The Sabbath is a very special time for us. I say "time" and not "day" because we recognize the Seventh Day Sabbath as beginning at sundown on Friday til sundown on Saturday (the seventh day). This is the Biblical Sabbath. Genesis 2:1-3 says:
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. If we break this down and start where it says "God blessed the seventh day," we will recognize that God blessed us with the gift of the Sabbath. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Unfortunately, some people look at the Sabbath as being a legalistic burden, not realizing that it was meant to be a gift of rest, a time with family and being refreshed (Exodus 31:17 "on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed"). For us as a family, we realized this several months ago and we have enjoyed the blessing of the Sabbath immensely. One day, our son Robert came to us and asked why we went to church on Sunday and didn't observe Saturday as the Sabbath. Well, for us, this was a clean cut and simple answer... We explained that this was the Lord's day and therefore, it was the day we went to church. But, being that we are Bereans in nature and we study everything to be sure we have things right as God presented them to us in His word, we studied it to find the truth. In the New Testament, the seventh day of the week is called the Sabbath. The Sabbath is mentioned 58 times. The first day of the week is mentioned only 8 times. It is simply called "the first day of the week," and it is always differentiated from the Sabbath. This in itself is evidence for the continued validity of the seventh-day Sabbath. So, why do so many people go to Church on Sunday??? Well, that is somewhat of a two part answer. I say somewhat, because these are the two main issues that led to the modern "tradition" of Sunday worship. However, there is more to the story. The first part of the equation is, approximately 100 years before Christianity, Egyptian Mithraists introduced the "Festival of Sunday" and the worshiping of the sun, to the Roman Empire. Later, as Christianity grew, church leaders wanted to increase the numbers of the church. In order to make the gospel more attractive to non-Christians, pagan customs were incorporated into the church’s ceremonies. The custom of Sunday worship was welcomed by Christians who wanted to differentiate themselves from the Jews because of their rejection of the Savior. The first day of the week (Sunday) began to be recognized as both a religious and civil holiday. By the end of the second century, Christians considered it sinful to work on Sunday. The Roman emperor Constantine, a former sun-worshiper, professed conversion to Christianity and Constantine named himself Bishop of the Catholic Church and enacted the first civil law regarding Sunday observance in A.D. 321. Then, we get to the second part of the equation... In the Convert’s Catechism of Catholic Doctrine it says: Q. Which is the Sabbath day? A. Saturday is the Sabbath day. Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday? A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church, in the Council of Laodicea, (AD 336) transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday Q. By what authority did the Church substitute Sunday for Saturday? A. The Church substituted Sunday for Saturday by the plenitude of that divine power which Jesus Christ bestowed upon her The Catholic Church literally took it upon themselves to decide that they had the authority to change God's word... In Exodus 20:10 it says "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God." That says it all... God established the seventh day as the Sabbath and only He has the authority to change it. People were never given this authority. Joshua 24:15 says "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." People cannot change the Sabbath day because it is undesirable for them to follow God's word. Again, Genesis 2:3 says: Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. Sanctified means set apart and declared as holy. God set the Seventh day apart and declared it holy. We cannot change this. So, that all brings us to the next part. Why our family in particular has found the Sabbath day to be such a wonderful and special time for us. Once we came to the conclusion that Friday evening through Saturday evening was in fact undeniably the Sabbath and what it meant, we decided to honor it wholeheartedly. What this looked like for us on our very first Sabbath was setting out first thing Friday morning to be prepared for our day of rest. From a practical standpoint, that meant we were sure to take care of any and all straightening that needed to be done around the house during the day. We also prepared our Friday evening dinner, Saturday lunch and Sabbath dinner in advance. All of these meals were prepared in such a way that all we needed to do on Saturday was pop them in the oven, relax and enjoy our day while the food warmed up and then we enjoyed our meals. By the time Friday evening comes, all of the meals are prepared, the house is set, any other "work" is completed and by sundown we simply sit down and enjoy playing games as a family, maybe watching a movie, or whatever we decide as a family would be fun before heading off to sleep. When we wake on Saturday morning, we watch a live stream of a Sabbath worship service (due to COVID) and then we enjoy our meals, and simply enjoy our time together as a family, truly enjoying the blessing that God has given us. By the time the end of the day came on our first Sabbath, our 8 year old daughter approached us and said, "that was the best day ever! Can we do that again next week?" Wow! "best day ever..." and all because we as a family decided to honor the Sabbath as God defines it. It has been an incredible blessing to our family. ~Rob
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I love this movement. In NJ where we have lived, the poor are among us, but not visible. Perhaps NJ does a good job of serving our struggling people here or perhaps they stay in the shadows. I can't say, but recently we have been home hunting. Our son led the charge and observed that in our soon to be home state there are homeless people on the street. That is foreign to him. As we were talking about ways to serve this population I remembered "Blessing Bags" posted on FB. There are many ways to serve the struggling in our communities. You can run a feed the children food drive, collect food at the market for a local pantry, serve at a soup kitchen or volunteer with family promise that temporarily houses displaced families. There are so many great ways to help, but this is a great step you can likely take right now. Grab a big ziploc and stuff it with shelf stable things. You might have some great stuff right in your cabinet. Start with a water bottle, toothbrush, snack bar, etc... Write a short note of encouragement. If you have one, throw in a gospel tract like Daily Bread or Baptist Bread and the next time you encounter someone you can be a blessing as you demonstrate God's love to them. Guys throw it in your back pack and girls, hopefully you have a generous handbag. You don't want your treats to spoil. Large socks, wet wipes and other sundries are helpful too. There is so much joy in helping others. As parents, demonstrating and encouraging a heart to serve has always been a priority. God throughout His word encourages us to care for the needy. This is one easy way to do that. We will be doing this as well. Anyone had experience with this or have a suggestion of other great ways to serve the needy in our communities? Please share below. :)
Psalm 41 Blessed is he who considers the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. Proverbs 19:17 He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord, And He will pay back what is given. It feels like I took this picture yesterday, but it was almost 2 years ago. The girls are sitting on one of their new mattresses while Dad and I painted, scrubbed, etc... Our family had walked down a challenging road together for a few years. That ended with the abrupt notification that we had to move away from the house we bought new almost 10 years ago. It was inarguable. So the prayerful search began. We looked around diligently and found several perfect to our eyes properties, but there was always a hitch. No cats. If you read my bio you know how I feel about that. :) Another one was someone got the offer in first. Some were for rent to attract buyers. One of our favorite properties was exactly this. We were told the owner was waiting to see if they got an offer before conceding to rent. I assume to increase the foot traffic? We were not looking to buy again just yet. It could get discouraging, but in Christ we had the comfort of knowing, based on Acts 17:26, that God had already planned exactly when and where we should live. We just needed to trust and patiently wait for His leading. We got to a place that we were a little weary from all the looking. Having a realtor that had a daughter who tagged along helped. House shopping practically became play dates, but after a good amount of time, we all decided it was best to wait for the market to refresh. We went home and took one last peek through Craigslist. When we looked there was a town home listed in a neighborhood we had driven through. Sighed through... It was so sweet. Close to everything, but in it's own little hamlet. Underground wires, beautiful community, tennis court, community pool area, club house, play ground and tons of beautiful different types of trees. We couldn't find a property though. When we drove though there was a particular street that had families congregated with kids playing. It felt like the 70's. I remember kickball games in the street, but I didn't think people still did that. They do. In fact playing in the street was common on this street known as the kids street. The town home for rent was right on that street! It was perfect. It had a huge porch overlooking a pond with a fountain that would be awesome for homeschooling. A partially finished basement for days that were inclement. The gentleman leasing it, who happened to be a Pastor, said the family who had been renting it left unexpectedly and he had just put it up on Craigslist. Keys please! I am so glad those other properties did not work out. God in His infinite wisdom had better in mind and definitely gave us the desires of our hearts. Psalm 37:4. Our Margaret was 2 at the time and while we were weeding the garden around the deck she quietly said, "this is my home, in Jesus name amen." Yes it was and we were glad for it. This home and the family leasing it have been a 24/7 blessing. As we are pulling up stakes again to switch homes and states, I am grateful for the peace God's word brings.
Proverbs 3:5-6 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. We set up this page to be an encouragement to others and hopefully shine a little light. I spent a good amount of time responding to posts on FB in regards to homeschooling. Very often I was repeating things I had shared before. It seemed the simplest solution was a blog. Question about XYZ curriculum? Check my Blog. So much easier! I have a strong desire to help and serve and this makes that a lot easier. On that note, I have been at this a while (24 years), and though I do not have all the answers I am glad to share what I have learned over the years. More parents are turning away from public school now for various reasons. Many are moving on from traditional schooling to home schooling. It can take so many different forms ranging from the unschooling movement that in some families it is believed that life itself is a teacher. Children learn about measuring and fractions from cooking, etc... This is not a method I embrace or suggest based on observation and my educational philosophies, but that is me. It escalates all the way up to programs like ABEKA that with the academy option is a combination of dvd or streaming and an impressive amount of workbooks. In this case the parent is facilitator, proctor and tutor. The student has teachers streamed in. This method is good for many people who struggle with being the primary educator. I will share what I know about as many programs as possible that I have had experience with. I truly hope it helps. Please feel free to ask any questions and whether you are new to homeschooling or a veteran, welcome fellow sojourner. As my children range from 3 to 24, I will speak from experience and say enjoy the ride. Mom was right, it goes fast. :) ~ Dagney
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