Chosen for God's Program

Have you ever wondered what the difference was between Ruth and Orpah? Orpah heeded Naomi's advice to turn back on that dusty road to Bethlehem and start over with her family and friends in Moab while Ruth refused and went on to a strange city and a new home with Naomi. What was different about these two women, both Moabites, both living with Naomi and her sons for ten years, both widows? Why would one choose to go back and one choose the unknown?

I was honored to hear a powerful message from an anointed pastor a month ago in which he discussed being chosen for God's program. He described children born into the same family, experiencing the same environment, yet not all are chosen by God to be used by Him for His work. Look at David and his brothers. Look at Joseph and his brothers. The examples are throughout the bible, but they are also throughout our lives. This pastor described a process that we go through in which we have a choice. How passionate is our love for God? How full is our surrender to Him? Truly God loves us all and when we repent, He will forgive us, but if we continue to go back to the same sin, the same areas of weakness expecting His forgiveness, how fully have we surrendered? The example he gave was a simple one. Smoking. He said, if the house in which we live was full of smoke, we would get out, wouldn't we? Yet we expect Holy Spirit to live in us (His temple) filled with smoke (if we are smokers) and say, I know He is forgiving me because I am addicted and I want to give it up, but I just can't. Question: are we choosing the desire of the cigarettes over our desire for Him?

Consider our preoccupation with activities of this world, like computer time (how about the latest craze of Facebook). He is patiently waiting for time with Him, but we choose to just check in on our Facebook page and then ten minutes becomes an hour that turns into two. Does He stop loving us? Of course not. When you see that the night has vanished and you intended to study the Word or make phone calls reaching out to someone but now you are too tired and you say, oh, I am so sorry, Lord. Tomorrow night. Does He forgive you? He is a forgiving God when you say you are sorry. But will He choose you for His program? Have you fully surrendered your life to Him?

Ruth did. Something triggered in Ruth's spirit. She had already lost everything that was important in her life as she knew it - her husband and her source of future joy - the potential for having children with him. She was on the road to an unknown city with a culture that she knew was foreign to what she had known all of her life until marrying into Naomi's world. Yet instilled in her was the unquestionable knowledge that she had to pursue God and He was all that was important. Listen to her plea to Naomi, "Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." Ruth 1:16-17. Ruth knew that Naomi was the link to God and she was not going to let anything keep her from Him.

Do we have that same sense of urgency and passion about pursuing God? Are we willing to abandon all that is familiar to us, all that makes life agreeable for us to find out who He is and what He wants for our lives? Paul challenges us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" Far too often, we have become jaded in our comfortable existence and our understanding compassionate God patiently waits for us to make a choice. If we don't choose to pursue Him with total abandonment and surrender, He won't ever force us. But can He choose us for His elite corps for kingdom work, if we are not willing to make the sacrifices it takes to get ready? Are you ready to be qualified as a risk taker for God like Ruth or are you more like Orpah who will take the advice of those that offer you comfort and turn back to the familiar? What must you abandon to become a member of the elite corps? He is waiting for our answer.......