Monday, December 1, 2008

Monday's Devo - Choose Life

Read Ruth 1:1-14
Yey, I'm back from Thanksgiving. I love to be with my family. I love the way it's growing (Caleb has a girl friend, Josh has a wife). But, it is good to be home. I wonder if it was hard for Ruth to leave everything she knew to follow Naomi. Where were Ruth's parents? Did they object to her leaving? What about her friends? Naomi must have been a wonderful mother-in-law. Oh yea, Naomi knew God! I sometimes forget what a difference we are to the world. We stand out like lights and either people are drawn to the light or they are repelled by it. The stronger our light the more the attraction or the rejection.
We learn a lot in the first verse: judges are ruling and the land is under God's judgement because of sin. So much so, that people were having to go live in lands of their enemy to just exist. Elimelech moved his family to Moab. Moab was one of the children born of an incestrial relationship between Lot and his daughter. "Elimelech" means "strong and mighty king" and "Naomi" means "pleasantness". They have 2 sons, Mahlon and Chilion whose names mean "sickly" and "destruction". Sounds a little like our heavenly Father, strong and mighty, who had children bent on sin and destruction. Anyway, Elimalech moves his family to Moab then dies there. Mahlon and Chilion find wives in Moab and live there for 10 years. I have always wondered why neither of them had children. I guess because sickness and destruction cannot produce life. Then the husbands both die. Ruth decides to go back to Bethlehem because she heard that God had visited his people again and given them bread. Funny how Bethlehem means "house of bread". The bread has returned. Her daughter-in-laws start out with her, but Naomi knows that she has no inheritance to offer them. She can't produce another husband for them so they might as well go back to what is familiar to them. They both cry and hug her, but only Ruth refuses to leave. Orpah leaves and Ruth remains. "Ruth" means "friend". (Jesus is that friend that sticks closer than a brother.)
Ruth sees something in Naomi that is worth leaving everything for. She sees an inheritance that is better than the natural. She has "eyes to see". She chooses God. Orpah which means "stiff-necked" chooses what she knows; what is comfortable. Apparently, it wasn't great, but it was livable. What a shame. She could have had so much better. We have the same decision every day: choose life or choose death. "Life" is new and a little more risky sometimes because it requires faith, but the benefits are so much more weighty in eternal blessings.
Lord, open our eyes to see the difference between "life" and "death" in every decision we make today.

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