Ruth...3...a great commitment...

 Ruth....3...a great commitment....

These words uttered by Ruth in desiring to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem are used for many a marriage ceremony...the couple, or more, the wife promises to go with the husband wherever he leads...til death parts them and then the promise even to be buried together...a huge commitment, a life long commitment...and many do this...

Ruth loved and was loved by her mother-in-law, Naomi...

....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. 

Where you die I will die, 

and there I will be buried. 

May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 

When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ruth 1:16-18 

But this commitment is so much more...

She is leaving a land where she had parents, family...

She is leaving as a widow...having lost her husband, Mahlon

She is moving into an unknown, to her, country where she may be not welcomed...

She is leaving her gods to follow God...

She is taking on the responsibility of another, one who is bitter...

She is willing to live and die in a foreign country...

She, potentially, has no hope of remarriage because of her status or age or culture....

She will be called, known as, “the Moabite”...

She is walking away from all she has known...

It reminds me of the disciples...who upon hearing the the call of Jesus, left their nets and followed...known for the unknown...

At once they left their nets and followed him. 

Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John. 

They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, preparing their nets. Jesus called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

Matthew 4:20-22

29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Matthew 19:29

They not only followed in Jesus’ life, but later died for their commitment to Him...

They left their livelihood...

They left families...

To follow Jesus, an awaited Messiah...

Which leads to the question...would leaving the “known” for the greater “unknown”, Jesus, be worth the risk?

The  manmade gods for the God of the universe, Creator, redeemer, Savior, the Provider, the Comforter, the “I AM”, etc.,.....

Ruth chose to turn her back on the past, walking into the future, following God, such a picture of redemption...changing, transforming her life into something new...with God as her God...

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Thank YOU....