Love: Food for the Journey

Elizabeth McQuoid

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781789741988
• eBook ISBN: 9781789741971
• Topic: Theology & Religion

Love has been described in so many ways, but do we really understand what it means?This 30-day devotional in the Food for the Journey series drills down to what love really is, and how it is ultimately defined in and by God - a God who loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son to rescue us from sin and reconcile us to himself.Covering passages from across the Old and New Testaments, in this devotional some of the Keswick Convention's best preachers - including Vaughan Roberts, David Coffey and Rico Tice - mine the riches of the Bible's wisdom on love. In self-contained daily devotions they show us how we rest assured that God's love is everlasting, unconditional and breathtaking in its immensity.In a small, slim paperback format, Love: Food for the Journey is perfect for carrying around with you on the go. Like all the Food for the Journey books, its undated format means you can start and finish at any time of the year, and work through it at your own pace.Uplifting and encouraging, this short devotional invites us to bask in God's love, appreciate afresh its depth and richness, and warm our hearts, equipping and empowering us to love and serve him better.

Day 1

Read Ruth 1:1–22

Key verses: Ruth 1:16–17

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16But 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. 17Where 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.’

What torpedoes love in our culture?

Capitalism, by its endorsement of self-interest, and the media, with their preoccupation with erotic images, have played a part. But the real problem is that, for the past fifty years, we have redefined the meaning of love. It is no longer a sacrificial commitment to another person. Love is now considered to be an intensity of feeling within us. This understanding is what makes Ruth, and the book that bears her name, such a candle in the darkness.

The events took place when the judges ruled: ‘In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit’ (Judges 21:25). Society was utterly individualistic and hedonistic – just as it is today. The book of Ruth, even when it was written, would have been seen as very old fashioned because its message is that love is a sacrificial commitment; a laying down of your life for others. The book is about loyalty, duty and the cost that comes from putting the needs of others before your own. It demonstrates how God achieves his purpose in history through insignificant people who trust him enough to take the risks that sacrificial covenant love demands.

The story begins when Naomi and her family leave Bethlehem during a famine and go to Moab as economic refugees. Both her sons marry Moabite women but, sadly, her husband and sons die within a short period of time. Utterly destitute, Naomi plans to return to Bethlehem. Contrary to all good sense and her own best interest, Ruth, her widowed daughter-in-law, commits herself in love to Naomi. Rather than leave this old woman bereft, Ruth abandons her own country of Moab and her religion, and accompanies Naomi to Judah, the southern Israelite kingdom. In her speech, Ruth deliberately echoes the covenant vow (binding promises) of God to Israel in her own covenant vow to Naomi (Ruth 1:16). She declares her forever, come-what-may commitment to Naomi. This covenant relationship is what real love is about!

If Ruth had been interested only in self-fulfilment, she would have abandoned Naomi and gone in search of a husband among her own people. But she is determined to put loyalty to Naomi and Naomi’s God first, whatever the sacrifice. Strikingly, Orpah, Naomi’s other daughter-in-law, can’t face such a cost and she returns to Moab. So two destitute widows, one a Moabite (considered an enemy of Israel), are heading straight for Bethlehem.

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Ruth’s sacrificial love for Naomi is a pale reflection of God’s love and faithfulness to you. God has declared his forever, come-what-may commitment at the cross. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more and no sin you can commit that would make him love you any less. Jesus laid down his life to save you – that is how loved you are!

Day 2

Read Ruth 3:1–18

Key verses: Ruth 3:8–9

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8In the middle of the night something startled the man; he turned – and there was a woman lying at his feet!

9‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I am your servant Ruth,’ she said. ‘Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.’

It wouldn’t rank very highly as a conventional (or romantic) marriage proposal.

Ruth had arrived in Bethlehem during harvest time and started gleaning in the fields to support herself and Naomi, which is what the homeless and the beggars did. She just happens to go to a field belonging to Boaz (2:3), who just happens to be a member of Naomi’s family (2:20).

In the middle of the night, when the party to celebrate the harvest is over, Boaz wakes from sleep on the threshing floor to discover Ruth lying at his feet (3:8). She says to him, ‘Spread the corner of your garment over me’ (3:9), which means in essence, ‘Marry me!’

When Boaz first met Ruth, he was moved by her kindness to Naomi and prayed, ‘May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge’ (2:12). Ruth is now saying, ‘Just as you prayed that for me, Boaz, let me come under the protection of God’s wings by coming under the protection of your garment!’ The word translated ‘corner of your garment’ is the same word for ‘wing’. In Ezekiel, God’s spreading of the corner of his garment (that is, ‘wing’) is used of God when he makes a covenant with his people. Ruth is asking Boaz to be the answer to his own prayers. She’s saying, ‘Boaz, marry me, and please take care of my mother-in-law. I will not break my covenant and vows of love to her.’

Ruth’s covenantal love and kindness to Naomi has impressed Boaz (3:10) but, more importantly, it transforms Naomi. This woman of faith has been devastated family bereavements. She articulates the honest complaint of many believers who find themselves the innocent victims of God’s judgment in a fallen world: ‘The Lord has afflicted me’ (1:21). But Naomi discovers that her cynicism is misplaced and she ends this story with her grandson, Ruth and Boaz’s son, in her arms (4:16). What a joy!

How was Naomi’s faith restored? By personally experiencing the human love and sacrificial service of Ruth. Her faith in the covenant love of God was restored because another human being demonstrated such love to her. The kindness of God was real to Naomi because of the kindness of Ruth.

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Have you come under the Redeemer’s wing? Are you sheltering under the corner of his garment? If so, you are absolutely secure in God’s covenant love in Christ. Today, thank him for the love he has lavished on you and consider to whom you will show that same covenant love. God calls us to love others with the love he has shown us. So who is your Naomi? What task has God asked you to do that will require you to lay down your life for the sake of others?

Day 3

Read Ruth 4:1–22

Key verses: Ruth 4:5–6

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5Then Boaz said, ‘On the day you buy the land from Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the dead man’s widow, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property.’

6At this, the guardian-redeemer said, ‘Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.’

What would you do for love?

Boaz is depicted as a servant-hearted, godly, self-sacrificing believer. He bore Ruth no resentment when she gleaned in his fields (2:8); he told his men not to harm her (2:9); he acknowledged and encouraged her godliness (2:12); and he sent her home with food (2:17). Naomi actually tells us that Boaz is famed for his kindness (2:20).

And now, just as Ruth was contrasted with her sister-in-law in chapter 1, Boaz is contrasted with another relative. This unnamed man wants the land that Naomi’s husband, Elimelech, left when he went to Moab. He has first refusal and says that he will buy it. He ultimately shies away from covenant love, however, when he realizes that he’ll have to support Ruth and Naomi, as well as provide an heir for Elimelech’s family.

His excuse: ‘I might endanger my own estate!’ Never mind his duty to God’s law or his responsibility to care for Elimelech’s family, this man wants the land but not the widows. The same reasoning stops us caring. We think, ‘I can’t risk this sort of sacrifice and self-giving. What about me, what about my resources and what about my own boundaries?’ This man walks away from Naomi and, in doing so, walks away from his duty, his calling. But Boaz does the right thing. He buys the field and takes on the care of Ruth and Naomi, too.

The big picture is that covenant love is going to put Boaz and Ruth right into the middle of salvation history. Their child Obed was the grandfather of David, whose descendent was Christ (4:17)! But Boaz and Ruth couldn’t see how God was sovereignly working his purposes out. All they could see was Naomi and the call to obedience and covenant love.

This story is designed to deprogramme us from our selfish, individualistic, therapeutic attitudes towards love, a love that is about an intensity of feeling, rather than a sacrificial commitment to another person. The message was needed in the time of the judges and it is needed today. It’s a story that is meant to encourage us; if we really want to know what love means, in its fullest and richest form, then we must be willing for commitment and sacrifice as the price of love, for we live in the shadow of Calvary.

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Many times each day we face a choice: to be like the ...

Table of contents

• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Ruth and Hosea
• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5
• Matthew and Mark
• Day 6
• Day 7
• Day 8
• Day 9
• Day 10
• Day 11
• Day 12
• Day 13
• John
• Day 14
• Day 15
• Day 16
• Day 17
• Day 18
• Day 19
• Romans
• Day 20
• Day 21
• Day 22
• 1 John and Revelation
• Day 23
• Day 24
• Day 25
• Day 26
• Day 27
• Day 28
• Day 29
• Day 30
• For further study
• Keswick Ministries