Judges 7:7-8

Most people like to cheer for the underdog. We like to see someone prevail against overwhelming odds and adversity. However, it's usually a lot more fun to cheer for the underdog than to be the underdog. This is especially true when it comes to life and death matters, like fighting cancer, or going into war.

The Israelite army was the underdog to begin with, outnumbered 135,000 to 32,000. Then after the Lord told Gideon to send home those who trembled with fear and to keep only those who lapped water with their hands, it was 135,000 to 300. That's 450 Midianite soldiers to each Israelite! Impossible odds in an era of hand-to-hand combat. But the Lord gave his people the victory!

So why did God make it seem so impossible? He was making sure that the Israelites would not boast in their own strength or think that the victory came by their own planning or power. When it comes to our salvation, God wants us to recognize the same thing. He has done it all. We can do nothing!
 
Spiritually, each one of us was the most unlikely underdog imaginable. Not only were we separated from God at birth, but we were also blinded by unbelief. On our own we could not even begin to make the first move toward God, nor did we want to. But God did the impossible by sending his Spirit through his Word to lead us to love and trust in his Son as our Savior from sin.

The victory is the Lord's! Therefore, instead of boasting of our own strength or righteousness, we rely on God our Savior and praise him for his gift of righteousness.

Ruth 2:17-20

LOOK AT THIS

Ruth put in quite a day. She gleaned until the sun went down, and then she threshed what she had gathered. Threshing in Old Testament times meant beating the heads of the grain to separate the kernel and then throwing everything into the air with something like a pitchfork. The light, inedible husks and other chaff would blow away and the heavier grain would fall back onto the ground or stone threshing floor. What Ruth took home that day was out of the ordinary. An ephah was three-fifths of a bushel, enough to bake about 20 loaves of bread.

When Naomi asked her daughter-in-law where she gleaned to get so much barley, Ruth said she worked in the field of Boaz. Naomi revealed that this man was her relative, and she praised God for his kindness and generosity.

This scene in God's Word reminds us that our acts of kindness done out of love for the Lord affect more than just the immediate person whom we are helping. Others also reap the benefits of our kind acts, though we may never know how the kind things we do for people end up helping others. May God continue to give us loving and generous hearts, and may he use our acts of kindness to lead to opportunities to verbally share his great act of kindness—sending his Son to redeem us.

"Redeem" is an important word in the Scriptures. That teaching is introduced here in our study of the book of Ruth. The "kinsman-redeemer" was a man who was responsible for protecting his close relatives. He was supposed to provide heirs for a brother or other relative who had died. He was also to redeem (literally "buy back") land that a poor relative had sold outside the family. He was also to redeem (again, "buy back") a relative sold into slavery. (Sometimes people were forced to sell themselves into servitude in order to pay off a debt, and sometimes prisoners of war became slaves.)

In a much greater way, all people were held in slavery. The Bible tells us, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (John 8:34). But Jesus Christ came to be our Redeemer. He bought us back from sin's curse. The price he paid was his holy, precious blood and his innocent sufferings and death. "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7). Jesus bought us back; we are his, to love and to serve him and others in his name.

Hebrews 12:22

No doubt you've seen pictures or video of Mount Everest. Its beauty is stunning. And its height—nearly 6 miles above sea level—makes it the highest mountain in the world. It's the stuff of legend.

That much you know. What you may not know is that Mount Everest is littered with bodies.

Over the years, you see, about 4,000 people have tried to climb Mount Everest. Almost 200 of them have died in the attempt. So extreme, however, is the terrain near the summit that it's simply impossible to recover many of the bodies. And so they remain on the mountain to this day.

It's a sobering thought: A mountain littered with scores of people who gave their lives for a fleeting moment of glory.

The Lord introduces us to a different kind of mountain—"Mount Zion," he calls it. The heavenly Jerusalem. The city of the living God.  Here there is only one person who gave his life. It's the Son of God himself. Only he didn't do it for a moment of glory. He did it to wash us clean of our every sin. He did it to give us eternal life.

And now he lives. And because he does, Mount Zion is ours. And not just for a moment. Because Jesus lives, Mount Zion—heaven—is ours forever.

Ruth 2:14-16

YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN ME

Lunch-break in the field was not the most ideal setting for a "first date" but it would have to do. Boaz' generosity has now moved beyond an admiration for a widowed woman who had left everything to take care of her widowed mother-in-law (remember that Boaz had heard all about Ruth's and Naomi's 10 years in Moab and their return to Bethlehem). We see a man not trying to impress a woman with his wealth, but a man of means simply trying to impress a woman to whom he is attracted. He invites her to eat with him and his workers. The bread and the wine vinegar would have been a typical lunch in the field, but Boaz goes beyond the "brown bag special" and takes the time to roast some grain. So much food did he have prepared that Ruth couldn't finish everything—even after working hard in the field throughout the morning. If it hadn't been clear to his workers by now that their boss had taken a liking to Ruth, it became obvious when he gave strict instructions to leave extra stalks for her from their bundles. No words were to be spoken among themselves, to Ruth, or to the other women who were gleaning. Certainly Ruth picked up on the generosity of the meal but had she picked up on Boaz' feelings? We're not told. One would think that the effort on his part would be hard to miss.

We don't have to fall in love with someone to show them acts of kindness. We can be generous to all. We can look out for others. We can share with those in need. We can defend those who can't defend themselves. We can encourage, support, and advise those who seem to be lost in life. We can do this for all people because it's not our love for them that moves us to action, but rather it's our love for the Lord that moves us to action. Showing kindness to others is a simple fruit of our faith that naturally flows from the love of the Lord that moved him to act on our behalf and in our place to save us from sin.