Ruth 4:6

New International Version (NIV) 

At this, the guardian-redeemer said, “Then I cannot redeem it because I might endanger my own estate. You redeem it yourself. I cannot do it.”

For meditation

God has exalted Christ Jesus to the highest place and given a name that is above every name – the name at the mention of which “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that [He] is Lord to the glory of God the Father” – because He embraced the conditions that came with His mission on earth (Phil. 2:6-11). Christ is enjoying the highest privilege of sitting at the right of God in Majesty and power because He labored and suffered through the cross and its shame Heb. 12:2); and we are saved because He did. Some of the conditions God attaches to His promises may be painful and difficult to fulfill, but if we willingly embrace them, we can look forward to every blessing He has promised with them. We cannot expect the blessings without fulfilling His righteous conditions. The world can hide the conditions to its contracts to ensnare us; but God does not conceal His righteous requirements to His promises. He states them in ways we cannot miss, so that we may be blessed by our obedience.

1. Why is it then that we love the promises of God, but struggle with the conditions that come with them?
2. Is it because they are too difficult for us to obey or we think they are unfair and unfavorable to our welfare?
3. Is it not because we see God’s righteous requirements as infringements upon our wills, and the delights we are unwilling to surrender?
4. But are they really?

5. Do they not rather deliver us from our selfishness and wicked ways that condemn us before Him?

I pray we will realize that the conditions of God’s promises are designed to sanctify us and make us more like Jesus. The more we yield to them, the more fruitful we become.

So: May we not be like the kinsman-redeemer in the Ruth story who gave away his right to Elimelech’s land because of the condition that came with it (Ruth 4:2-8) and so missed a place in the lineage of Christ (Matt. 1:5); but may we embrace the conditions that come with God’s blessings with the same joy with which we claim His promises.

Shalom