I finished off Ruth on Friday and I love how God allows everything to come full circle in our lives for His glory! We seen the man that was closer kin than Boaz give up his right as redeemer. He was all for taking the land, but when it was mentioned that he would have to take Ruth as a wife, he said it would would ruin his own inheritance. It was too much for the man and he declined being her kinsman redeemer. I couldn’t help but think as a people that’s how we are at times in our lives when we need redemption in some form or another. We often will look at someone else to give us value and worth…to redeem us from whatever makes us feel as though we aren’t valuable anymore. Often times, our closest relatives will let us down. But, we can’t place our faith in them…we must place our faith in Jesus.
Now the best part of this story is that Boaz and Ruth get married, live happily ever after and have a son named Obed. If you know anything about Obed, he had a son named Jesse and we know Jesse had a son named David. Guess who came to us a descendent of David?
Jesus!
This whole book has been saturated with Jesus and then to learn that the simple reason that Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because of Ruth and Boaz. Remember, the census of Caesar Augustus? Naomi’s return to Bethlehem was the beginning…isn’t God awesome?
Now, we talked about Boaz being like Jesus and being kinsmen-redeemer…but the importance is in the fact that a kinsman must be a man. God could have sent a legion of angels to save us, but they wouldn’t have been a kinsman. He could have just saved us from heaven without becoming a human, but then again no kinsman. God could have allowed one of the prophets of old to be our kinsman but they are disqualified by their own imperfections/sin. Only Jesus was 100 percent man and 100 percent God. That allowed Him to be our kinsman redeemer! Now, THAT is awesome!
God has given us glorious redemption through His Son, Jesus. We just got to go back to Bethlehem.
I love how God can use a woman that was bitter and hurt by her circumstances, to go back to Bethlehem in faith and watch God in all His omnipotence do a great work! It’s awesome to see what God can do when one woman chose to walk by faith. What is he wanting to do through you?
