Daily Fountain Devotional 12 May 2020 For Anglican Communion
TOPIC: Your God Will Be My God
TEXT: Ruth 1:14-22(NKJV)
14. Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
15. And she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.”
16. But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, [Or to] turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people [shall be] my people, And your God, my God.
17. Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, If [anything but] death parts you and me.”
18. When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.
19. Now the two of them went until they came to Bethlehem. And it happened, when they had come to Bethlehem, that all the city was excited because of them; and the women said, “[Is] this Naomi?”
20. But she said to them, “Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
21. “I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
22. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. Now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.
Daily Fountain Devotional 12 May 2020
STUDY: Verses 16 and 17 contain three profound declarations: (1) “Where you go, I will go and where you stay, I will stay.” Ruth was determined to remain with Naomi wherever she went. For Ruth, this meant crossing national, cultural, tribal, linguistic and religious barriers. She submitted to Naomi’s leadership and was prepared to forgo any of her identities that conflict with this.
Once a woman decides to marry a man, she must go with him and live with him for the marriage to stabilise. (2) “Your people shall be my people and your God my God” implies complete cultural and religious assimilation into the community of Gods’ people. (3) “Where you die, I will die.” Ruth was free to remarry, (Rom 7:2), but she determined to stay with Naomi until death.
What gave her such hope against all odds to cling to an old widow who had lost all things? (vs. 20-21).
If you are married, or would marry, identify the practical steps you would take personally to cling, against all odds, to your spouse until death.
PRAYER: Lord, help me draw people unto you as your light shines in me.