Today Ruth 2 A Must Read - WOW!

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 2:1-23 -
Ruth Works in Boaz's Field
1Now there was a wealthy and influential man in Bethlehem named Boaz, who was a relative of Naomi's husband, Elimelech.
2One day Ruth said to Naomi, "Let me go out into the fields to gather leftover grain behind anyone who will let me do it." And Naomi said, "All right, my daughter, go ahead." 3So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech.
4While she was there, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters. "The LORD be with you!" he said. "The LORD bless you!" the harvesters replied.
5Then Boaz asked his foreman, "Who is that girl over there?"
6And the foreman replied, "She is the young woman from Moab who came back with Naomi. 7She asked me this morning if she could gather grain behind the harvesters. She has been hard at work ever since, except for a few minutes' rest over there in the shelter."
8Boaz went over and said to Ruth, "Listen, my daughter. Stay right here with us when you gather grain; don't go to any other fields. Stay right behind the women working in my field. 9See which part of the field they are harvesting, and then follow them. I have warned the young men not to bother you. And when you are thirsty, help yourself to the water they have drawn from the well."
10Ruth fell at his feet and thanked him warmly. "Why are you being so kind to me?" she asked. "I am only a foreigner."
11"Yes, I know," Boaz replied. "But I also know about the love and kindness you have shown your mother-in-law since the death of your husband. I have heard how you left your father and mother and your own land to live here among complete strangers. 12May the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully."
13"I hope I continue to please you, sir," she replied. "You have comforted me by speaking so kindly to me, even though I am not as worthy as your workers."
14At lunchtime Boaz called to her, "Come over here and help yourself to some of our food. You can dip your bread in the wine if you like." So she sat with his harvesters, and Boaz gave her food—more than she could eat.
15When Ruth went back to work again, Boaz ordered his young men, "Let her gather grain right among the sheaves without stopping her. 16And pull out some heads of barley from the bundles and drop them on purpose for her. Let her pick them up, and don't give her a hard time!"
17So Ruth gathered barley there all day, and when she beat out the grain that evening, it came to about half a bushel. F3 18She carried it back into town and showed it to her mother-in-law. Ruth also gave her the food that was left over from her lunch.
19"So much!" Naomi exclaimed. "Where did you gather all this grain today? Where did you work? May the LORD bless the one who helped you!" So Ruth told her mother-in-law about the man in whose field she had worked. And she said, "The man I worked with today is named Boaz."
20"May the LORD bless him!" Naomi told her daughter-in-law. "He is showing his kindness to us as well as to your dead husband. F4 That man is one of our closest relatives, one of our family redeemers."
21Then Ruth said, "What's more, Boaz even told me to come back and stay with his harvesters until the entire harvest is completed."
22"This is wonderful!" Naomi exclaimed. "Do as he said. Stay with his workers right through the whole harvest. You will be safe there, unlike in other fields."
23So Ruth worked alongside the women in Boaz's fields and gathered grain with them until the end of the barley harvest. Then she worked with them through the wheat harvest, too. But all the while she lived with her mother-in-law.
FOOTNOTES:F3: Hebrew about an ephah [18 liters]. F4: Hebrew to the living and to the dead.
Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~ Lena’s Journalin’
Boaz means fleetness, so what is fleetness? It is rapidity, speed, quickness. It also has the root of one under another’s command, a leader under another’s command, Even if he’s the top leader he has a leader over him.
Let’s see how that may apply to your thoughts as you read through the passage.
The fields are the world, the harvest is the souls of men and woman alive who have not yet been reconciled to God through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and are walking towards helping reconcile others to that same faith.
When Naomi & Ruth left Moab it was like they left the world, the rule of the world, the activities and participation in what the world had offered them prior. They changed kingdom citizenships as we do when we receive Christ. Naomi and Ruth left all of their past lives behind them, they left the old to embrace the new, but they didn’t really know how to embrace the new, they had to come under new ruler ship and be disciplined in what was now kingdom activity of a new kingdom citizen.
That is the same with us when we come to Christ, we come out of the kingdom of darkness and come in under the new rule of the Kingdom of light, we begin to serve the one who saved us from the present doom of our destiny and reservations with hell.
We leave behind old ways, old services, old thinking, but how do we do that? This is where many miss the whole thing. Jesus said to disciples “Go into the world and make disciples”, not converts who say a magical prayer at an altar walk away and later wonder what that was about, never living in a new kingdom with a new king, a new rule, and a new life, with different services and actions.
In discipleship one would follow one who knows the ropes per se.
Ruth knew she was in a new place under a new, to her, king. She wanted the kingdom to know she would become one of them, but someone or a group of someone’s had to show her how. She was so willing, willing enough to place herself in the field. Willing enough to follow what someone in and of that kingdom told her she should do.
This would be like a person coming to an altar and saying a salvation prayer, then a kingdom ambassador who ushered the person to the altar, maybe who prayed with them then would say to them, hey the next step is to come to church again and again, and beyond that would be to join a cell group and become a regular part of your new kingdom family. If that person is really willing to serve the new king they will listen to that altar worker and do what is said, from there the kingdom will open up further to their understanding.
God will allot us a certain peace and success too, when we go towards making a commitment to Him at an altar, but if not maintained it will soon vanish and we may wonder where the king is at. He never left, He told you where to go to get more of Him, more of His kingdom, but you never listened to those who were there to help you become a true citizen and you left, maybe went back to Moab, or maybe an enemy took a hold of your life rather than you allowing God to take a hold of you.
Even if we leave, even if we get taken, our commitment to God was a covenant made with the shed blood of Jesus, God does not look on that lightly and expects us to fulfill our part of the “marriage” commitment.,
There are stages towards a true marital covenant being solidified by us.
We court, decide to commit, make covenant, have communion with Him and with His Body and we become a community of witness for our Lord. It is progressive. Most who come to “altars” aren’t even yet courting the Lord, they are tasting of Him. When they go further by doing what another kingdom citizen tells them to do, only then have they began to court the King.
Naomi told Ruth what to do, Ruth trusted her and did it with all of her heart. She joined the reapers, she joined in with the kingdom purposes. You don’t have to be a full grown Christian to join the reapers, just hang around them and watch the fields get harvested. Join the purpose by being there and learning!
The king took notice and because she came under covering, came to work in the field and was diligent with following the other workers, she came under His protective covering. He said don’t go work elsewhere, here I’ll protect you. In other fields there were rapers amongst reapers. If she left and decided to try out one of those fields he could not protect her there, his field was here, this is where he worked, he had a lot to do here, enough to last his whole day, he could not physically go look for her in others fields he’d be neglecting his. If she did decide to go elsewhere and say got raped there it would be ridiculous for her to fault Boaz for not covering and protecting her.
We do that with God, we make a commitment at an altar, don’t follow any reapers, don’t go to church, don’t read our Bibles, stay involved in our old behavior patterns and then we say, this salvations stuff is bogus, it doesn’t work, God doesn’t care or protect me! WOW.
He gave you grace to come under His discipline, discipleship teachings, learn of His ways, when you didn’t it was not and is not God’s fault!
How about reconsidering following the reapers? If you went to an altar before but things haven’t turned out so good, how about coming back to the original plan of discipleship? How about going to church every week? How about becoming a part of a weekly Bible Studygroup and reading your Bible and following someone you can ask questions to about the Bible? That’s discipleship.
Repentance simply means, Oh wow, I’m on the wrong road, for getting “There”, now I need to turn around and go in a different direction. So you got off track, God forgives off trackers. Repent, ask forgiveness, you’ll be amazed at the grace of God that will again flood you. Don’t beat yourself up and dwell in the molly grubs. Get up and go back into the fields, Court the church, commit to God and His body, Make irrevocable covenant with them in the name of the Lord, share the intimacy of communion and be a community of witness to a lost without you world!

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