Dear Family at Christ Community,

     On Sunday, we will continue our journey through the book of Ruth. We will be introduced in Ruth 2:1-13 to Boaz, a man after God’s own heart, for the first time as well as seeing the biblical nature of Ruth’s character. Boaz serves as God’s ordinary means by which He providentially provides for Ruth and Naomi in the immediate. Ruth exemplifies an active faith in Israel’s God by taking responsibility to do what she can help provide for her and Naomi. The results of both are humble gratitude and worship which will serve as the foundation for greater blessings yet to come in the story. David J. Atkinson encourages us in The Message of Ruth: The Wings of Refuge to have the same mindset as Boaz and Ruth towards God’s providence and our responsibility:

…we must never formulate our understanding of God’s sovereign providence in such a way that our human responsibility dissolves away. God’s grace does not eliminate our freedom—it rather creates it. And the first premise of all morality is that the moral person is responsible. In the Bible, responsibility is attributed to persons made as God’s image, and it carries a sense of ‘response’ to the Creator, who holds us accountable.

     As you prepare to partake of the Lord’s Supper this week, meditate on how your baptism signifies God’s providence in redeeming you in Christ and setting you free from slavery to sin to be able to glorify Him through how you live. Consider that you’re called to serve God out of your love for Him who first loved you. This renders obedience as something you get to do for His glory, your joy, and the life of the world as opposed to something that you must do to earn His love. Come humbled by and grateful for God’s steadfast love for you and taste yet again of His goodness in Christ!

In Christ,
Cameron