How to Keep the Sabbath Holy: 11 Practical Steps

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The Sabbath is a day set apart by God Himself—a time of rest, reflection, and connection with the Creator. In today’s fast-paced world, it can be challenging to observe the Sabbath fully, but learning how to keep the Sabbath holy remains essential for our spiritual well-being.

In this post, we’ll explore 11 practical steps you can take to honor this sacred day, cultivating a rhythm of rest that draws you closer to God’s presence. Whether through worship, family time, or simple reflection, these steps can help you align your life with the biblical command to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8)

Updated and republished from 2/5/2020

Keep the Sabbath Holy – What is Sabbath?

As I mentioned, I am a Jewish believer (Messianic Jew).

Shabbat (the Hebrew word for Sabbath) was and is an important part of my life and in the lives of Jewish people all over the world. In fact, it is central in our lives.

The Sabbath in Judaism is a day of complete rest that is observed on the seventh day of the week, beginning from Friday at sundown and ending Saturday at sundown. It is the day on which God rested after completing all of creation and also commemorates the Lord freeing the His people from slavery in Egypt. The Sabbath commandment was given at Mount Sinai, when Torah was given to the children of Israel after the Exodus from the land of Egypt.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. ⁹ For six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. 

¹¹ For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20:8-11 NASB

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What Does the Bible Say About Sabbath? – God’s Creation Timeline

When we go back to the story of creation, back to the very beginning of the Bible, it is interesting to note one thing. One of the most vital and one of the most important aspects of creation, the thing that God Himself created even before the heavens and the earth that ISN’T mentioned as one of the elements of creation in the narrative, is time and order.

And yet, there it is as the first words of the Bible; in the beginning.

Even before God spoke a single thing into existence, there was time and order. Time as a concept was established even before the heavens and the earth. Even before God marked the day and night, there was time and order. “In the Beginning”.

We then move on to the specific order of creation beginning with the heavens and earth and then with light and the first day.

Genesis 1:1-5:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was chaos and waste, darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Ruach Elohim was hovering upon the surface of the water.

Then God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light. God saw that the light was good. So God distinguished the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” So there was evening and there was morning—one day.

TLV

We then go on further to the other 5 days of creation.

Finally, in Chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 we see:

So the heavens and the earth were completed along with their entire array. God completed—on the seventh day—His work that He made, and He ceased—on the seventh day—from all His work that He made.

TLV

Time has always been a vital element, something of utmost importance, to God.

He’s established His calendar. He established days and seasons. 

Seven, to represent the days of creation, has always been an important number in God’s Word. Seven represents perfection and wholeness. 

So we have seven days in a week and on the completion of these seven days, on the day numbered for perfection, on the day He completed all He planned and called into existence, God rested. 

There is time, and there is space.

The word kadosh means holy in Hebrew. Abraham Joshua Heschel writes, in his book called The Sabbath:

“One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word qadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine. Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar?

It is indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word qadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.”” (Heschel)

In another quote from the same book, The Sabbath, Heschel says:

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.”

I love that! It is a time we turn from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

It is a time we stop trying to conquer the world, to achieve things in space and let time take over us.

As Heschel says in another part of his book, and I paraphrase: the Sabbath is a time to realize that the world has already been created and we are to stop trying to create for ourselves.

That is profound and THAT, my friends, is where observing the Sabbath begins. Laying down our striving and trying to dominate and conquer the world and, as Heschel says “try to dominate the self.”

But is there only a Sabbath day?

No…we have Shmita and Jubilees and a shadow of things to come. The first Sabbath is only the beginning of many Sabbaths the Lord has given the people of God.

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Keep the Sabbath Holy – The ‘Shmita’ or Sabbatical Year

We have a Sabbath of seven years! It is called Shmita, the Sabbath year or Sabbatical year. It pertains to the agricultural cycle and is a year of Sabbath rest for the land. It is when the land is to lie fallow and no planting or harvesting or working the land is allowed.

Leviticus 25:2-7 says:

Speak to Bnei-Yisrael and tell them: When you come into the land which I give you, then the land is to keep a Shabbat to Adonai.
For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits.

But in the seventh year there is to be a Shabbat rest for the land—a Shabbat to Adonai. You are not to sow your field or prune your vineyard.

You are not to reap what grows by itself during your harvest nor gather the grapes of your untended vine. It is to be a year of Shabbat rest for the land. 

Whatever the Shabbat of the land produces will be food for yourself, for your servant, for your maidservant, for your hired worker and for the outsider dwelling among you. 
Even for your livestock and for the animals that are in your land—all its increase will be enough food.

TLV

God put importance on rest, even for the land.

Keep the Sabbath Holy – The Year of Jubilee

The year of Jubilee (Yovel) is the completion of a seven-year cycle of Shmita.

Leviticus 25:8-17

You are to count seven Shabbats of years, seven times seven years, that is, forty-nine years. 

Then, on the tenth day of the seventh month, on Yom-Kippur, you are to sound a blast on the shofar; you are to sound the shofar all through your land; 
and you are to consecrate the fiftieth year, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a yovel for you; you will return everyone to the land he owns, and everyone is to return to his family. 

That fiftieth year will be a yovel for you; in that year you are not to sow, harvest what grows by itself or gather the grapes of untended vines; 
because it is a yovel. It will be holy for you; whatever the fields produce will be food for all of you. 

In this year of yovel, every one of you is to return to the land he owns.
If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything from him, neither of you is to exploit the other.

Rather, you are to take into account the number of years after the yovel when you buy land from your neighbor, and he is to sell to you according to the number of years crops will be raised. 

If the number of years remaining is large, you will raise the price; if few years remain, you will lower it; because what he is really selling you is the number of crops to be produced. 

Thus you are not to take advantage of each other, but you are to fear your God; for I am Adonai your God.

CJB

This is often referred to as the year of redemption. It is the year debts are cancelled and property restored!

God has a plan for rest for all of creation, whether it be 7 days, 7 years or 7 cycles of 7.

So let’s get back to the Sabbath day.

God has a plan for rest for all of creation, whether it be 7 days, 7 years or 7 cycles of 7 Share on X

What is the Sabbath? – A Day of Rest

So on the 7th day, God ceased from His work and He gave the people a command to observe the Sabbath and keep the Sabbath holy.

Exodus 20:8-11 says:

Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for God. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat for Adonai your God.
On it, you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property. 

For in six days, Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why Adonai blessed the day, Shabbat, and separated it for himself.

CJB

What Day is the Sabbath Day?

So we can see that God gave us a command to rest, do no work on the Sabbath and to keep the Sabbath holy but in considering how to celebrate the Sabbath day we have to consider what day IS the Sabbath? And does it matter?

As I mentioned earlier, the Sabbath day is specific.

The Hebrew word for “Saturday” is literally “Shabbat” or Sabbath. Yom Shabbat is that day’s name. So it has always been observed from Friday at sunset (when the day begins in Jewish culture since God created evening and THEN morning) to sunset on Saturday.

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. So there was evening, and there was morning, one day. 

Genesis 1:5 CJB

This Sabbath was observed by the early believers in Yeshua as well as most of them were Jews. The idea for Sunday worship came about much later, and it was derived from a verse in Acts 20:7 which says:

“Now on the first day of the week, we gathered to break bread. Paul was talking with them, intending to leave the next day, so he prolonged his speech till midnight.”

TLV

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Here we need to examine why they came together to break bread on the first day of the week. It was not communion as some think as Jesus did this at the Passover Seder and there was no command by Him to observe this EACH week. So that is an assumption. Breaking bread however was a common term to describe the sharing of a meal. 

We DO see here that Paul was departing the next day for Jerusalem. So it is likely they gathered together to see him off before his trip and to pray over him.

Yes, Paul preached at this meeting but the truth be told, they preached ALL the time, not just on this day.

So the argument for this being the signal to switch the Sabbath to Sunday is weak at best.

BUT…yes, there is a BUT…they clearly DO meet on Sunday!

So, I do hesitate to tell non-Jewish believers they have to keep the Jewish Shabbat.

There is clearly evidence in scripture for the early gentile believers along with those Jews among them to meet and pray and worship on Sunday and there is a beauty to that…to honor the day of the resurrection each week.

Yes the Jews continued to keep Shabbat but there is also beauty in honoring the resurrection every week.

For the non-Jewish believer who wants to keep a Sunday Sabbath and to attend church on Sunday morning that is great! It is not my job to tell anyone what day to worship the Lord and as I said, I think there is wonder and beauty in celebrating the day of the resurrection.

And it has since become the day of worship for the church and as Dr. Jen Rosner states in her interview with me, we would never want to denounce Christianity or the church and take away from that worship.

We are both Jews who have spent a lot of time in the church and while yes, it has its flaws and mistakes, one cannot take away from the beauty and the love of Messiah the church has and force them into Jewish praxis.

I think anyone can gain from what Jen Rosner calls the “Sabbath ethic”, the meaning behind Sabbath

I Would LOVE Keep the Sabbath – But How?

If you would like to try ushering in the Sabbath like the Bride she is, there are some great ways you can go about it! Now if you are not a Jewish believer, you can simply devote that time to study and prayer. There is a difference between what God has commanded in Scripture and what Jewish cultural observance is for that command. 

If you are not Jewish, you do not need to observe Shabbat the same way we do. But you can certainly form your own tradition of welcoming the day of rest in!

How to Keep the Sabbath Holy – How We Usher in the Holy Sabbath Day in the Bible as a Bride as Messianic Jews

We prepare for the Day- Friday is traditionally Preparation Day! The meals are cooked ahead of time since cooking is work. This is SO much fun because one of the things I love most about Preparation Day is making homemade challah bread. The table is set with candles and it is so warm and inviting.

At 18 minutes before sunset on Friday night, we light the Shabbat candles. The 18 minutes has been a tradition in order to prevent getting the time of sunset wrong. It is a buffer basically and is pure tradition.

The oldest woman in the household will typically light the candles but again…tradition. The woman will cover her head with a scarf, she will light the candles, and then circle the light with her hands to “take in” the Sabbath light. She will then cover her eyes and recite the Sabbath Candle Blessing.

Baruch Atah ADONAI, Eloheinu Melech ha-Olam Asher kidd’shanu bidvaro v’natan lanu et Yeshua M’schicheinu v’tzivanu li-h’yot or l’olam.

Blessed are You, ADONAI, our God, King of the Universe Who has made us holy through His Word and has given us Yeshua our Messiah, and commanded us to be light to the world.

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11 Ways to Keep the Sabbath Holy

Whether you try a Sabbath tradition or you practice a Sunday day of rest, there are some ways you can keep the day holy and devote it to the Lord.

The Sabbath as a Shadow of the Things to Come

The Sabbath of creation is a shadow of the perfect Shabbat, the coming Kingdom of Messiah that is perfect rest. It will be fully Shabbat, fully rest. Your work will be done and it is my prayer we will all hear “Well done my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21)

The Lord of the Sabbath is the Lord of Eternity and His Kingdom, the Messianic Kingdom, the New Jerusalem come from Heaven, will be our eternal reward.

Our heavenly Father will cause God’s people to have His perfect rest and His perfect peace and Shabbat is a taste of that.

What are some of the best ways you will keep the Sabbath holy, usher it in like a bride and celebrate the day of rest the Lord has blessed us with? How can you start keeping the Sabbath day holy in your home?

NASB – “Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation”

Taken from the Complete Jewish Bible by David H. Stern. Copyright © 1998. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, 6120 Day Long Lane, Clarksville, MD 21029. www.messianicjewish.net.

Tree of Life (TLV) – Scripture taken from the Holy Scriptures, Tree of Life Version*. Copyright © 2014,2016 by the Tree of Life Bible Society.  Used by permission of the Tree of Life Bible Society.

Quotes from: Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1951, 1979.

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