Your People Will Be My People

AND YOUR GOD MY GOD (Ruth 1:1-18) Sing The Old Gospel Hymn - "A Part Of The Family Of God" I'm so glad, I'm a part of the family of God. When going to another country, it is not easy fitting in, because you are meeting a new people, a new culture and a new language. You basically start a new life in a new place. It does take some time, to learn to fit in, but if you are going to make it in that new life, you must fit in to the new countries ways as long as they are in relation to your life in Chrsit. We must always patern our life after the ways of God and His word.God does not want us, to ever put His word aside and just do it because that is the way our new country does it. Just because everybody is dong it, it does not mean you have to. Look at our scripture - "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 even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her."(Ruth 1:16-18) Who are you in Christ, I believe Ruth found herself in her relationship,not necessarly to Naomi but rather to God. Ruth said to her mother-in-law, Naomi, "your people are my people and your God is my God". Of that she was sure. (Ruth 1:16). She had made an unwavering commitment to God and to Naomi to share life and to live in a community where Naomi was living. She was determined to help Naomi make a go of it where ever they went. To share in her spiritual journey regardless of the obstacles they may face, they would face them together. When Ruth left her homeland of Moab to move to Bethlehem with her mother-inlaw Naomi, she was willing to take on a new identity, and embraced a new culture, a new family, and her new found faith in God. Ruth said to Naomi, "Don't plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried." Wow, what a committment and what a promise in relationship. (Ruth 1:16-17) To me, this is one of the most powerful and beautiful types of love in the bible, the love that Ruth had for her mother-inlaw, it was a love that made her loyal and on waveringly trustworthy in that relationship. She had an unwavering commitment to share a life, a community and a spiritual journey. What about you, have you lost your way? Do you need to rediscover who you are and to where you belong? You may have lost a loved one, you may of had to leave your home land and have to learn a new culture and new language in a new country, I would suggest you don't do it alone. God has promised to walk with you, and you may need some other person to come along side to teach you, the ways pof the country. Ruth, chose to bind herself to her mother-in-law Naomi and to her family (people). She said, Your people will be my people and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). I believe this is an important statement, when you come to another country, that country and its people need to become yours. Also, I encoursge you to find a relationship with God, He is the best one who will walk with you through it all. As Ruth connected herself and her destiny to that of Naomi and her people in life and in death, so we, if in another country, should do the same, so we to may thrive well, in our new home. When entering a new family and a new country we need to prioritize community over clarity, belonging over certainty, and love over separation. In doing so, we step into a life that will make us feel welcome and complete, and we will find God's redemptive power enveloping our lives. AS we become members of the fmily of God and the community of believers (4:18-22; Matthew 1:3-5). Remember this, when we as believers in Jesus forget who we are—or when life’s pain leaves us disoriented—God often uses community to reconnect us with our most authentic identity. In Him we’re beloved, chosen, and known. Whgen we have been brn again, we are a part of the family of God, we become a child of the King, forever loved and forever protectd. Both now and forever more. Dear God me to remember who I am in you. Lord, Jesus it means the world to me that I am known by you and you know my name.Please gracious Lord, help me remeber who I am in you, and that I would always , always seek to glorify your name.For it is in Your Name I Prau AMEN.