Desiring to be like Ruth...

We had a great sermon today at my church, touching a lot on the book of Ruth and seeing Ruth as having covenant faithfulness and loyalty. I just have to stop and pontificate on these three words: covenant, faithfulness, & loyalty. They are each so powerful individually, but then to put them altogether...they're a powderkeg! I just sit here in my living room on this Sunday night and am amazed at where God has brought me and where he's going to take me...if I let him. I want to have complete covenant faithfulness & loyalty to my Father. To honestly know that I know that I know that no matter what may happen in this life, that my God is in control, will never forsake me, loves me unconditionally & abundantly, is my Provision, and has grace abounding. It's overwhelming sometimes. Really. And despite the knowledge of this, I still falter at times to TRUST HIM completely. I make the decision to be in control...and you know what I've learned time and time again? This is just disastrous. Stressful. Clumsy. Foolish. Worthless. Futile.

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 my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." This passage is referring to Naomi's urgings for Ruth to leave, yet Ruth latched onto Naomi. Ruth had a covenant faithfulness & loyalty to Naomi. This makes me look at my walk with Christ and if I currently have this type of covenant faithfulness & loyalty to Him. I want this. I want to go wherever he wants to lead me and call me. I want to be completely sold out for the Lord. Am I? That's a question we should all ask ourselves. Here's something I want to share...

COVENANT: a promise; God's covenant is his promise to us. Wherever we find a promise of God in the Bible there we find God's everlasting covenant.

FAITHFULNESS: Faithfulness is one of the characteristics of God's ethical nature. It denotes the firmness or constancy of God in His relations with men, especially with His people. It is, accordingly, one aspect of God's truth and of His unchangeableness. God is true not only because He is really God in contrast to all that is not God, and because He realizes the idea of Godhead, but also because He is constant or faithful in keeping His promises, and therefore is worthy of trust (see TRUTH). God, likewise, is unchangeable in His ethical nature. This unchangeableness the Scripture often connects with God's goodness and mercy, and also with His constancy in reference to His covenant promises, and this is what the Old Testament means by the Faithfulness of God (see UNCHANGEABLENESS).

LOYALTY: faithfulness, dependability; antonyms: disloyalty, treachery, undependability, unfaithfulness.

These are 3 amazing nouns with amazing definitions. But, I want them to be real in my life...more than just a vocabulary lesson. Don't you?