From the desk of Steve Shultz:
We've been hearing prophetic words lately on the story of "'Ruth" and that this would be a year for the Ruths to come forth and a very powerful time for women.
This word by Barbie Breathitt is not only a word for women though, it's a word for the entire Church to prepare ourselves in intimacy with the Lord. It's a must read!
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Barbie Breathitt:
Servanthood: Return to the Lord in Obedience
Failure thrives on giving excuses of why people can't succeed. Failure tries to make people a victim of someone else's schemes, I'm single. I'm a widow. I'm too old. I'm too young. I don't have enough money, time, skill or intelligence; or people allow health problems to hold them back. Negative words create a negative atmosphere of lack, poverty and death. Refuse to talk about lack, sickness or weaknesses. Don't worry about anything, because worry never changed anything. Life is about serving God. It is to be enjoyed – live it to the fullest. Ruth is a good example of humble service. She spoke forth hope and obtained the grace to change.
How Do We Cause Prosperity in Our Thought Life?
Don't let age factor into anything you want to do in life. There are always exceptions to every rule. Boaz praised Ruth for choosing an older man. You are as young as you think you are. Tell yourself, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I am educated, intelligent, healthy, capable, talented and gifted." Start being successful now! Your best years are ahead of you. After all, God is for you. He is eternal and older than time itself. So what does age or time matter?
Never doubt yourself or sell yourself short because of your current circumstances or situations. Ruth concentrated on the abilities and assets God had given her. She looked for the door of opportunity. Be determined to walk through the opportune door when it presents itself. Don't remain in a place of lack when you can step into a prosperous future. Remind yourself about productive attitudes. Use your intelligence to find and seek ways to create solutions. Be diligent, work hard and solve problems as they arise to ensure your success. A positive, "can do" attitude is powerful!
Don't spend your time memorizing negative, limiting factors; you can always find information. Spend your time developing your relationship with God. Commit to His Word; believe and write them on the tablets of your heart. Learn His ways to make your path straight. Develop your positive-thinking skills. The way we think and the words we speak determine our success or failure. Ruth determined she was going to find favor and grace to prosper, and she did.
How do we cause prosperity in our thought life? Don't allow condemnation, doubt, fear or negative thoughts to enter your mind. Cast down vain imaginations and every thought that tries to exalt itself above the ways of God. Never entertain or embrace critical, negative opinions or jealous evaluations about you. Don't listen to the accusing lies of the enemy; there is no condemnation in Christ, only love, hope and grace.
Thoughts create positive mental images that construct the world we live in. Words are the building blocks that come from our thoughts. Our words either draw people toward us or they push them away. Choose your words carefully: they craft who you are today and who you will become tomorrow.
Ruth 1:16-18 (NASB) But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me." When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.
Be determined and purposeful in achieving your calling and destiny in life. Ruth clung to Naomi and overcame devastation. Orpah, the quick to flee, kissed her opportunity for a good life goodbye. She ran back to her old ways and dead gods.
O God, Renew a Right Spirit Within Me
Monday, January 17, 2011, I awoke from a dream. Someone had thrown me under an old car. I found myself trapped there in that small, limiting place. No matter how low I lay, it wasn't low enough for the car to roll over me without the fenders hurting my head. My former pastor came to offer me godly advice. His sermons were always full of the Word of God. He would quote one Scripture after another. I knew that his presence represented to me that my answer was in the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit.
This was a confirmation to me, since recently a prophetic friend told me God was placing a new sword in my hand. This caused me to ask the Lord to "search me and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts (i.e. the fenders could be a word play for offenders or offenses or wrong ways of thought since the car could not get over my head); and see if there be any wicked way where I have strayed, and lead me in the way everlasting" (see Psalm 139:23-24). I prayed, "Lord, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10).
Upon waking I was reminded of the story of Ruth lying down at Boaz's feet at the threshing floor. She didn't make herself known until Boaz asked, "Who are you?" Ruth came on the scene as a humble servant, not seeking his face but his feet.
Ruth 3:3-6, 8-9 (NASB) "Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. It shall be when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down; then he will tell you what you shall do." She said to her, "All that you say I will do." So she went down to the threshing floor and did according to all that her mother-in-law had commanded her...
...It happened in the middle of the night (midnight is the darkest hour) that the man was startled and bent forward; and behold, a woman was lying at his feet. He (Boaz) said, "Who are you?" And she answered, "I am Ruth your maid(servant)."
It is time for us to return to the Lord in obedience. Come lie down at His feet in servanthood, submission and humility. A servant can be a worshipper, an ambassador, a minister or an official messenger.
The threshing floor represents the place of broken emptiness. A broken and empty person will listen for God's voice and do according to everything He commands.
Rekindle the fire of God's obsession in your heart! Let the breath of His Spirit blow upon the coals of fire until they ignite into flames of passion. God's angels and ministers of fire will manifest this year. We are going to awaken to our desperate need of God's Word, anointing and presence to cover our nakedness.
God has set a controlled fire to our gleaning field. The fire will bring a purity of heart and a cleansing to our hands. The pure in heart shall see God. The fire will remove the wood, hay and stubble, allowing greater fruitfulness, prosperity and production. The fire will bring us to the center of our purpose and destiny instead of allowing us to remain distant, barely entering into our future.
The season of being held on the fringe by religion, living in lack because of traditions and barely getting by is coming to an end. It is a necessary part of the journey for us to embrace the exclusion from those who follow a religious spirit and persecute us for righteousness. We need to allow the purging and pruning to bring the eradication of self.
The Eyes of the Lord are Searching for Those with a Servant's Heart
The eyes of the Lord are searching for those with a servant's heart to support and promote 2 Chronicles 16:9. We can do nothing in our own flesh, strength or abilities. Our success comes by His great grace and favor shining upon us.
Psalm 44:3 (NASB) For by their own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them, but Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence, for You favored them.
When we recognize our true state of being wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, our new day of abundance will begin.
Revelation 3:17-19 (NASB) Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.
The love of the Lord brings a reproving and necessary discipline into our repentant lives.
Ruth is a powerful picture of the Church today. Ruth found herself as a young widow, far from God in a pagan, sin-laden country of death called Moab. Ruth had no means of support. She had no real hope for a prosperous future. But GOD gave her an invitation to leave everything familiar behind.
Naomi, the pleasant, cordial one, Ruth's mother-in-law, is a picture of the Holy Spirit. She hears the famine is over and that there is bread in Bethlehem again.
Ruth, whose name means the friendly, warm, welcoming one, accepted God's invitation and clung to Him. He became her desperate desire, her all in all. Ruth trusted God against all odds. She developed an intimate relationship, placing her hope and trust in God during her darkest hour. Ruth said to Naomi, "Do not urge me to leave or turn back from following you."
Ruth's cry became, "Where you go, I will go! Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God!" The words of Ruth's mouth created a new, victorious life for her. Her bold commitment and willingness to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit allowed God to transform Ruth's dark night of the soul into a bright new day that dawned on the horizon of her future.
Not only did Ruth's words change her life, but it says that when they (Ruth and Naomi) came to Bethlehem, the whole city was stirred up talking about them. When Jesus, the living Bread, is broken and served in the house of the Lord, His presence will shake the place and His power will be noised abroad. The Living Word will end the famine of not hearing the Word of the Lord in Church. When the Word of God is preached with boldness there won't be room enough to hold the crowds. They will begin to take the roof off to get into His healing presence.
The Ways of God are Much Higher than the Ways of Man
Ruth didn't make her decision to follow the Holy Spirit from what she saw but from what she felt in her heart through faith. Ruth's faith in God brought her out of a pitiful state of poverty into prosperity, affluence and abundance. Her humble servant's heart enabled her to inherit all the redemption, wealth, prestige and fruitfulness that Boaz had to offer. The choices we make in life determine the life we live. We all serve someone in life, so choose to serve the Lord with gladness.
The ways of God are much higher than the ways of man, so we often don't understand that the way up, is down. The way to increase, abundance and broadening is brought forth on the narrow way of decrease or humility. We are called to remain lowly and totally dependent upon God. We do this by humbling ourselves under the mighty, protective hand of God. He alone knows the time of our increase or exaltation.
Matthew 7:13-14 (NASB) Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
We are called to humble ourselves, but at times God allows others to openly humiliate us, too. Responding in love to their scornful disdain and disrespect brings forth promotion. Ruth's journey brought her from a broad place of death in Moab to a small, narrow gate of life in Bethlehem (House of Bread) of Judah (a place of praise).
Ruth arrived at the time of the barley harvest. The priest offered barley as a jealousy offering when a man or woman was suspected of adultery. Ruth risked her reputation laying it at the feet of a man in hopes he would cover her with grace. In Ruth 3:15, Boaz asked Ruth to bring him her mantle. He pours six measures of barley into her veil. This is double the amount she was able to glean on her own. Ruth progressed from a place of weakness, gleaning the leftovers in the corner of the harvest fields, to coming to rest at the feet of Boaz's strength and provision by lying down on the cold hard threshing floor.
Rest at the Lord's Feet Under His Covering, Then He Will Tell Us What to Do Next
Ruth told Naomi that she was going to find favor and grace in the eyes of the owner of the harvest field, and she did. The words she decreed established a prosperous path for her to walk on.
Boaz's name means the sure strength, swift and solid. He offers Ruth a safe place, provision and protection among the other maidens. Boaz tells Ruth in so many words, "I have fully seen and it has been told to me all you have done. You are a woman with an excellent spirit. The Lord will compensate your work and give you a full reward for your faithful service, because you have chosen to rest and trust His covering wings."
Ruth's place of quiet rest in the Lord as her Source led her to the soft comfort and warmth of Boaz's steadfast, protective marriage bed. The lowly servant became the gracious heiress of a grand estate. Boaz, the lord of the harvest, took Ruth as his wife; he abundantly supplied for her. The Lord caused her to conceive a son, Obed, whose name means, "The one with the servant's heart." When we, as the Bride of Christ, birth a servant's heart, God will trust us with the increase.
Re-robe yourself in a fresh new anointing of His glory. Naomi told Ruth to go to the threshing floor, a place of encounter, separation, breaking and the removing of the outer shell or husk. When the wind of the Spirit blows away the chaff, the pure grain will remain. When we sow the field with the pure grain, we will reap a great harvest. Ask the Lord for intimacy.
Matthew 3:11-12 (NASB) ...He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Have you felt the ox trodding on your back? Have you felt the heavy stone grinding you to powder? This is all part of the threshing floor process of winnowing. Ask the Lord to engage you, to cover your nakedness and to give you eyes to see. We will gain a new sense of security when we wash ourselves clean in the living Word.
The Bride is called to make herself ready. Adversity, difficulties and the darkness of midnight should draw us closer to God in surrender to His will. Rest at the Lord's feet under His covering. Then He will tell us what to do next.
Ruth 3:1-5 Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, shall I not seek security for you, that it may be well with you? Now is not Boaz our kinsman, with whose maids you were? Behold, he winnows barley at the threshing floor tonight. Wash yourself therefore, and anoint yourself and put on your best clothes, and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. It shall be when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies, and you shall go and uncover his feet and lie down; then he will tell you what you shall do." She said to her, "All that you say I will do."
Ruth, the friendly, warm, welcoming Church, was willing to follow Naomi (a form of the Holy Spirit) anywhere she went. Ruth followed Naomi to a place of praise and bread. In the place of praise, Ruth gained God's abundant provision. Ruth followed Naomi's God. Ruth followed Naomi's wise directions, so she became fertile and prospered. Ruth chose to rise above her painful past and her present devastating circumstances to become fruitful. Ruth was covered with Boaz's blanket. He sheltered, loved and took care of her, so the Lord will cover us under His protective wings.
Psalm 17:8 (NKJV) Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings.
Barbie L. Breathitt
Breath of the Spirit Ministries, Inc.
Email: Barbie@BreathOfTheSpiritMinistries.com
