April 6, 2012 … Someone To Follow – Someone to Lead

Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Ruth, Chapters 1-4 … To study these chapters, go to this link -

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Highlight Reference Passage : Ruth 1: 16… 16 But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

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Highlight Reference Passage #2 : Ruth 2: 14-16… 14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

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Highlight Reference Passage #3 : Ruth 4: 16-17… 16 Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. 17 The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.

My Journal for Today: It’s been a while since I’ve read the little book of Ruth in the Bible; but in my chronological read through God’s word this year, that’s where I was taken today. And what a lovely, heart-warming account of Godly relationships is found in this book. But once one goes beyond the surface love story, involving family loyalty and righteous living, we see an account of God’s people being Godly in the face of unrighteous living and treachery, which surrounded the main characters of this love story – Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.

Remember, this story involved people who were living in the time of the Judges, which we just finished reading about yesterday; and these were treacherous times in the history of the Israelites. People all around these key characters in the book of Ruth were living selfishly and had been drawn into a culture of idolatry and unGodly living. Yet, in the midst of this, God lays out this lovely story of a remnant of His people who lived lives following God’s way and doing so to establish the line of the one who would become King David (Ruth’s grandchild).

And isn’t it a wonderful bit of Godly irony that Jesus’ lineage would be drawn from a converted gentile, a Moabite woman, whose life becomes an example to all of us as to how we should live and love and have our being in a relationship which first stems vertically from a deep and abiding relationship with the LORD and then becomes set in this world horizontally with abiding relationships in family and friends (real friends).

My dear ones, we live in times which mirror the times of the Israelites in the era of Ruth. Right now, like Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, we are engulfed in a culture, a world, and a nation of ungodliness; and we are called, by our God, to follow our LORD and live uprightly in His image. The characters in the book of Ruth not only were honored by God to establish the blood lines of King David and our Lord, Jesus, through Mary; but as their lives are written about in God’s word, they become living examples of how to live Godly lives in an ungodly world.

I pray that we all see the light of Christ shining through the lives of these people as lived out in their horizontal relationships, becoming beacons for their vertical relationship with God. We all need to live, love, and have our essence flowing from our relationship with the Lord, our God; and when we can live like the lovely and loving characters in the book of Ruth, we will honor our God and shine His light in a very dark world.

My Prayer Today: … Lord, help me to live and love as You live in me and prayerfully love through me. Amen