Seize the Moment – Day 727
The Power of Conversion!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 14.
The book of Ruth is a sad story with a happy ending. It is a short, four-chapter story, that takes place during the time of the Judges. It is the story of Elimelech and his wife, Naomi, who, with their two sons Mahlon and Chilion, traveled to the land of Moab to avoid a famine. They lived in the land for ten years, during which Naomi’s husband died, the two sons take Moabite women as wives, then both sons died. This sad chain of events left Naomi alone with two Moabite woman as her daughters-in-law. As Naomi prepared to return to Bethlehem, she released the two Moabite women from their commitments to her, but one of them would not depart. Ruth’s response to Naomi’s urging is found in Ruth 1:16-17:
Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.
Did you know that Ruth’s proclamation of faith is the key to this entire story? As a Moabite woman she would not be allowed to enter the assembly of God’s people (Deuteronomy 23:3), but her conversion brought great blessing to her and to Naomi. Without her declaration of loyalty love, this story could be nothing more than another flagrant violation of the Law of God in the time of the Judges, but with it, it is transformed into a story of love and loyalty – a foreshadowing of God’s redemptive love through Jesus Christ.
Seize the moment and declare your loyal love to God and His people. Your conversion transforms your story through the gospel of Jesus Christ.