CHRISTMAS

Getting everyone together to take the Christmas photograph for this year is a challenge since we have so many children working or in college studying off campus. I do not know of any minute on any day when everyone is here at the same time.

We had one baby went to the hospital for a few days with serve bronchitis and yesterday anther 5 year old fell and hurt his head so was taken there also. Both were able to return so we feel God’s presence and protection.

Ruth may be the most practical book in the Bible that can teach us how to demonstrate love to others. Naomi and her family move from Israel to Moab where the two sons marry. Soon the father dies and then both sons. Now Naomi is left alone with the exception of her two Moabitess daughter-in-laws. She is also poor and with absolutely nothing to live for so decides to return to Israel. When she tells the girls she is shocked to discover that Ruth is willing to go with her to what would be a foreign country where Ruth would be ostracized. Naomi is pessimistic and tells Ruth to stay in Moab.
Ruth 1:16 “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:  1:17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”  These tremendous words give us a perfect illustration of how to demonstrate love to others.

First, I show my love by sticking with someone through thick and thin. No matter what happens we must be willing to stay near and with and besides the one who needs us. God says that friends come and go but there is a true friend who sticks like a brother.

Secondly, to demonstrate love you must adjust to the other person. “Your people will be my people” were the words Ruth used to demonstrate the depths of her love. Families ar CONSTANTLY adjusting to one another and forever changing circumstances.