Ruth: 3:1-9; a study on chesed – the substance of all things, God’s glory.Title: Ruth: 3:1-9; a study on chesed – the substance of all things, God’s glory.
The heavenly treasure that Christ instructed us to store up is directly associated with the glory of God in everything and everyone in our lives. The heavenly treasure is unseen to the natural eye while it is fully beheld by the spiritual retina.
The real inheritance in all things is the glory of God in them. Our spiritual eyes must be trained to see them and the flesh must be commanded to silence.
The flesh wars against the Spirit, but the Spirit wars against the flesh. One would think this battle to be very one sided, but the reason why the flesh can still overwhelm a life is because the deciding factor is our own selves, our own decisions. We can abide in Christ through faith and keep His commands or we can choose something else.
The flesh will fight the accumulation of knowledge concerning God’s mercy and love and the flesh will really go to war when we attempt to walk in that mercy and love towards others.
If we can see the glory of God it will overwhelm us. This is why it is so important to see the glory of God through the eyes of our soul in the relationships we have and in the things that we possess.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-67) acted as chaplain in the army of Charles I. He suffered personally and financially for his loyalty to the Church of England and the king. In the midst of his persecutions and troubles, it was in the Psalms that he found consolation.
“When I came to look upon the Psalter with a nearer observation, … I found so many admirable promises, so rare variety of the expressions of the mercy of God, so many consolatory hymns, the commemoration of so many deliverances from dangers and deaths and enemies, so many miracles of mercy and salvation, that I began to be so confident as to believe there would come no affliction great enough to spend so great a stock of comfort as was laid up in the treasury of the Psalter.” [Jeremy Taylor]
Psa 107 is very likely written for the return of Israel from Babylon, around 530 BC.
Psa 107:1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Psa 107:2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary,
Psa 107:3 And gathered from the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.
Psa 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region; They did not find a way to an inhabited city.
Psa 107:5 They were hungry and thirsty; Their soul fainted within them.
Psa 107:6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He delivered them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:7 He led them also by a straight way, To go to an inhabited city.
Psa 107:8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness, And for His wonders to the sons of men!
Psa 107:9 For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.
This is the true inheritance of life. The meek inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. They inherit the life that is Christ. Psa 107 begins the 5th and last book of the Psalter. The opening psalm of the fourth book is Psa 90. It is a psalm of Moses which likely comes out as he witnesses the older generation die out in the wilderness. Compared with Deu 32, Moses under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit was quite the poet.
Psa 90:7 For we have been consumed by Thine anger, And by Thy wrath we have been dismayed.
Psa 90:8 Thou hast placed our iniquities before Thee, Our secret sins in the light of Thy presence.
Psa 90:9 For all our days have declined in Thy fury; We have finished our years like a sigh.
Psa 90:10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.
Psa 90:11 Who understands the power of Thine anger, And Thy fury, according to the fear that is due Thee?
Psa 90:12 So teach us to number our days, That we may present to Thee a heart of wisdom.
That is being alive and inheriting nothing. We have spent much time looking at this generation in the wilderness and we have marveled at how close life really was for them to grasp, and which they rejected.
The Exodus lacked not ability or gifts, they simply lacked faith. Life is too precious and too short to be spent this way.
Heb 4:1 Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.
Heb 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
To the faithless life is a sigh, but to the faithful it is an abundance of life of vigor and adventure, or using the Paul’s words, “Life indeed.”
The flesh opposes mercy and love within and it really wages war when we extend the mercy and love of God to others. Now we turn to the people themselves, and like the things in our lives, they are a gift from God to whom we get to see and exercise His glory.
The people in our lives and the relationship (fellowship or challenging) are gifts from God in which we get to exercise His gift of glory, which is the real substance and inheritance.
If I didn’t have enemies, could I fulfill the commands to love them, pray for them, and do good to them? I don’t have to go out and make enemies, and in fact, I don’t have to go out to find friends or a spouse. God will bring them all to us.
If we follow Christ then the people in our lives will generally be of a good caliber. There will also be the enemy and the people tests as well.
If we are worldly then we will generally be surrounded by the same kind of people and it will be from this pool that we will find friendships and romance.
Christian character or worldly character will attract the company of the same kind.
1Co 15:33 Do not be deceived: "Bad company corrupts good morals."
1Co 15:34 Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning [fellowshipping with false teachers and false brethren]; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
One of the benefits of following Christ is that you will generally be surrounded by those who do the same. Therefore, the friendships and romances will generally be of the sort of people to which agape love and mercy are wonderfully rewarding. Again, there will also be enemies and people to test us and there is glory in these as well. God will allow them all to come to you.
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