Devotionals

No Turning Back

by PamFord Davis 
05/30/18
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I reminisced during a recent reading from the Book of Ruth…

In 1967, Norm and I exchanged wedding vows at the altar of Central Baptist Church, Syracuse, NY. Reverend Richard Bond had selected the Ruth passage for the beautiful ceremony. The message from Ruth is timeless.

“But Ruth said, ‘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 (Ruth 1:16-17 NASB).”

Commitment is rare. 

Ruth was committed to her mother-in-law Naomi. She made that clear; there’d be no turning back to her homeland, family, friends or heathen gods.

She was ready to go forward; regardless of sacrifices.

Ruth was going to Naomi’s homeland; she was prepared to live and die there. In making her personal pledge to Naomi, Ruth also voiced her faith in the LORD God. I sense no inclinations of timidity in the young widow.

With determination, she set her feet on the road to Bethlehem. There she found favor in the heart of a man named Boaz; he took Ruth as his wife.

God blessed their union. She conceived and bore a son named Obed (father of Jesse, the father of King David).

You can find Ruth listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

“Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David the king (Matthew 1:5b-6a NASB).”