Your health and safety: ABIDE
So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.” (Ruth 2:8)
A season is past, a new season is here. Praise be to God who has taken us safely through the year 2014. Today is an obvious opportunity to give thanks to God. Check your life – start from the disappointments, the failures and what you did not achieve; then go to the achievements – including what you had not planned, and count each one of your blessings. Everyone must find reason to give thanks to the Lord. You were not caught up in one of those terrible accidents in the air, on the roads or in the waters – or at least you survived; you have enjoyed some peace and strength to work has not failed to date; endless lists of blessings are in this Church today!
As we move ahead into the new season, the word of God to us – the sure methodology for our health and safety, and the only way we will come successfully through to the other end of the tunnel – the instruction is, ‘Abide’. Boaz told Ruth, “don’t go… stay here…” and the story of Ruth, which in the near future we will spend some time to explore, was revolutionalized. We spent some time last year emphasizing the Words of Jesus, “Remain in Me… apart from me you can do nothing”; this instruction will not be lifted this year. Stand on the Word of God, walk in His love, lean on His promises, ride on the hope of life in Christ, Abide in Him.
As a tortoise does hide its head inside its shell, as chicks hide under the wings of mother hen, as a guilty man would hold the horns of the altar – all this for safety – even more so it is with the one who will Abide in the presence of the Lord; he it is that will survive terrible weather and tumultuous unrest, whether from the spiritual attacks or intrigue from unsuspecting neighbours or personal inadequacies. Remain in Christ as Children of God who are waiting to inherit the Kingdom as joint heirs with Jesus Christ, as Children of a New Covenant which was sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and as those on whom the Name of the Lord has been plant as a blessing that reaches widely because of the catholic reconciliation work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Have a Blessed New Year!