Gleaning in the field of Grace - Pastor Joseph Nipah

Ruth Chapter 1 has been our study passage since the first week of January. We are focusing on the issue of making up our mind on the journey we are embarking on.  This journey is going to be challenged along the way, if we have not rooted in our heart that we have settled with Jesus, all the days of our lives, we will not be able to enjoy a continuous life with Jesus.

If we want to live the life filled with Christ, continuously without breaking and without a conflicted heart between the worldly and the kingdom of God, here are 2 things we needs:

1. A need to make up our mind: The journey with Jesus is not an easy road (Song lyrics: its not an easy Road) that is why only those who have made up there mind in the first place can be helped by Jesus to complete. 
2. Grace of God: no matter how determined we are, it is not enough to take us through. 

Ruth 1 verse 16: Ruth made a decision in the face of what would be a very convincing reason why Ruth and Orpah should not follow her (Naomi). But there and then, Ruth declared her decision again, that Naomi's God will be her God.  
She was rejecting all that she is  and all that she was used to. She now will be going to Bethlehem with NOTHING. Ruth must have seen something from Naomi, This must be faith at its peak. But it is not faith without evidence because she later proved it by staying true to the decision she made. What Ruth did by turning back her past for a Hopeful life in Bethlehem, she burnt her bridge and cannot go back to Moab, the land of Sin, the land that God had Cursed.

The evidence that she had burnt her bridge can be seen when Ruth decided to Glean in the farmland in order to feed her new family.  A gleaner is a person who picks thew left over from the farm, after the pickers have picked the valuable harvest. It was while gleaning that God's grace came to Ruth when she met Boaz, the rich farm owner and the redeeming Kinsman who was instrumental in buying back all that Naomi's family had lost. 

Ruth Later married Boaz also. From poor lady with nothing to live on to a redeemed, free citizen of Bethlehem. This is what wishes to do for all of us if we decide to "deny ourselves, take our cross and follow Jesus" - Luke 9:23

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