February 26th, 2022

Published on 26 February 2022 at 14:05

Cling to Faith

Ruth 1:16-17 NIV

"But Ruth replied, 'Don't urge me to leave you or 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. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me ever so severely if even death separates you and me.' "

      It is so easy to get discouraged and lose our faith. If I look back on my life, it has been an intricate novel of losing my faith. Naturally, it's in our genetics to doubt, fear, and withhold trust from our God. Oftentimes, we look at how big the mountains before us are, and instead of believing in the God that can move them, we handle things one of two ways. We either struggle and helplessly try to move them ourselves, or we run in the other direction in fear. More times than I can count, I have chosen to run in the opposite direction and hide from God. However, I have a question I want to present to you: Do you go to work for free? Do you go to work, faithfully clock in and do your best for no reward? I hope you say no because if you don't, then this isn't for you. Unless you love going to work for free, then the main reason you go to work is to get a paycheck so that you can eat, pay bills and simply survive. Can you just imagine the payout we would receive if we chose to stick it out with God-even through the bad times?

      I don't believe Ruth realized that, in staying faithful to her mother-in-law after what they had just been through, she would be richly rewarded by a God that her people didn't even worship (it's important to remember here that Ruth was a Moabite, and her people did not believe in our God). Things had looked really bad for her. Newly widowed, she chose to stay by the side of her mother-in-law even when she was encouraged to go back to her own family. In doing this, she not only remained loyal to her mother-in-law but to God as well. Because of her faith, God blessed her abundantly with grain, a new husband named Boaz, and even a son. Even her mother-in-law Naomi was blessed by Ruth's obedience when God restored her youth by blessing her with their son Obed. Ruth wasn't just the mother Obed, either. Through her faith, she became an ancestor to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So I go back to my last question:

Can you just imagine the blessings we would receive if we stayed faithful through it all?

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