Ruth: 3:1-9; a study on chesed – the substance of all things, God’s glory.

Class Outline:

Title: Ruth: 3:1-9; a study on chesed - the substance of all things, God’s glory.

 

We continue in the substance of relationships. It is mercy and love. Also:

The substance is spontaneous kindness, patience, graciousness, forgiveness, shared truth, endurance, compassion, support, faithfulness, and more. All of these are invisible and immeasurable.

 

I wrote these things taken from the definition of agape love in 1CO 13:4-8. At the end of that definition, Paul writes that love is eternal. Your Bible translates it as, “love never fails,” but that’s misleading. Relationships can and do fail, but the substance of love is eternal. Think of the Cross of Christ. It did not heal all relationships with man, as some still rejected Him, but the effects of it are eternal, even in judgment of the unbeliever. The glory of God is eternal. Do not allow yourself to lose sight of it in your relationships or in reference to your things for even one moment.

 

The next key in the glory of God in relationships is that God gives the person and the environment. In other words, God gives the paint, the brushes, the canvas, the landscape, and the lessons.

 

Yet, I need another person to share these things of mercy. I don’t need another person to have them, but to share them in what could be called lovingkindness, steadfast love, or mercy, I need another person.

 

In that relationship is the glory of God. The substance of God. And in every material thing, this substance exists. I have to have a divine eye to see it. And if I do, I will see things as Christ sees them.

 

MAT 6:19 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

 

MAT 6:20 "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;

 

MAT 6:21 for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

 

And now we turn to the eyes of the inward man that must see.

 

MAT 6:22 "The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.

 

“clear” - a(plou$ [haplous] = simple or singular. A spiritual retina focused solely on that which is of God’s glory.

 

This is so much clearer than the translation “clear”. It is much more specific to what the eye of the soul is supposed to be beholding.

 

In mathematics a singularity is when a function equals infinity, like 1 divided by 0. In space a singularity is defined as when gravity becomes infinite, as perhaps is in a black hole. These are helpful in attempting to understand God’s glory. It is infinite and it should draw in all of me.

 

Christ uses a very generic word for what the eye of the soul is to be beholding. It is non-specific. The word simple or singular doesn’t define anything specific.

 

By using such a generic word, “singular,” Christ invites us to investigate His word for what one thing we are to always behold.

 

HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

 

HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for [Greek anti: instead of] the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

HEB 12:3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.

 

HEB 12:4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;

 

There are lots of passages that we could go to concerning what we should be looking at or concentrating on throughout our day, every day; certain virtues, promises, truths, and all of them would lead us right back here. All of that which is glory is wrapped up in the person that is Jesus Christ.

 

JOH 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 

JOH 1:15 John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'"

 

JOH 1:16 For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace.

 

JOH 1:17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.

 

JOH 1:18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

 

There is a divine thought in every “thing” issuing forth from it. When I can see that thought, I can see the thing in light of its mediation between me and God. There is God, the gift, and then me. If I don’t see the divine thought in the thing then I don’t see God on the other side of it and running through it towards me. Everything has this, even in evil and sin there is a thought of God against it that I must see.

 

“We cannot see the world as God means it, save in proportion as our souls are meek. In meekness only are we its inheritors. Meekness alone makes the spiritual retina pure to receive God’s things as they are, mingling with them neither imperfection nor impurity of its own. A thing so beheld that it conveys to me the divine thought issuing in its form, is mine; by nothing but its mediation between God and my life, can anything be mine.” [George MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel]

 

It is a truism and it is insightfully conveyed by MacDonald the “by nothing but its mediation between God and my life, can anything be mine.” If I don’t see the glory of God in a thing or a person than I cannot count it as mine. The meek are those who are taught to see. The meek search out God when evil comes upon them. The meek understand that the people in their lives have come from God. The meek rely upon God when others are seeking to hurt them and so the meek alone understand that God will deliver them from every evil deed. The meek alone enjoy the company of others who are also meek. For all of these reasons the meek are the ones on earth who can see.

 

MacDonald goes on to say that no force in this world can stop someone who is stronger than you from taking that which you possess. Just because you have bought and paid for it guarantees nothing. When the Lord cast the demon out of the man who was dumb, the religious accused Him of doing so by the power of Satan. Jesus said that when a strong man guards his stuff it is safe, unless he is attacked by a stronger man since he will overpower the owner. Jesus was the man stronger than Satan. Then He said, “He who is not with Me is against Me.”

 

Possessing a thing provides no security for its true ownership. The rich man who filled his barns and took his rest died very soon after. Things can be taken, and if not in life, they will be taken in death. We cannot really close hand or mouth on it permanently.

 

Land is nothing more than a fine palate of dirt, but to the soul of the meek, their remains an endless possession because he possesses the One who possesses the earth.

 

However, kindness, patience, graciousness, forgiveness, shared truth, endurance, compassion, support, faithfulness, goodness, self-control, virtue, sacrifice, and on and on; all of these are invisible and immeasurable and they cannot be taken from you. They are the treasure of heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys.

 

When you and I come to a full knowledge of them and share them with others we inherit and possess them, and since they are the true substance of all things on this earth, we inherit the earth that we lost at the fall.

 

The material aspect of all things on this earth is temporary and destined for destruction. Our bodies are tainted, the earth is cursed, and everything on it in infected. Yet, through the grace and mercy of God, His glory is within them, whether for judgment or redemption, and this we can behold if our eye is singular.

 

The meek see the glory of God in all things and he is a beholder and owner of that glory. He will have chesed.

 

God must take us by the hand and show it to us. We must be humble to receive this truth. This is one of the things that Jesus prayed for in His last quiet moments.

 

JOH 17:15 "I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

 

JOH 17:20 "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;

 

He prays for all in the church.

 

JOH 17:21 that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.

 

“be one as We are” - in union with Christ, regenerated, having eternal life, and seeing with the eye that They share.

 

Union with Christ, regeneration, and having eternal life are positional. We receive all of them at the moment of salvation when we believed in Christ as our Savior. These gifts enable us to see if we are humble students of His word, learning, applying, forging ahead in faith, thirsting and hungering for righteousness.

 

JOH 17:22 "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one;

 

JOH 17:23 I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.

 

JOH 17:24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.