REFUELING SPIRITUAL RHYTHMS: COMMITMENT

It is always a great time of sharing together and refueling our spirits for the coming year. The new sermon series for the start of our school year is Refueling Spiritual Rhythms. Life naturally has a rhythm. Your heart beats at a particular rhythm and when it does not it can cause problems. We are at our best when our hearts are in rhythm. This holds true for our spiritual lives as well! When our lives are in sync with God’s Spirit, then we are going to be at our best. Unfortunately, this is the problem. The power of our willfulness and sin always desires to keep us out of sync with the living God! As we look around at the world, it is not hard to see. We find war rather than peace, oppressive domination rather than free determination, and confusion rather than communion with God or each other. It is exhausting! The first sermon in this series is Commitment. Commitments fill our lives, and they can also be exhausting, but when our commitments are in line with God’s heart, then we can do amazing things. Our scripture for this week is Ruth 1:8-18. Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, have lost everything. They are living in the country of Moab. Naomi’s husband and two sons have died and in a desperate moment hope to rebuild her life, she starts to return to her homeland of Judah. As they pack up and leave, she urges Orpah and Ruth to return to their “mother’s home.” Orpah decides to follow her advice, but Ruth refuses to leave Naomi in her discouragement and despair. It is not just a beautiful moment; it is also a transforming one! Ruth had found a new rhythm with God’s heart that filled her with unbreakable determination and unparalleled courage! We pray that as you experience the difficult and exhausting commitments of your life that you will experience a “Ruth” moment that will sync your heart with the heart of the Almighty God. You will be amazed at what God can do!

Ruth 1:8-18
8 Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. 9 May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud 10 and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? 12 Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— 13 would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has turned against me! ” 14 At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. 15 “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” 16 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. 17 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.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.