Key Verse: Ruth 1:16
But Ruth said:

“Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.”

In the midst of the time of the Judges comes this beautiful love story. The book of Ruth is an account of one of the most moving acts of loyalty, and of the way that God honoured that love and loyalty. Even while evil and corruption seemed so prominent in Israel, there were many honourable people who loved and served God. That number included a Moabite woman who had married an Israelite and was now a widow. In a time when Israel was often in apostasy, she left her idolatrous religion to embrace the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and her mother-in-law Naomi. Ruth is a bright shining light pointing to the way of faith in the One true God. Over 1,000 years later, Jesus, the Son of God, would be born in Ruth’s adopted hometown of Bethlehem. From the lineage of Ruth comes the Messiah, the Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord Jesus, Ruth and Boaz were your great-great, etc. grandparents. You are 100% Human and also 100% God. As a Human, You show me how to live as a man. You are my Mentor, my Example, and my Hero. Please give me grace to follow You more closely today than yesterday. In Your loving Name I pray. Amen!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:
I was thrilled to participate in the wedding of our second daughter, Ellen, to Nizar Shaheen, an Israeli Arab who is ordained in the Nazareth Baptist Church. As a part of the ceremony, Ellen quoted, in the Arabic language, the words of our key verse. What a powerful moment. Israeli television co-operated with TV networks in Canada and the USA to carry the wedding live across North America. In advance, we had distributed thousands of copies of a document called, “A Marriage Covenant.” I encouraged married couples everywhere to renew their vows as Ellen and Nizar said theirs at the Church in Nizar’s home village of Cana of Galilee. Jesus, His mother, and several of the disciples were guests there at another wedding 2,000 years before, and Jesus did His first miracle of turning the water into wine (read John 2:1-11). The people of Cana still call the wedding of Nizar and Ellen “the other wedding” (click here for Ellen saying the words of Ruth to her beloved Nizar).

Today, Nizar and Ellen are all over the Arabic-speaking world on TV and on the internet, winning thousands of precious people to Jesus through Light For All Nations.

Yours for love and loyalty,

David