16 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
I wrote yesterday about how the Sabbath Day encourages good time management. Today, I want to write about another benefit of the commandment: it helps us to understand how to be holy.
The Guide to the Scriptures defines the word holy as:
Sacred, having a godly character, or spiritually and morally pure. The opposite of holy is common or profane.
We make Sunday the holiest day of the week by participating in activities which draw us closer to God and setting aside the common activities of our daily life. We dress up for church in order to show respect and reverence for God. Through the music and other media we choose to consume, we create an environment that is conducive to a spirit of worship. And in doing so, we remind ourselves every week that becoming holy requires us to “deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness” (Moroni 10:32-33). The Sabbath teaches us to eliminate impurities from our lives. No wonder the Lord introduced the commandment this way in the Doctrine and Covenants:
And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day (D&C 59:9).
Today, I will be grateful for the reminder each Sabbath Day of what it means to be holy. I will remember that appropriate Sabbath observance can help me to keep myself “unspotted from the world.@