Missions Paul

How to return to there from here, part 5

Ruth 1: 6-14

V8-9 “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 rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them and they wept aloud …”

5. Mistakes will be made
Naomi did not want to do to her daughters in law what Elimelech had done to her by taking them away from where they were. Its not enough to simply forget your past, we must learn from it.
In learning from our mistakes we will see that some of them turned out to be the best thing that may have ever happened to us. Elimelechs mistake took Naomi to Moab and to receiving Ruth into her life.

How to return to there from here, part 4

Ruth 1: 6-14

V7 “… set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.”

4. Your destiny is secured when you are in the right place and doing the right thing.
The right place was the road to Judah and the right thing to do was they made the journey.
In C S Lewis’ The Magicians Nephew, Digory and Polly come to a place they called ‘The Wood between the Worlds’, here they would jump into pools of water and end in a completely different place.
There is a place that will take you into a whole new way of life. It’s not the road to Judah nor is it the Wood between the Worlds. It is a secret place.
Matthew 6:6 – But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
You cannot do the right things until you are in the right place. The right thing is to stay in the right place. That is why everything will distract you from building a life of prayer. For your enemy knows if you do the right thing in the right place you will arrive at your destiny, you will become all that you can become, it is secured.

How to return to there from here, part 3

Ruth 1: 6-14

V7 “…she left the place where she had been living..”

3. If you don’t leave you will never arrive
Naomi left what she had known. Maybe there are things in our lives, things that we are so familiar with that we simply need to leave.

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. Hebrews 11:8.
God will not show you what you can become and where He can take you unless you leave first. He asks us to live by faith not by sight.

Will you let go today and trust God in this journey?

How to return to there from here, part 2

Ruth 1: 6-14

V6 “…prepared to return home.”

2. Get ready because there’s no coming back
Going on holiday and moving house are quite different. It is different in preparation. For a holiday you take as much as you need or are allowed to carry in your suitcase. When you move house, you take everything.
It is different in the end result. Wherever the holiday has been you always look forward to your own bed because it’s good to be away but always good to be home. When you’ve moved house you cannot go back and knock on the door and say “Let me in, it’s raining. I’ll just take a quick bath and then have a lie down on the bed.” You have no authority to your past life.
Too many want to move forward, become all that they can become and do it all in a holiday and then return to their life and what they know and their comforts.
It’s time to make final preparations and make our preparations final. No longer on daytrips with God but to say, “I’m getting ready to become all that I can become and there is no coming back to my old way of thinking, attitudes and commitments.”

How to return to there from here, part 1

Ruth 1: 6-14

Lucy philosophises to Charlie Brown: “Charlie Brown, life is a lot like this deck chair. Some place it to see where they’ve been and some so they can see where they are at present.”
Charlie Brown sighs: “I can’t even get mine unfolded.”
We live in times when people are wandering aimlessly looking for a purpose for life, looking for that big break, that final deal, that one chance in their circumstance that would make all the difference. At times some of that attitude can rub off on to the Christian. We can be like Charlie Brown, life is passing us by so quickly and everyone else seems to have positioned the deck chair of his or her purpose in life, yet we are so incredibly frustrated because what we are waiting for doesn’t seem to be coming.
Over the next 7 days I am going to give you 7 helps in order to return to there from here. I hope they help!

1. Listening will determine your action.
V6 “When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come …”
Even though in Moab there was no prophetic voice, Naomi heard. You can be in a time and a place where God’s voice seems very distant and yet motivation will come to you when you hear what He is doing in other places.
How she heard we are not told, but she had obviously kept lines of communication open with people back home.
Let us be open to what God is doing in other places and not shut ourselves away, for if we do we just may step into the purpose God has for our lives.

I’ve been robbed
Ruth 1:1-5
They had left God’s place to escape death, but the three men met their death nevertheless. They had planned only to live for a while in Moab, but they remained ten years. At the end of those ten years, all that remained were three lonely widows. Everything else was gone.
The biggest problem is not the problems, but the problems of inside, the unbelieving and disobedient heart. That will cause us to lose so many things.
Naomi had lost two things:
Her husband and two sons had died before their time. They had years to live, certainly for the sons, but they were no more. It was just a dream that never came true.
Of most importance was the carrying on of the family name. How more devastating for Naomi is that not only has she lost three loved ones, there is no heir by which the names will be continued and the inheritance guaranteed.
She has lost her future. Naomi would have to come to the realisation that everything has gone because she moved away from God.
The Old Testament word for wisdom means sound judgement, discernment and the ability to see things in a right perspective.
The New Testament word for wisdom means the insight into deep things, an understanding, a spiritual intelligence and a full understanding.
Naomi would need the wisdom to determine that this has not been God’s best for her life and that she would need to do something about it. Ultimately that would be to return to Him, to the place she had come from.
What about us? Do we need discernment to know that what we have lost is a result of God’s will for our lives or whether it is the cause of some direct attack from the enemy, simply because we have walked away from the closeness of God.

I’ve moved away from where I was.
Ruth 1:1-5
Elimelech’s name means ‘My God is King’. But it doesn’t read well. God was not king in Elemelech’s life. He made a decision without consulting His God and King. His decision was based on what he could see in the physical and not the spiritual. His desire to provide for his family was at the expense of losing the blessing of God. That decision took him to Moab, there he made a further bad decision when he allowed his sons to marry Moabite woman. This was an abandoning of God and His land for the land and people of the enemy.
He could have chosen to walk by faith, to claim the promises of God and to obey His Word. In spite of what we see, how we feel, or what may happen, God is looking for us to live by faith, not by sight.
If only Elimelech had woken up at some point and said we’re here but we should be there. It is wise to ask yourself where you are and where you are going. Is where you are now on the way to where you should be? If not, then you must turn around. You must know ‘My God is King’ again. He is God over mishaps and He is God over lost time. He is God over my bad decisions. He will lead you back to the place you should be at.

Be honest
Ruth 1: 1-5
One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is this: Where am I in my life?
You get into trouble when you do not know where you.
If you can answer this question it will lead you to become all that you can become.
I’m in a tough time and a tough place.
v1 In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land”
During this time life was tough. There was no king.
Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.”
This is Israel in one of its toughest times in history.
We are living in these times today. There are many living in unbelief and disobedience they do not walk with God. We live in a world without a king and lawlessness abounds.
Bethlehem means House of Bread. It was here that the famine would have been felt the most. In the Old Testament, famine was often the evidence of God’s discipline. During the time of the judges Israel repeatedly turned away from God and God had to discipline them to cause them to return to Him. The righteous had to suffer along with the unrighteous, even in the House of Bread, even in Bethlehem.
But in the days when the judges ruled comes one of the most beautiful love stories ever told.
You may be in a tough time, you may be in a tough place, but because you know Jesus as Saviour and Lord no matter how tough the times may be, you are part of a beautiful love story.
Something beautiful will come from this time and place that you have found yourself to be in.

From today for the next few weeks I will be blogging some thoughts from the book of Ruth. I hope they bless you. If you get chance try reading the book in one sitting.

Matthew 1
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ … Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife… Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.

Ruth was a Moabite woman who married an Israelite, a son of Naomi, whose family had moved to Moab to escape a famine in Bethlehem.
Moab is mentioned often in the Old Testament as a wicked people whom God would judge for their sins against Israel.
The first time Ruth is mentioned is as a woman of Moab, an outsider, a stranger to the kingdom of God.
The last time we read of Ruth in the Bible is in Matthew 1:5, “…Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.” She has been honoured by being placed in the genealogy of Christ.
Ruth moved from obscurity to significance.
God wants you to know that you can become all that you can become.
You are unique in the sight of God, in the eyes of many you may be just another number, a statistic, but from God’s point of view there is no one like you, you have a unique mission from God. Don’t try and become somebody you were never meant to be. Don’t emulate someone else, don’t copy. Don’t plagiarise yourself. Don’t dream other people’s dreams or attempt other people’s call.
Be your self. Reach for the destiny that is yours.
Each one of us can move from obscurity into significance.

Carlton Hill, Edinburgh.

Overlooking this amazing city is Carlton Hill. A place to see the views of the city and further beyond. But its reason for being is that it is the burial place for the famous over 300 years ago:
Muir, Palmer, Skirving, Margarot and Gerrald were all political reformers imprisoned at one time for sedition.

David Hume is known as one of the greatest philosophers and atheists. His mausoleum is inscribed as he insisted, his name and the year of his birth and death, he decided that “posterity will add the rest.”

John Playfair, son of a vicar, scientist, mathematician and geologist, he expounded other people’s theories making them easier to understand and taking them to new levels. His grave is adjacent to Hume’s but is run down and no one would really know of the huge influence he had.

William Blackwood and Archibald Constable, rival publishers. The difference would be the future. Constable’s business was passed down the generations and today it is the oldest independent publishers in the English speaking world that still holds the name of its founder.

So there I was on Saturday evening looking at the great views, with the countless tourists and these dead men and I asked myself:
When I’m dead will anyone have been impacted by my life?
Am I leaving footprints behind me?
Whatever the answer I decided that when it’s over for me I do want people to see further than I can because of my life. Let the tourists come to my grave and see perhaps what I couldn’t.

“He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean? tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.” Joshua 4:21-22

In the future, the kids will ask what are these and you are to tell them the story.
Build a story of faith and of courage that can be told. Build your story today.