2008-07-13 - Ruth: True Security

Installment 14 ~ Chapter 1, Part 9

We are all capable of making decisions based on emotions instead of depending of God to lead us in a way that is consistent with His "big" picture. In this particular lesson, we want to focus on how we advise others.

Do we advise others based on what they want to hear, or how we want them to feel about us? Or do we give them advice based on God's truth? I am sure Naomi felt that for Ruth and Orpah in their circumstances, that going home would be the most secure choice. But life isn't about any kind of security, short of that which comes from God.

God will be giving Naomi the opportunity to understand that true security comes only from dependency on Him. He constantly gives us opportunities to learn this same truth. This week, let us examine our lives. Do we believe that the Lord is the real and the only Source of our security? Let us ask the Lord to help us trust in Him instead of anything else. And when we realize where our real security is, then we are able to see our circumstances from God's perspective. When the storms hit, we can turn our eyes from the tossing waves, and instead look toward our Savior.

Naomi was obsessed by her past. Instead of being able to rejoice in Ruth's commitment to her faith, she is beaten down by her losses. Spurgeon puts it this way:

"I should think that Naomi was - certainly she ought to have been - greatly cheered by hearing this declaration from Ruth, especially the last part of it: "Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Naomi had suffered great temporal loss; she had lost her husband and her two sons; but now she had found the soul of her daughter-in-law; and I believe that, according to the scales of true judgment, there ought to have been more joy in her heart at the conversion of Ruth's soul than grief over the death of her husband and her sons. Our Lord Jesus has told us that "there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth;" and I always understand, by that expression, that there is joy in the heart of God himself over every sinner's repentance. Well, then, if Naomi's husband and sons were true believers, - if they had been walking aright before the Lord, - as, let us hope, they had done, she need not have felt such sorrow for them as could at all compare with the joy of her daughter-in-law being saved. ₁

I guess the bottom line is, our response to circumstances is directly tied to where we look and Whom We Choose to Follow!

1. Spurgeon, Charles, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 46 Published in 1900, The Master Christian Library, AGES Software, Albany, OR, Version 8.0 ©  2000, p. 375-376.

To be continued.

Comments or Questions?
Geoff

GKragen@aol.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org

Additional studies by Geoff
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