Time is holy because it belongs to the Lord.
At the Easter Vigil, one of the prayers during the blessing of the Paschal Candle says: “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to Him and all the ages. To Him be glory and power through every age and forever. Amen.”
Time is a blessing
Time is a precious blessing.
God gives us time in which to grow in knowledge and love of Him.
He gives us time to spend with our families and friends and time to enjoy the beauty of His creation.
When we sin, He gives us time to repent.
At every moment of every day, we have a choice to use the time given to us for God or for ourselves.
By giving the time that God has given us back to Him we sanctify time and by doing so we are also sanctified.
Giving back to God
The first necessary step in sanctifying our time is to offer the first and best portion of it back to God.
Just like the practice of tithing is a way of acknowledging that all our material goods come to us from God, by offering the first 10 percent of our income back to Him in gratitude for all that He has given to us, so also the practice of keeping holy the Lord’s Day is a way of acknowledging that every moment is a gift from God by offering the first day of the week back to him in a special way.
(This is also why the Morning Offering is such a beautiful custom of offering the first minute of every new day to God.)
The importance of Sunday
In the Old Testament, God commanded His people to keep the seventh day (Saturday) holy in remembrance of His Sabbath rest after the six days of creation, as well as their liberation from slavery in Egypt.
But Jesus, who is Lord of the Sabbath, by rising from the dead on the first day of the week, sanctified Sunday above all other days.
Christians have always kept Sunday as a day holy to the Lord in remembrance of the new creation accomplished by Christ and our liberation from Satan who held the human race in bondage
because of sin.
Thanks be to God that Christ has triumphed over sin and death, utterly vanquishing our ancient enemy.
Sin has no power over us.
Death has lost its sting.
Sunday is the day of freedom and victory which the Lord has made for us.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.