The best is yet to come

In the 4th and 5th commandments we come touch on difficult areas in our lives - Sunday and family.

Q10.  What does God require in the fourth and fifth commandments?

A.  Fourth, that on the Sabbath day, we spend time in public and private worship of God, rest from routine employment, serve the Lord and others, and so anticipate the eternal Sabbath.  Fifth, that we love and honour our father and mother, submitting to their godly disciple and direction.

Here's a couple of things to note and think over:

• The more you feel pressure on your time, the more you need Sabbath.

It is a gift.  A time to rest, a time to worship.  If we don't stop to rest, we put our bodies and minds under stress and strain, which they will not be able to handle.  If we don't stop to worship, we say there is something greater that God.... the first few commandments speak into that!

• Sundays are the dry run, the dress rehearsal, the first lick of the ice cream.

Each time we worship God, we get a little taster of what heaven is going to be like.  Of course, heaven will be so much better than your best Sunday ever... good thing too!  But remembering that worship now, is a foretaste of heaven, should put all the other things we can do on a Sunday into perspective.  We need to work this through personally, and in family life too.

• Honouring our parents, is a life long thing!

We talk of 'flying the nest' but we never grow out of our duty to love and honour our parents.  Such love and honour looks different when we are 5, 15 or 35.  It looks different when our parents are 25, 55 or 85.  As a parent and as a son, I fail on this commandment every day... but I must seek to honour my parents every day, and live an honourable life as a parent too!