Rags Or Riches? (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally, thank you once again for giving us this opportunity to spend time in God's word and a few moments in prayer. Today, we’ll look at rags or riches. Proverbs chapter 23, verses 20 and 21, ‘Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.’ Proverbs chapter 23 offers wise advice. Be careful of chasing after riches for they are soon gone. Be wary of eating too many delicacies and drinking too much wine. Not only will they make you sick but will trap and drag us into folly. Beware of joining in with revelers and adulterers for the pleasures of sex and partying, it will only deceive and ruin us in the end. Today, thousands of years later, temptations of easy money, strong drink, sex and gluttony remain powerful and the results are the same as ever- ruined relationships, a life in shambles, addiction and poverty. The book of Ruth is an exciting rags to riches story. Ruth was from Moab, a pagan country to the east of Israel. Ruth was a Gentile, an outsider to God’s covenant blessings upon Israel. She married into a poor Hebrew family that migrated to Moab in a time of famine but her husband had died before they had children. Ruth found herself in the worst situation for a woman in that time and culture, poor, bereaved and childless. When Naomi, her widowed mother-in-law decided to return to Israel, Ruth was confronted with a major decision. Should she stay in her own country, with her own people or burn her bridges behind and go with Naomi to Israel? Ruth decided whole heartedly to go to Israel. Naturally speaking, it was far more logical for Ruth to stay in Moab, opportunities for remarriage and family security were much greater there. For a poor Moabite, Gentile widow to go to Judah with a poor and elderly widow was a rags to riches prospect. The bible reminds us that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. It was through Christ’s death that God showed us how much He loves us and how much He believes your life is worth. God taking broken, hurting, incomplete, unfulfilled lives and transforming them by His grace. You and I are a byproduct of His grace. We have been redeemed and bought back by the precious blood of Jesus, you’ve been washed and cleaned and now we are sons and daughters of the most high God. He now lays claim over each one of us. We have been traded from rags of sin and shame to the riches of heaven that comes through redemption. Let’s pray, Father, we want to thank you for teaching us today from your word. You are a God who takes the impossible, broken and you restore us. You take us from a place of sin and you’ve put us into your marvelous light. We thank you for what you have done and you are doing in each of our lives. Help us to fully trust in you, we give you all the praise and glory, in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.

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