Responding to Love

Ruth 4:13a “So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife.”

I was reading a commentary of Ruth by the late pastor, writer and radio teacher of Thru the Bible ministries – Dr. J. Vernon McGee yesterday and he made a thoughtful connection to the gospel story that I’d like to share. He said that as a man chooses a woman for his bride, and likewise, as Boaz claimed Ruth, so Christ came to this earth for His bride. He is the One who demonstrated His love by dying for us. He who knew no sin, died for the sins of the world in our place that we may be with Him forever. And we are the responders – we are to respond to His love. We are to receive Him, as Savior, then come to know Him. Oh, friend, that should be the ambition of every Christian – to know Him! It is said that a great many people make a trip to Bethlehem once a year and look into a manger. He is not there, friend. Although He did come as a baby, He hasn’t been a baby for a long time. Then at Easter, they go to Jerusalem and look in an empty tomb to find that He is not there either. He’s the man in the glory today, seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.

1 John 4:19 “We love Him because He first loved us.”

The Apostle Paul wrote that his ambition was to “know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings” – Philippians 3:10. Oh, that we might know Him, our Kinsman-Redeemer, and love Him because He first loved us.