3.152 If You Are In, Go All In

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

How many of you out there listening have had your life pan out exactly the way you planned it? No course corrections, no side roads or adventures. It's just worked exactly the way.

If you are that person, please come find me, knock on my door and teach me your ways. Because for me and probably the rest of us listening to this episode today, we deal with setbacks, we deal with plan A, plan B, plan C, and sometimes in life you end up planning to plan to plan, trying to figure things out. That is where we head into our readings this week as we read both the Book of Ruth entirely, chapters 1 through 4, and the front end of 1st Samuel, as we go into chapters 1 through 7.

Come Follow Me focuses heavily on the course correction and path re-engagement direction, and while we're going to touch on that just a little bit here and there throughout this week, I really had some other directions that came up as I went through Ruth and the beginning of 1st Samuel here. To kick off, I do want to dive into Ruth chapter 1 for our verse for today. And as we take a look at this one here, I see Ruth's story.

Ruth is very, very well known. In fact, we're going to get into some, some powerhouse stories here inside of these books and chapters as we go through here. Ruth's story is one of, of challenge.

It's one of sadness and failure. And it's also one of this great circle come around and things end. And, you know, happy for Ruth and her family.

But in the middle of all that, I think Ruth's resolve is worth observing here. And that's where I want to go for our verse for today inside of Ruth chapter 1, verse 16. Verse 16 says, "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: For whither thou goest, I will go; And where thou lodgest, I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Now, why did I pick this and why did I see such a powerful verse here?

This is the moment where Ruth is being turned away by her mother-in-law. Not really turned away, but basically sent back home because both husbands, all the husbands, all three husbands have passed away. And so you've got mother-in-law and two daughters-in-law here.

And she's saying, look, just go back to your family because that way you'll be taken care of. And here we see Ruth's resolve. And the thing that I love about this is Ruth does not come from the Israelite tradition.

She's going to, in this story, she's going to convert into it. But if you'll notice here where her heart is in that conversion process, I think it's a lesson for every one of us. "I'm just going to take a buffer year and figure things out." No, no, no, no, no. That's not what she's doing here.

Ruth says, "Hey, I don't want to leave. I want to go wherever you go. I want to see the things you see.

I want to do the things you do. I want to stay where you're staying. I want to learn the ways of your people so they become my people." And then at the end there, "and thy God my God," she wants to be all in.

My friends, I think that this heart of Ruth here kind of sets the stage for the rest of the story. She shows the Lord that while being an outsider looking in, she's willing to go all in on the Lord and his plan and see how that turns out for her. That's worth kicking into our own lives and stewing on that, what it can be for us.

If you're in, go all in, my friends. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith, and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope.