Today our ward Sunday School Class learned about the Law of the Sabbath. We read a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants that really hit me.
Doctrine and Covenants 59:8-10
"Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
"And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go up to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;
"For verily this is a day appointed unto you to rest from your labors, and to pay thy devotions unto the most high."Here are a couple of things that we can learn from these verses of scripture:
- The first verse says that we need to "offer a sacrifice unto the Lord," with "broken heart and a contrite spirit." This makes me think of our sacramental covenants that we renew every Sunday during Sacrament Meeting. When we renew our baptismal covenants, we become perfect again. Obviously, we cannot stay perfect for an entire week until we can come back to renew our covenants. So we make sacrifices each week on how we can do better. This scripture helped me realize that we need to have a specific sacrifice, or a specific goal, that we can offer to the Lord to help us do better at keeping our covenants.
- We are given a wonderful promise in verse 9. When we attend church (go to the house of prayer) and make sacrifices to help us improve our lives (offer up our sacraments) on Sunday, then we will be able to "more fully keep [ourselves] unspotted from the world." This a fantastic promise. If we want to keep ourselves untouched by the world, it only makes since to set aside a day that will help us remember our covenants and refresh our commitment to follow the Savior.
- I love the commandment in verse 10. We are asked to rest from our labors one this day, and to worship our Heavenly Father. When we rest from all the stresses, worries, and commitments that fill up the rest our week, then we can fully devote all of our time and energy to worshiping God on that day and to serving him.
Keeping the Sabbath Day holy is not an easy thing to do, especially in this busy and noisy world. How do you keep your Sabbath Day Holy?
