Today Ruth 1 ***** 5 Stars !

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Ruth 1:1-22
1Once upon a time--it was back in the days when judges led Israel--there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah left home to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2The man's name was Elimelech; his wife's name was Naomi; his sons were named Mahlon and Kilion--all Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They all went to the country of Moab and settled there.
3Elimelech died and Naomi was left, she and her two sons. 4The sons took Moabite wives; the name of the first was Orpah, the second Ruth. They lived there in Moab for the next ten years. 5But then the two brothers, Mahlon and Kilion, died. Now the woman was left without either her young men or her husband.
6One day she got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that GOD had been pleased to visit his people and give them food. 7And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah.
8After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, "Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may GOD treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. 9May GOD give each of you a new home and a new husband!" She kissed them and they cried openly.
10They said, "No, we're going on with you to your people."
11But Naomi was firm: "Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands? 12Go back, dear daughters--on your way, please! I'm too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, "There's still hope!' and this very night got a man and had sons, 13can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again? No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow--more bitter for me than for you. GOD has dealt me a hard blow."
14Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on.
15Naomi said, "Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her."
16But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; 17where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried, so help me GOD-not even death itself is going to come between us!"
18When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. 19And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: "Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!"
20But she said, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. 21I left here full of life, and GOD has brought me back with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn't. The Strong One ruined me."
22And so Naomi was back, and Ruth the foreigner with her, back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Copyright Statement: THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary LanguageThis edition issued by contractual arrangement with NavPress, a division of The Navigators, U.S.A.Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language Copyright © 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’
Elimelech & Naomi were people of the covenant, the covenant of God. They married in covenant, but circumstances took them away from their home of the covenant. Elimelech felt they had to leave and Naomi did what any good wife would do and followed her husband.
In a covenant with God we follow after our betrothed husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. Betrothal in Bible times is not like engagement in our day and time. Betrothal was a solid promise, the couple was married, just not yet consummated. They were not just promised to one another, if they decided to split up, it took divorce. The couple has entered an irrevocable covenant partnership. Betrothal time is winning time, not winning to the promise of covenant relationship, but to love grown inside of the relationship. Love grows, but it has already been committed to.
Outside of making God’s dreams come true, we may find ourselves in destitution. Anywhere without the Lord’s will in execution, is a spiritually dry and weary place. The further away from the call of God we get, the drier and wearier it gets for us, even natural things become dry.
It may not have started out that way and it may not look that way in extremes, but in the eternal end it is tragic. On benefit of this misery now is actually the grace of the Lord to help us, to make it clear we are away from God. It is meant by God, to bring us back to God, and back to the focus of the proposed covenant relationship we are all meant to have in Him.
Sometimes the only way back to God and His people is through death. Death of a wrong vision, the death of doing things our own way, death of the part of us who uses circumstances as an excuse to not be in the center of the will of God. Death of the flesh natured part of us that wants our own satisfaction and relief 1st, rather than being the one God wants to make His dreams come true through. Until that part of our flesh nature dies, we’ll not be able to return to God.
The sons of the flesh were called sickness and pining (meaning extreme desire for something- in this case, the call of the flesh). These hung around longer than circumstantial calls, but they also had to die for one to go on to the true promises of God.
Yeah we may have given our lives into to that call or vision, but the vision was not an eternal vision, it was not God’s vision, it was our own vision or it was the vision of the one we’d made covenant with in a foreign land.
So, say, we lived for all of the wrong things, we answered the wrong call, we walked away from being a person who fulfills God’s dreams, we made excuses. Then know that and turn and live for what is right. Naomi’s husband died, and her sons died. When she went back to God and His people she went empty-handed. That is good, because the call of the old covenant was not taking part of her new life away and mixing it with the new pure covenant of the Lord. She felt empty, but God would be able to fill her up with what He’d had for her all along. Even the emptiness was of God, she would come back to Him hungry and thirsty for Him, and desperate for Him, desiring whatever it would take to be with Him or please Him. In pleasing Him, she would become so filled up to the overflow.
There was fruit of the old covenant, people who did not specifically feel the direct call of God on them, but saw the call of God on Naomi, (Naomi means delight- pleasurable) They saw God’s delight and that eternal pleasure could be had in Naomi, she was willing to leave everything old to go for the call back to God’s heart. Some would take it, some would leave it. It either was or was not for them, in their own eyes. It is always a freewill choice, with God, it will always be a freewill choice where God is concerned. There is a way, but we do not have to walk in it. If we don’t we may die, but we don’t have to walk in it. It is up to us to lay down the excuses and walk in it. It is our freewill choice. We would not be free if we could not choose and we are free to choose. We choose His will or ours, and where there may be conflict between ours and His we are free to choose which we will live out.
Salvation and the walk of the spirit life in Christ Jesus is a free gift because of the freedom of the will. We can choose to or not to. The only thing is when we choose we also choose our destiny and destination. Eternally. There are always consequences to choices, always.
Ruth chose to follow, because she wanted to commit. Her name means friend. She was a cleaver to someone who had vision. She didn’t have vision yet, but in following one who did, she would get it later on.
Orpah means gazelle, sounds nice, right? Yeah nice. It represents here her freewill exercised. She is a free spirit, can do what she really wants to do and would, like each one of us. We are all living what we want. We can say we want to live a certain way all day long, but our actions tell others and God what it is we really want. Orpah, as all of us, was free to do what she wanted. Ruth was also this same free spirit being who chose to do what He wanted. Orpah was polite about exercising her freewill. She didn’t even seem rebellious, she was sweet. She kissed Naomi goodbye, they parted peaceably. She was a kisser. Kiss and go. Kiss and be nice, doing her own thing. La de da….
Ruth and Noami left town, left that place of decision and went towards the executing of the will of God. It was time. It is time now.
We all need to decide, Kiss or Cleave. Cleave to one with vision, the vision of a local church in a local community where God already planted you strategically to Go into the fields of harvest and not alone..
Two roads, two choices- today. The train is moving Naomi & Ruth are on the train. It has one destination – Bethlehem and in Bethlehem, the harvest.
Bethlehem means house of bread. Grain harvested makes bread that feeds nations. In John 21 Jesus said Feed My Sheep, if you love Me truly.
Can’t feed them without collecting the harvest grain to do so.
It IS harvest Time!
You kissin’ or cleavin’?
If you want to be on the train to Bethlehem and the Harvest it is past time to GET on Board the whistle has blown the train is leaving the station, don’t know when another one will come around again for a while.
Side-note: Naomi did not pursue Ruth or Orpah, she told them where she was going, they chose and followed. Don’t wait for someone to pick you up and put you on the train, you get on yourself. Give your life as a freewill offering unto God by cleaving to a visionary and don’t pull on the visionary to come back and carry you. Don’t be deceived in thinking of they don’t come back and coerce you or carry you that they or God does not love you. They came to tell you where they were going that you would choose to go too. The love of God compels you to go- get on the train.

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language