What are you willing to leave behind for the sake of your faith? A job? A friend? A church? Your country? Your family? Everything you’ve ever known?

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Ruth 1:16 (ESV)

So strong in her convictions. Ruth was determined to follow her mother-in-law wherever she went, to serve her God and to die where she died. Ruth wasn’t even an Israelite.

I’ve often found that people who are new to the faith are more willing to give up their old life. They seem to have a deeper understanding of what it really means to live a life of sacrifice. Those of us who were raised in the church have less of a sense of sacrifice. After all, we’ve already given our whole lives to the cause of Christ. Haven’t we?

Ruth had no real reason to follow Naomi. Her husband had died, leaving her without children and Naomi actually told her to go back home to her parents. But something inside Ruth urged her to on to Bethlehem. In Ruth’s obedience to that nudging, she gained a new land, a new family, a new God, and a new heritage.

With the sacrifice of all she had ever known, Ruth opened the door for redemption to walk through. Just one woman? How could that be?

From Ruth came Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David, the ancestor of another young woman who made a sacrifice, the mother of a man who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Daily Bible reading: Ruth 1-4; Luke 11:1-28