Are you clinging to God and His people?
8 Apr 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Ruth 1
Ruth 2
Ruth 3
Ruth 4
Luke 11:29-54
Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies (Proverbs 31:10).
Are you clinging to God and His people?
Ruth lives during the period of the judges (Ruth 1:1). She is like a diamond placed on a jet-black cloth; Ruth stands out because of her strength of character. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, had modeled to this woman, brought up in a pagan land (Moab), the ways of God. While Orpah returns to her people (Ruth 1:14), “Ruth clung to her” [Naomi]. The term “clung” is translated as “stay close” in Ruth 2:8, 21 when Boaz advises the young maiden to “stay close” to his people working in the fields. Moses applies the word to the marriage relationship (Genesis 2:24). Moreover, the Israelites are exhorted to serve the Lord, “and to Him you shall hold fast” (Deuteronomy 10:20). We should also “hold fast” or “cling” to the Lord and godly people.
Employment Point: Embrace God and godly people for a virtuous existence.
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Reflections
““Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.””Ruth 1:20-21 NIV
- the book of Ruth begins with a sad start. Naomi, whose name means pleasant wants people to call her “Mara”, which meant bitter.
- They went out of the country, complete with husband and two sons with her daughter-in-laws but came back with the guys all gone and only Ruth, one of the daughter-in-law accompanying her.
- If I were Naomi, I would have been so touched by Ruth, that she chose to stick it out with me, having nothing to give her, and likely to remain a widow till death. It is a great sacrifice of love and something which is beyond amazing coming out of a pagan woman.
“Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.””Ruth 2:11-12 NIV
- Good news as well as bad news seemed to travel far and Boaz had heard about Ruth and all that she did. The words that Boaz used, reminded me of what Jesus said. To leave your father and mother and follow Him. This felt like lived-out faith, having giving up everything to follow someone whom she perhaps knows not much about and yet is prepared to give up her life for.
- It’s the same for us isn’t it. The Lord has called us into His kingdom, to receive salvation, without us fully knowing what is ahead, what this calling will be or what will happen to us. But it is for us to just obey to His calling and follow Him, whatever it is, to whatever lies ahead. To just trust Him to lead.
““May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my Lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.””
Ruth 2:13 NIV
- This is another learning point for us. To be humble before others and to always have the servant heart. Remember Jesus’s teachings that even He, who is our Lord, has come to serve and not to be served.
- If we ever have this mentality of being great or wanting to be great or expecting others (regardless of who the others may be, even if they are helpers), to serve us, may the Lord deal with us and remind us to be humble servants. For all are made in the image of Christ. Nobody is supposed to rule over a fellow brother or sister. We are created equals in the Lord’s kingdom.
“She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.”Ruth 2:18 NIV
- Ruth does have a really loving heart. Remembering not just for herself but also the welfare of others (her mother-in-law), whom she could have chose to forsake like Orpah but she didn’t and yet chose to love her.
- In this worldly life, this too is what the Lord taught us to do. To love others, just as how we have love ourselves.
““The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.””Ruth 2:20 NIV
- this felt that the Lord truly sees one’s hearts and blessed those who blessed others
““I will do whatever you say,” Ruth answered. So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do.”
Ruth 3:5-6 NIV
- I think one of the ways we can honour our parents is really just to do everything that they tell us to do (of course with good discernment that they are not asking us to do something illegal or the like), with a humble acceptance and not fight them.
“Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.”
Ruth 4:16-17 NIV
- this don’t seemed like a coincidence that Jesus came from the line of David who was from Ruth and Boaz, the guardian redeemer. Born out of love and redemption.
“Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.””
Luke 11:36 NIV
- sharing what I wrote 5 years ago on this verse
- Think of our body as a house. And the windows and doors as our source of light. And the light be God. I want to open all my windows and door to allow light to come in to fill my house, so there will be no hidden darkness. I hope I did not put up curtains or blinds that may hinder light from coming in.
- Father I pray that you remove any hidden darkness that is within us so that we can be ready to receive Your Light. May Your light shine upon us and fill our bodies so that it may be full of light. And after which that we may also be the light to the others as well so that darkness will no longer dwell because it has no place. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
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His Resurrection Destiny
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
April 08
Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? — Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s cross is the gateway into his life. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he rose into a life that was absolutely new, a life he did not live before he was incarnate. This new life came with new power and a new destiny: to bring souls into glory. “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (John 17:2 kjv). This is how the Bible says we know our Lord: by “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Our Lord’s resurrection power means that now he is able to impart his life to all of us. When we are born again from above, we aren’t born into a new life of our own. We are resurrected into his life—the eternal life of the risen Lord. The name the Bible gives to Eternal Life working inside us here and now is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the deity in proceeding power; he is God applying the atonement to our immediate experience. One day, we will have a body like our Lord’s glorious body; here and now, we can know the power of his resurrection and walk in newness of life.
Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Spirit can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey him. We will never have the exact relationship with the Father that the Son does, but if we will obey, the Son will make us sons and daughters of God, bringing us into oneness with him. “That they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11). This is the meaning of the “at-one-ment.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them.
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Reflections
His death on the cross helped redeemed us all, from all our sins. The faith we have leads us to eternal life, a free gift that is given, to all who believes. Another greater gift is the Holy Spirit, given to each and every one of us who places our trust and our faith in the one truth God.
It amazes me, because the redemption is already a great reward, something we so not deserve and yet was given to us who had rebelled against the Lord and even sinned against Him. On top of that, He send us the Holy Spirit as like our personal teacher, mentor and friend, to guide us through our lives so we need not struggle through it. He brought Him along with us!
If you had encountered the Holy Spirit, which I am sure you do, you would agree with me that this is such an extraordinary gift, given by grace to us sinners. Even though we fall short, even though we ain’t perfect and even though we are still work-in-progresses. The Lord didn’t mind at all. He is willing to guide each of us, through the different seasons, through the mountains and the valleys and always be with us.
Be thankful and give praise to the Lord for this great gift and guard our hearts and our lives. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
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Lent devotion Day 50/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Matthew 2:1-12
EASTER WEDNESDAY
We are now going to do something rather different. We have followed the story which Matthew tells, the story of Jesus from before his birth to after his resurrection. But Matthew was of course writing for Christians who already knew more or less 'what happened'. They were already people who believed in Jesus, that he had died to rescue them from sin and death, that he had been raised again and was now the world's true Lord. How would they then read Matthew's gospel, not just as a faithful account of what had happened in the past, but as a blueprint and set of clues for how they should be living as followers of this risen Jesus today?
I have chosen four passages that we haven't looked at in detail earlier in the book, to take us forward from the Easter story itself into the much longer Easter story that continues to this day. Jesus' Easter people — you and me, in other words — now read the gospels in order to discover, again and again, the presence and power and leading of Jesus in and through our lives and witness. And we begin with that wonderful story about the three wise men.
Here, Matthew is saying, Jesus was already mysteriously revealed as 'Lord of the world' — even though the present Jewish ruler, the sad and bad old king Herod, had no interest in such things except to kill enough people (in this case, little babies) to make sure nobody would upset his own shaky grip on power. Wise men from the East: we are not told here that they were 'kings', though later legend has seen them as such.
Certainly Matthew intends them as representatives of the 'many who will come from east and west' to share the ancient Jewish dream of God's kingdom, and all because of Jesus (see 8.11). By the same token, he is seeing Herod as typical of those 'sons of the kingdom' who will, at the same time, miss out on the promise. As John the Baptist would say in the next chapter, God can raise up 'children of Abraham' from these stones (3.9).
The story of the three wise men, then, can be seen in the light of Easter as a great encouragement to the little church as it sets off on its mission to the wider world: the wider world has already heard about him and begun to come looking for him! But here there is a delicate balance to be kept. Some, eager to show how much God loves the whole world, have seen all non-Jewish religions and philosophies as equally valid, merely needing to be encouraged and developed. But that's not how the story works.
The wisdom of the East, including the stargazing which was such a major part of ancient learning, had brought the wise men to the point where they were ready to travel to the land of the Jews to find the new king. But they needed help to find the right spot. Help was at hand in the form of the Jewish scriptures. They and they alone provided the clue to Bethlehem. Without them, the wise men had simply ended up at the wrong address — a dangerous place to be, as anyone in Herod's court could have told them. But, with great irony, the chief priests and scribes who have told the travellers where to find the royal child have no interest in going themselves to see whether it's true. They assume it isn't — until, later, Herod smells a rat and sends in his thugs to kill the babies.
Matthew seems to be saying, to his resurrection-based church, that their mission will remain rooted in the Jewish scriptures, and that they will be able with their help to draw the wisdom of the world into homage to the world's rightful king. But he is also warning them that they must not expect all the Jewish people to join in. As Paul would put it, God has subjected all people to disobedience, so that he might have mercy on all. The good news of Jesus, his kingdom-message, cross and resurrection, is always humbling to all people. It is the place where the scriptures and the wisdom of the world can meet and celebrate, but it will take something more as well. The 'wise men' could just as well have been called 'the humble men', or indeed 'the obedient men'. It's people like that who could then be called 'the overwhelmed-with-joy' people.
TODAY
Risen Lord, give us a vision of the whole world coming to worship at your feet, and enable us to play a part in bringing that to reality.
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Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, indeed everything we count as loss, to know You and be known as Yours. Nothing is greater than the gift of salvation that was given to us by Your grace. Something we don’t rightfully deserve but given freely to us by faith so long as we believe. Thank You Lord for Your deliverance on mankind, that we are forever reconciled with our Father. All praise and thanks be to You Lord. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
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