Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): We welcome you once again to this broadcast of Power Walk with Pastor Paul Cannings. In our current series, The Measure of Love, based on Ruth chapter two, Pastor Cannings draws out several principles about the nature of love. Today, through the deliberate choice that Ruth makes to continue her journey with Naomi, her mother-in-law, Pastor Cannings brings the message titled, Loyalty. Let's listen.

Dr. Paul Cannings: When a person decides to love, they've decided to expose themselves to something that makes them very vulnerable. That's why many times, even as a pastor coaching my son getting married and their soon-to-be wives, whom they've now been married to for quite some time now, I would say to them, "This is a place that makes you very vulnerable."

When we look at love, even in people that are associates, people on the job that you may say hi to, friends, or extended family members that you may not be close to, the Bible says if you love the Lord with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, you will love your neighbor as yourself. Love is a testament to whether or not the nature of Christ operates in a marriage, Christ and the church, whether or not Christ is first in the church because He is the first love, or whether or not our lives are deeply committed to Him even when we face an enemy.

Love, in the core of it, makes us very vulnerable. That's why in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, when we look at this, he says, "Charity suffereth long. Charity envieth not." When you start going down this list, "it does not behave itself unseemly, it does not seek its own, it's selfless." It literally tells us these traits that lead to a very vulnerable situation. When God so loved the world, Christ ends up on a cross.

He says it only rejoices in truth, it's never carried away by lies. Why? The spirit is truth (John 14:16-17). The spirit who is truth, that fruit is love. So, we're back to the spirit dominating the person's life. Here's why it could never lead to divorce. "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Charity never faileth." When love really exists in relationships, people don't walk out of marriages, they don't walk out of churches, and they don't leave their families.

That's why if a person is doing those things, the person they have disconnected from is the very person who is love. God is love. In other words, if my house is dark and I can't get any lights, I have not paid my light bill because that's where the power source is. If I decide to get a generator, I'm going to have to hook it up to gas or pay for this gas. If I don't pay for the gas, I still can't get electricity to the house. If I decide to go through the liquid gas generators, there has to be an influx of some kind of energy or source to provide the energy in order for the lights to be on in the home.

Love has its source, and that source is God. That's why it's fascinating when we continue through this book of Ruth, looking at the measure of love, to see how this love led to Jesus Christ having a legacy from this book in terms of his genealogy. Many times we focus on Ruth. I like to focus on Naomi and Ruth because that's what makes this a powerful lesson about the measure of love.

In verse 8 of chapter 1 of the book of Ruth, we find that Naomi said to the two daughters, "Go, return each to your mother's house. The Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me." In other words, she's looking out for them. In verse 9, she continues to press them. She says, "The Lord grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of your husband." Then she kissed them. They lifted up their voice and wept.

There's a relationship going on here. The same thing you find when they would weep again in verse 14. They would start to cry because she had built such a great relationship with her daughters-in-law that to part was something overwhelming for them. It's overwhelming for them because of Naomi's love for them, and she's still loving them. She's saying to them, "Hey, I can't have a child and then you wait around for this child to grow up in order to marry the child. So, there's no hope with me for you being young ladies who are going to get married pretty young to find a husband." This all starts off first with Naomi seeking to look out for the welfare of her daughters-in-law.

The nature of love in this relationship is manifested in Philippians chapter 2. If there be, therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, fulfill ye my joy. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but with lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Think about this when I just got you talking about Naomi and Ruth and who's starting off this relationship that is manifesting love.

Who's starting it off is actually Naomi, not Ruth. Ruth is obviously in love with her mother-in-law and cares a lot about her mother-in-law. The story shows that clearly. But what stimulates and exposes the love Ruth has for her mother-in-law is Naomi because she's not looking out for her own interest. She's not esteeming her situation to be better than theirs. She's not saying, "Oh, I just lost my husband and two sons, so you just get out." She's not saying, "I'm in a lot of pain right now, you all do what you've got to do. I'm going back into the bedroom, I'll pack up, and you all can stay here if you want, but I'm gone. I'm out."

She doesn't look at her own pain and put her own pain above their pain. They lost a husband, they have no children, and they're widows. They're Moabites. So, they come to Jerusalem and it's not good for them. They're viewed as cursed. She's not only protecting them by giving them a husband, she doesn't want to draw them back to Jerusalem where they're going to be looked at a different way. That's why Boaz is going to say, "Don't go in those fields." Not only is Jewish women having the possibility and propensity to be abused, Moabite is going to be double that.

She's trying to protect them, and that's why even though she's in pain, they lost a husband, and they could go get another husband. She can't get another two sons. She lost her husband and two sons, and she's an older woman. She's lost everything. She could have looked out for her own interest, but she does not. She looks out for the interest of her daughters-in-law. This is why he says the very nature of love is that it esteems other people better than ourselves. That's why it makes us very vulnerable.

Paul says right here, "Look not every man to his own things, but every man also to the things of others." We see that clearly delineated in Ruth chapter 1. In verse 5, he says, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." He goes on to show how that mind in Christ Jesus worked to our blessing of salvation. The first thing we find in the nature of love and how this relationship works with Naomi and Ruth is that everybody had a reason to cry, mourn, be depressed, upset, and see hopelessness because of what happened in their marriages and happened in their families. But they chose to never dethrone God.

Please stay with me, this is the second thing. If God is ever dethroned, pain can make itself our God. All the circumstances we go through could become our God. They dictate our emotions, they dictate whether or not we read the Bible, they dictate how we pray, they dictate whether or not we go to church, they dictate how we give, and they dictate whether or not we love other people. So, our pain, our suffering, and our hardship could become our God.

What is taking place with these women is that they don't dethrone God. They had every reason to be depressed. As I've pastored a long time, one of the things I've never seen people fully get over is the loss of a child. So, it is easy to dethrone God. How could God let this happen? In their case, if we follow the biblical process here, they left Jerusalem and they went to another land which they were not supposed to go to. Their sons married women they were not supposed to. We could go down the list and say they deserve it.

But then you've got the Ninevites being saved as a result of the preaching of Jonah. David, what he did with Bathsheba and then he killed her husband and he's kicked out, but God brings him back. Paul, a murderer and writing half the New Testament. Solomon, 700 wives, 300 concubines and writing three books in the Bible. Really? We look at this process and we could see that and say, "Oh, you know what, they deserve that." No, that's a little self-righteous nature right there. We all sin. We're all living by grace. We're all living by mercy. Everything we become is because of the Holy Spirit working inside of us. It is not because of us.

Left to ourselves, there's no conviction of the Holy Spirit, there's no word to follow, there's no guidance from the spirit of God, no illumination of the scriptures, we are nothing. That's why he would say, "Abide in me. And if you abide in me, you bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." We see the grace of God working through this whole thing and his providence manifesting itself in Jesus Christ coming from this relationship.

But they don't dethrone God. She says here, "For it grieveth me much for your sake that the hand of the Lord is gone out against me." She's saying the hand of the Lord is gone out against me and I don't want that to hurt you. Again, don't forget we go to Ruth really fast, but we have to see Naomi in this that stirs up the true heart of Ruth. When you start tracking Ruth and Naomi throughout the book of Ruth, you keep hearing "the Lord, the Lord, the Lord." In other words, he kept his covenant. He's almighty, powerful, and great. This is what this word "Lord" means. He's in control, he has all power to do all things, but he loves having a relationship with his people and he loves sustaining his covenant.

This Lord who sustains his covenant has not forgotten us. Don't forget to be loyal to our relationship with God because he never leaves us, he never forsakes us, his word is true. Even if we've sinned and it's brought us into tough situations, his grace is sufficient. Yes, love puts us in vulnerable places. Ruth is in a vulnerable place as a Moabite going back to Jerusalem. Naomi is in a vulnerable place. But love always wins because it never fails. When it's directed, influenced, and controlled by the word of God, it never fails because the one who sustains it never fails. His love is new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Amen, Pastor Cannings. May we pass the test when God puts difficult people in our path by choosing to love sincerely. Now, if you'd like to speak to us about the love of God and what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then please call us at 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402. To place an order for this series or any other ministry resources, log on to powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: You know, I had someone walk up to me and say, "Hey, you've so blessed me when I listen to the station and feed off the word that God has placed through you." That means so much. I had a person say to me, "Hey, you saved my marriage. I was really going to walk out on my wife. You saved my marriage." Oh, man, that moved me to keep pressing on.

I pray, folks, that you would support our ministry and become a part of it and share with us in the resources that we have because that goes to the support of this ministry. Pray for us, please, I sincerely mean that. Pray for us, share the word with other people, and become a partner, a regular partner with us. All you have to do is go to our website, powerwalkministries.org, and press the donate button. It will explain in there how you could become a Power Walk partner. God bless you.

Guest (Male): That's powerwalkministries.org. If you prefer to write us, our mailing address is Power Walk Ministries, P.O. Box 920517, Houston, Texas, 77092. I'd also like to encourage you to order Pastor Cannings' teaching series titled Establishing Godly Relationships and Experiencing God. They will further strengthen and equip you to be able to walk in love. And now as we leave you, remember what Pastor Cannings just challenged us: to make every effort to esteem others as better than ourselves and love others even if it's difficult.