you now? Or does remembering His grace evoke in you a joy of celebration, or a desire to give to God or serve Him, or obey Him more?