Like I said before I have studied Ruth quite a bit, over several years. I read just about every thing I can get my hands on about Ruth, her situation, her life, her family, her way of life. Thankfully I attend a church that has a great library and an even more wonderful librarian, who lets me check out reference books and keep them for a long time.
I spoke on Ruth three summers ago and these are my notes:
It's true; I am my mothers daughter, although I act more like my grandmother, I am my mothers daughter. I look like her, I sound a lot like her, I used to think a lot like her too, until I came to the realization that I am my Fathers Child.
Yes I am a product the past, but the past is not my product.
It is not who I am.
It doesn’t have to produce in my life what it has produced in the lives of my ancestors.
Deut. 30 says: God says I have called heaven and earth against you as witnesses and I have set before you LIFE and DEATH, CHOOSE LIFE! So that YOU and YOUR descendants my live!!
I grew up in a household of fear. Fear everything, Trust No one and if God existed, He was out to get me! Its been a long journey, but one I’d like to share with you today. Out of the fear and into faith.
It has been said that there are no more than four generations on the earth at one time. Try it for yourself. Example:
My example. Kids, Me, Mom. Kids, Husband, His Mother, Her Mother. Who has five?? With that in mind lets get to our first text.
Exodus 20. The 10 commandments. People put a lot of emphasis on "the 10", when there are in fact 613. Thank God for justification huh! But these we consider to be “the important ones”. I’m discussing Commandment #2 tonight.
INIQUITY = That’s a better word than sin. Sins are forgiven, iniquity is more like lingering consequences for sin. Some call it generations curses, some call is sick cycles, some call it dysfunction, God calls is iniquity.
Lets talk about MY generations:
Great G'ma: Married alcoholic, remarried an alcoholic (bootlegger), illness and depression. Sent children to church, no legacy of Christ to her children.
G’ma: Married an alcoholic, remarried an alcoholic, was an alcoholic, depression and illness, did not send her children to church and left no legacy of Christ to her children.
Mom: married an alcoholic, remarried an alcoholic, is an alcoholic, depression and illness, she was saved in 1980 and made her children attend church faithfully. Read them the bible every day at breakfast. My parents left me a legacy of faith to their children and in turn we are leaving a legacy of Christ to ours
bring up a child had he will not depart from it...
Me: married, remarried (neither are alcoholics) I am not an alcoholic, I do not live a live of illness or depression. I attend church, my children attend church.
What happened? What changed? I chose life! I changed my focus. Because I wanted to live…
I wanted my children to live. Not in a bubble, not in fear, not afraid of God. I had to decide to DO something different. I wanted something different so I had to do something different. I had to change my view of God and see him for who he really is. And I had to change my view of me and stop seeing myself thru the eyes of others.
How did that happen?
I had to make Gods voice louder than any of the others (and there are others) in my head. Read the bible, study the bible, meditate on the word, apply it to my life. One of the stories I read made an impact on my life, its the story of Ruth.
I'll give you a little background of Ruth and where she came from:
Moab was considered a "cursed" of Lot, and his two daughters. They hid out in the mountains after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed they were the only people left alive; the daughters got their father drunk on two successive nights and each had sex with him, they became pregnant by him.
One of the children born out of this incest was named Moab. His descendants were the Moabites. Ruth,was a Moabite. The mentality of all the Moabite people was distorted by idolatry. A society that had very little value for life and family.
SOUNDS LIKE A NATION WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE.
Idol Worship. Ruth was familiar with Idols. All of these things (idol worship, child sacrifices, death of her family, her husband, her father in law) had an impact on her. Shaped her, thoughts, her words her actions. There was something great about Ruth - she rose above her past.
She had an ability to look at her past and present and say "I want no more of this. I want something better. I want something more." I recognized I had the same ability. I was a child of the Most High God and I had the same ability as Ruth.
I wanted no more fear, no more depression, no more illness, no more victim mentality. I kept reading….
After the death of the men in this family, Naomi (her mother in law) heard that the famine was over (was no more) in Bethlehem, and she decided to return home. She began her journey with both her Daughters in law by her side, but along the way, she stopped and told them to turn around and go back to Moab - to return to their people and their gods. One daughter in law agreed.
But Ruth loved Naomi and "clung to her" DAW-BAK To Cleave (Ruth 1:14) Naomi told them "I am going to a place that is unfamiliar to you, go back to your traditions and customs."Ruth said "INTREAT ME not to leave you...."
Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die,And there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”
Ruth recognized that she had already experienced her past, and she didn't like it. She made a choice. Her tomorrow didn't have to look like her yesterday. Many people today base on their ending on their beginning. They do it to themselves and they do it to others.
Based on my beginnings, I should be fearing for my life to be talking to you today!
The MOST important thing is life is where you finish! God does not use your past to determine your future....SO WHY SHOULD YOU??
I had to stop doing that. I had to stop consulting with my past. I had to stop using it as the barometer for life. I had to make a decision to LEAVE and CLEAVE. Leave and Cleave Its a biblical principle that applies to every part of your life. You must leave your past and cleave to what God has for you today.
Cleave means …. To Cleave means to adhere closely, to stick, to remain faithful to follow ones principles despite persecution.
Leave yesterday and cleave to today.
Leave your failures and cleave to Gods Promises.
Leave your old sin and cleave to the forgiveness God gives you.
God had a plan and a purpose for Ruth....Ruth married her Kinsman Redeemer Boaz and Ruth gave birth to Obed, Obed was the father of Jesse, Jesse is the father of David, David is the direct bloodline of Jesus! Which means Ruth is the direct bloodline of Jesus.
Ruth - who was marred, scarred, stained, tainted, distorted and warped by her environment - lived out her life in greatness!!
God will do in your life too what he did with Ruth! You must allow God to do His work, His changing in you. You must be willing to disconnect from your past and move toward the presence of greatness in your future. The truth is You are not final product of a fatal beginning.
The wagging of tongues DO NOT change Gods Mind or Change His Purpose for you. God doesn’t form His opinion of you based on anything other than HIS thoughts. Jer 29:11 I know the thoughts that I think towards you. You ARE who God says YOU ARE!
And God says you are loved with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3),
you are purchased with a preciousness (I cor 6:20).
You are justified (rom 3:24, Romans 5:1,9, Rom 8:30, rom 10:10, I cor 6:11, Titus 3:7)
you are righteous. Not self righteous, you have right standing (rom 1:17, rom 3:21-22, rom 4, rom 10, rom 14:17, eph 4:24, eph 5:9, eph 6:14, II tim 3:16)
Do you know what that means? A condition acceptable to God.
God says you can succeed. God says you have a future that is a blessing and fulfilling and eternally rewarding. God loves you completely. God knows you completely, everything you have done, haven't done, will do, will say, think....and he loves you completely, wholey, created you and chooses to be in relationship with you. To walk that out we have to make choice….remember Deut. 30 .
1) Go back to how you always do things. Go back to your customs and traditions and past. OR....
2) Go to a place you have never been to create something you've never had....we can choose life.
God says, he’s doing a new thing…forget the former things…do not dwell on the past. Isaiah 43
Jesus said: DWELL IN ME! John 15
To dwell means to live or to continue in a given condition or state
Paul said ONE THING I do…ONE THING…forgetting what is behind and STRAINING toward what is ahead I PRESS ON toward the goal…..
Something else Paul say just above that in Chapter 3 vs. 10-14 10[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [[a]which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]11That if possible I may attain to the [[b]spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].12Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.13I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,14I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.It is up to us to Press on….toward a supreme and heavenly goal.
Not the goals of others, but Gods purpose and plan for our life. Yes its true, I am my Mothers Daughter, But I am my Fathers Child.
I don't know anything about traveling pants, but I know we are part of a sisterhood of the Most High God. Who calls us by our NAME, not by our SHAME.
We are to wear our crowns with confidence and leave a legacy of Christ for the next 999 Generations!!
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