My Review Of Sabbath by Dan B. Allender

The Fourth Commandment - The Sabbath!  Entering a day of rest, or just another set of rules to follow?  Or, is it just an ancient command made to the Jewish people?  These are questions I've had in my personal life in recent days.  They are also questions that Dan B. Allender addresses in his book, Sabbath.  Provided to me through Booksneeze.com, I had the privilege of reading and reviewing this book and having many questions I had about the Sabbath answered.  The book was a sheer delight to read.  Once I began to read this book, it literally drew me in and I was compelled to keep reading.  It took me less than a weekend to complete the nearly 200 pages.
 
Mr. Allender paints a picture of the Sabbath that leaves the reader wanting to climb inside and experience like a chalk drawing in the child's movie, Mary Poppins. By the end of the first section, I felt the passion propelling from the author's pen as he described how the Sabbath Day should be one the is embraced and enjoyed not just a mundane set of rules to follow out of duty, but in a celebration of a feast.  He expresses Sabbath as being a time to "taste and see that the Lord is good," through taking part in the joy of the Sabbath that only our creator can bestow.

The book describes more than just a grand idea of something that sounds too good to be true and impossible to attain.  He describes how to practice the Sabbath amidst interruptions and catastrophes of daily life.  He invites the reader to find out how God changes our mourning into joy as he talks through days of sorrow that come and how to experience a Sabbath rest through the sorrows.  He explains how it is in our sorrows and our despair that joy and abundance are allowed to bloom and come to fruition.

The author does address the issue of what actual day the Sabbath should be and stops short of a direct answer, leaving it up to the reader to decide.  While, I personally take God at face value and believe the Sabbath should be from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, I applaud the author in an attempt to invite all believers to partake in a Sabbath even if that day is not Friday sundown to Saturday sundown to another individual.  The importance of his book is to set a believer in the direction of considering keeping Commandment #4 as well as the other nine.

Even if you've never kept a Sabbath; by the end of the book, you will be longing for the next Sabbath Day where you can enjoy the fourth commandment of your God in the way it was intended.  The book is part of The Ancient Practices Series and now comes with a study guide which I did not review but sounds enticing to use in a group setting.

I give the book 5 stars out of 5.