Blog From April 13 2007: Loyalty

Then Naomi said to her two daughters in law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find another husband.”

Then she kissed them and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

But Naomi said, “Return home my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could be your husbands?

Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought that there was hope for me -even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons- 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 gone out against me!”

At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her.

“Look,” Naomi said, “Your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

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 will be my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be ever so severely, if anything but death ever separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.

Ruth 1:8-19

I have always loved this discourse found at the beginning of the book of Ruth. I cherish its words, because they stir my heart. These words stir me so that I want to name one of my children Ruth.

This is one of the single greatest acts of human relational loyalty found in the Bible. We must all seek to become more and more like Ruth. We must love people so much that we would sacrifice our own self-interest for the brethren. If you do not have family and friends you love so much that you would respond to them the way Ruth responded to Naomi then I question whether you have allowed self to cloud your thinking. If you could not respond the way Ruth did, then you need to pray that the Lord would help you love people more.

Loyalty is the single greatest quality that can be present in the hearts of man. When Christ calls us, he calls us to be loyal to him to the point of death. If your loyalty to Jesus Christ is not at this point yet, then you have much work to do.

I encourage you to work on your loyalty to the brethren. Christ seeks your utmost loyalty. Here in America we are taught that self is the only thing that is important. This is blasphemy against the very name of Christ. Jesus Christ was loyal to you to the point of death. Loyalty must be your defining characteristic. If it is not, then you must go to work….Godspeed!