Thank God we are in a new covenant: one where we can keep every day holy as we rest in Christ. By confining holiness towards God to one day, you deprive yourself of His holiness for six days a week. Why are you any less holy in Wednesday or Thursday?
Brother, we think differently than God thinks, that is why we have not fully understood the Sabbath.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV)
In Eden, God made holy the seventh day and called what He made holy the Sabbath, and we think we know what He did, but we don't. Our traditional view of the Sabbath is different from God’s view of the Sabbath as revealed in His word. It all comes down to who defines what it means to make a day holy, we must let God define His terms and you prefer your own point of view opposed to God’s point of view in His word. You do the same thing with the word love; you want your own definition opposed to God's minimalist definition in the ten commandments.
Is circumcision also "required" to honor God?
God made visible the “circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit” with its “shadow” that makes clear God’s work to end sin and not the law in our hearts that would otherwise be invisible to us and distorted in our want to end the law instead of the sin in our heart.
"This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." (Hebrews 10:16 NIV)
God gave us a way to see and understand a reality unseen and otherwise distorted without the clear shadow that shows God’s work to end sin and not the law in our hearts. Circumcision ends sin in our heart, not your distorted removal of the law so that we do not see the sin in our heart that the Holy Spirit helps us end.
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker. A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God. (Romans 2:25-29 NIV)
The Holy Spirit helps us to end the sin in our hearts through a cycle of forgiveness towards fulfillment through constant practice, as do the people who prepare for the Olympic Games that with the help of their dedicated coach break world records. Even the best coach cannot help a person unwilling to do the daily work to reach the goal with the excuse that we no longer obey the law, no effort needed. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the Jews that preceded us are losers for having tried when we did not even try, God expects more from us and not less obedience to the law.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20 NIV)
God actually expects more from us and not less obedience to the law.
I thank God for the NT life, free of all laws but to love God above all else and love your neighbor as you love yourself. And, thanks be to God, I can love and honor God everyday of the week!
Obeying the law means that God decides how to love. Your “lawless” love means that you have a view of how to love different from God’s view of love. Even criminals are capable of loving their own, it is the way you treat your enemies that shows that God’s love is different from that of criminals. It is God’s love that will matter in the end and not your own distorted view of it, no matter how much you “boast” of its quality, God's law shows that it does not fulfill the least love that God demands.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails… (1 Corinthians 13:3-8 NIV)
United in our hope of the soon return of Jesus, Jorge