Ruth 1:16 "But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” This episode talks about how important the people we hang around with are to our growth. Who we hang around with matters more than we realize. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Your God My God
Ruth 1:16 "But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
I was listening to the Elevation Church podcast yesterday with Pastor Steven Furtick. He did this talk on the book of Ruth and it was really good. If you have not read the book of Ruth it is a great book and it is a short one so it wouldn’t take you long to read it. Ruth is the daughter in law of Naomi. They leave their home because of a famine and they go to another land. Then Naomi’s husband dies, and 10 years later both her son’s die. She decides to go back home and tells her daughter in laws to go back to their homes. Orpah decided to go home to her family. However, Ruth refused to leave. This is where the verse above come in. Ruth said to Naomi, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
Steven Furtick said something in his sermon and as soon as he said it the Holy Spirit said, yes, that is what I want you to talk about. Steven repeated “your God my God,” and said this is true for all of us and the people we hang out with. This hit me with such conviction. In Exodus 20:2-3 God says, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” We may think this is easy as we don’t live in a time where people worship a lot of false God’s, like when we had the greek gods. There are some other religions that may worship other gods, like the god of fertility or the god of death, however, it is not everyday that people are talking about them like it was back in the day when the Bible was written. We probably hear this verse and say to ourselves, I’ve got that commandment down, or at least I do. When I am thinking about confession I think that I don’t have to worry about breaking this commandment as I know that the Lord is my one true God.
Just when I am sure I don’t have any other God’s before our God, I hear a sermon asking if I am worshiping other things like TV, alcohol, food, or other things. You see, it doesn’t have to be another God that you are worshipping, it could be something as simple as TV. It could be anything that you are putting ahead of God. Have you ever sat there and watched TV when you knew you should be doing something for the Lord? How many hours do you watch TV vs. how much time you spend with the Lord? Have you ever decided that your morning cup of coffee or your breakfast was more important than fasting an hour before you receive communion? Have you decided that your sleep was more important than waking up and going to church and praising God? I won’t speak for all of us, but I seem to find plenty of things to put before God. I don’t think of these things as putting other God’s before our God, but it is what we are doing a lot of the time.
What is first in your heart? What do you think about the majority of the time? Where do your loyalties lie? Who we spend our time with matters more than we know. Jim Rohn famously said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Think about this for a minute. Think of the five people you spend the most time with. Can you see aspects of them in you? I know when I spend a lot of time with someone then I start to talk like them, we all do, we can’t help it. Think about the type of person that you want to be. Do the people that you spend the most time with help you be that person? Do they encourage you and lift you up? A lot of the time we just fall into our friends group and we just stay with the same group of friends for our lives, or at least a really long time. There are not a lot of people that intentionally choose their friend group. Usually we meet people at work, or our neighbors, or we are friends with our kids parents. How many of us go out and search for friends that will be positive roll models, build us up, and help us to grow? I am going to guess, not many. Although if you have done this then kudos to you because it is so important.
It’s interesting to me that as parents we know how important it is for our kids to have great friends. Whatever their friends are into they are into. If they are hanging around good kids, they have a tendency to be a good kid. If they are hanging around kids that get into trouble then they tend to be a kid that gets into trouble. We know this for our children and yet we don’t think of it for us. Even as an adult, who you hang around with matter. As it says in the verse above, “your God my God.” If your friends are sports fanatics then you might discover that sports are what you are putting above God. You might see that you are missing church more and more because there is a really good game on and you don’t want to miss it. You might hang out with people that love TV and talk about all the shows that they binge watch and so you start to watch more and more TV. However, if you find friends that love Jesus and the Lord and you can openly talk about your faith with them, you will grow in your faith. Having a faith community is a great way to grow in your faith.
I have grown leaps and bounds in my faith since joining the Charismatic prayer group in 2017. However, ever since I got married I have been involved in some sort of Catholic women’s group. The reason for this is because I knew I needed help staying focused on the Lord. I knew if I was going to grow, I would need help. If we surround ourselves with those that love the Lord, then when we run into an issue, they can help us through it in a way that is consistent with our faith. I remember I was listening to one of my mentors once and she was talking about how she was fighting a lot with her husband. She picked her friends up at the airport and was complaining to them about her husband. Some friends might join in and even add to what she is saying. However, these friends value the vows of marriage and also know how important family was to my mentor. Instead of joining in they questioned her in a loving way and reminded her that marriage is hard and no one is perfect. What do your friends do when you complain? Do they just listen and reassure you things will get better, do they offer advice consistent with your values, do they pray with you about it, do they dismiss your concerns, do they jump on the negativity band wagon? Our friendships are meant to build us up, make us feel secure, and help us to grow. That is not to say our friendships will be perfect. We will sometimes get upset and argue, we are human after all. However, if you have a friendship with someone and you feel they are pulling you away from the Lord, it is time to reevaluate that friendship. As the verse above says, “your God my God.” Their interests will start to become your interests, is this a good thing?
If you are concerned because you don’t have 5 people that you hang out with, or you don’t want to be a combination the 5 people you hang out with most, you can change this by surrounding yourself with TV, movie, books, or music of people you want to be more like. For instance if you listen to a lot of sermons, you will be surrounding yourself with the world of the Lord. Or if you read the Bible daily, or listen to podcasts from people you admire, watch documentaries or TV shows about good wholesome topics. Your brain will be full of whatever you decide you want to put in it. If you can’t surround yourself with people that can help you grown in your faith, then you can read books and watch show, and listen to podcasts or worship music and this will also help you grow. Brendon Burchard says, “where your focus goes, your energy flows.” Where is your focus? Are you focused on the Lord, or are you too busy with other things? Are you waiting for your life to slow down to focus on the Lord? We have control over what we put into our mind and it starts with the people we surround ourselves with.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this podcast today. Lord, help us to see if we have people in our lives that are distracting us from you. If so, show us how you would like us to change the situation. Lord, we want to put you first. Please show us all the ways in our lives where we are putting other things before you. Convict our hearts to change this. Lord, we ask that you bring faith filled people into our lives to help us grow in our faith and trust in you. We want to know you more and more and grow closer to you Lord, please help us. We love you so much. You are amazing. We are so grateful for all you do for us and we ask all of this in accordance with your will an in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day.