no greater love

SCRIPTURE: Ruth 1
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
But 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 anything but death separates you and me.” [Ruth 1:16-17]
Ruth stands out as a shining light in this dark scene.
Beginning in famine, followed by death of husbands and sons, ending with Naomi’s bitterness and emptiness, the only glimmer of hope is Ruth’s devotion to her mother-in-law.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. [John 15:13]
Ruth expresses her commitment to Naomi with covenantal language, she bonds herself to her with a vow for life.
These were not just empty words, Ruth is sacrificing life as she knows it (in Moab) for the sake of her mother-in-law, whose prospects are grim; widows did not have much going in their favour at that time, especially if they had no sons (it was a man’s world, which makes this story all the greater, because the central character is a woman).
There is no greater love says Jesus – the kind of love that Ruth displayed, which foreshadows the love that Jesus displays.

In Ruth’s case, only death could separate her from Naomi; in Jesus’ case, not even death could separate them.
Jesus goes where we go, stays where we stay, our people become His people, His God is our God.
He dies with us, is buried with us, yet that death does not separate us!

God uses Ruth, a foreigner, for several reasons:
(1) To contrast her faithfulness with Israel’s unfaithfulness; this was the time of the Judges, when famine was because the people were turning away from God.
(2) To show that He can use anyone (a woman, an impoverished widow, a foreigner) to work out His salvation.
(3) To show people the way of blessing through humility, love and serving others.
(4) To prepare the way for the messiah, Jesus the son of David [Ruth 4:16-17].

Jesus sends us to continue in this kind of loving service.
As we imitate Ruth and Jesus in humility, love and serving others, God works out His blessing and salvation through us.
Others are blessed, and Jesus is birthed in their hearts.
We become a part of God’s salvation in others.

PRAYER:
Lord, help me to see each day as an opportunity to love and bless others. Use me, like Ruth, to bring Jesus into the world!