DIVINE APPOINTMENT IN TRUE LOVE

TRUE LOVE: Have you experienced it? A few weeks ago when our granddaughter was visiting us she begin telling me about her week and the fact that her Papa was not the only one who went to work. Her daddy went to work and her mama sometimes went to work and when her mama went to work, her daddy took care of her and her sister. I asked her if her daddy took very good care of her while her mama was at work? She immediately and emphatically replied in a higher voice, "OH YES, MY DADDY LOVES ME"!!!!

I have loved our son-in-law from the day our family was introduced to him but that day I began to love him even more. To think that a man could instill such a confidence in a daughter's assurance of his love to her caused my heart to give thanksgiving to the LORD who created her. I couldn't help but think how it would please the LORD for his children to have that same assurance and express it with the tone of a three year old child and say to the world, "OH YES, MY DADDY LOVES ME".

One of the great preachers of the Gospel in the last century went on a preaching tour around the world. When he returned someone asked him, "Well, what great truth did you discover on your many travels". His answer was, "Jesus loves me, this I know." I wonder if his tone and assurance was the same as my three year old granddaughter?

In the book of Ruth one of the things we discover is true love. There was the love of Abimelech and Naomi. There was the love of Naomi's two sons for their wives Orpah and Ruth, there was the love of Naomi for her daughters-in-law and no doubt it was requited to Naomi. There was the love of Ruth and Boaz, and then the love of the baby born to them, Obed. There is no doubt about Naomi's love to him for she took the child and cared for him as her own. But all of these loves in the little book of Ruth are small in comparison to the true love of the One who inspired it. That love is seen not only in the outward expressions of love but also in the disciplines of life. I thought of that in relation to my granddaughter's confidence and expression of her daddy's love to her, knowing that he too expressed that love sometimes not just in the outward care or emotions but in the disciplines of life. And yet, when I asked her about his care, her immediate and emphatic response was not, "OH, MY DADDY DISCIPLINES ME", but it was "OH, YES, MY DADDY LOVES ME"!!

This same discipline of a loving heavenly Father opens the book of Ruth and we will expand on that as the posts develop in the future but there is a little Scripture in Romans chapter 15:4 that says, "For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and encouragement of the Scriptures we might have HOPE"!!! I capitalize that word HOPE because it has the same meaning as expectation. It is the LORD'S desire that his people have TRUE EXPECTATIONS of Him and His Word. That hope, those expectations include not only the outward expressions of a loving, caring Father, but the disciplines of life that accompany it.

If you have not read the book of Ruth lately, perhaps you could take a few minutes today and make it a part of your reading and look for God's love expressions to you both in outward blessings and in the disciplines of life. As you do, it is my hope and prayer that you will be able to say with the same confidence and assurance that my granddaughter said of her daddy, "YES, MY DADDY LOVES ME", or in the words of the hymn writer, "Jesus loves me this I KNOW". Perhaps you are one that cannot say that of an earthly father. Sadly, there are many today who cannot say that with confidence and assurance of their earthly father, but you can of your heavenly Father. Do you know that love? Can you tell a watching world with confidence and assurance, "JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW?" Or, "YES, MY DADDY LOVES ME!!" May you experience and express that love today!!