Our theme for this month: “Take care of each other”
Our Bible verse for today: “May the Lord bless him because he has not abandoned his kindness to the living or the dead.” Naomi continued, “This man is a close relative. He is one of our family redeemers.” Ruth 2:20 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “You don’t have to be a hero; just be good.”
I love the example of the man Boaz in the Old Testament book of Ruth. If you remember the story, Naomi, along with her husband and two sons, were Jews who left Israel during a time of famine and immigrated to the land of Moab. Her sons met and married two Moabite girls and the family settled into life there. But then Naomi’s husband and two sons all died. Naomi and her daughter-in-law Ruth then decided to return to Israel.
When they arrived, they were homeless and with no means of support so Ruth sought work in the fields helping to bring in the harvest. She was hired to work in a field owned by Boaz, who happened to be a relative of Naomi’s. Boaz was an upright, kind, and compassionate man. He had mercy on Ruth and Naomi, helped them in their time of need, and he ended up marrying Ruth and producing offspring who were direct descendants of Jesus Christ.
The thing that impresses about Boaz is that he was simply a kind man doing the right thing. He saw two women in need and he helped them – and that was exactly what God wanted him to do. God wasn’t looking for Boaz to be a hero by doing some extraordinary thing. God just wanted him to notice a need and be responsive to it.
Solomon wrote about this as well in Proverbs 3:27, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.” The Apostle James taught something similar in James 4:17 when he wrote, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
When it comes to taking care of others you don’t have to be a hero, you just have to be good. Boaz was a good man who simply and quietly did the right thing. That’s all God asks of us too.
Oak Hill Baptist Church