The Way to a Woman’s Heart – #3 Do I Receive Love Well

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The Way to a Woman’s Heart #3 – Do I Receive Love Well?

Romans 5:8 NIV ⁸  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Demonstrate: to clearly show the existence or truth of something by giving proof or evidence

Acts 20:35 NIV ³⁵  “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Ruth 1:8-18 NIV ⁸  Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. ⁹  May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them and they wept aloud ¹⁰  and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” ¹¹  But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? ¹²  Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me–even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons– ¹³  would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has gone out against me!” ¹⁴  At this they wept again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. ¹⁵  “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” ¹⁶  But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. ¹⁷  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” ¹⁸  When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Roadblocks to receiving Love:

1. Low self-worth
2. Tragedy
3. Abandonment

Receiving love requires:

1.  Humility

you have something I need

Ruth 2:2-3 NLT 2  One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.” 3  So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech.

Humility: I choose to sit myself at the feet of Jesus

Humility: I choose to sit myself at the feet of Jesus

2.  Vulnerability

I’m no ok on my own

Ruth 3:1-4 NLT ¹  One day Naomi said to Ruth, “My daughter, it’s time that I found a permanent home for you, so that you will be provided for. ²  Boaz is a close relative of ours, and he’s been very kind by letting you gather grain with his young women. Tonight he will be winnowing barley at the threshing floor. ³  Now do as I tell you—take a bath and put on perfume and dress in your nicest clothes. Then go to the threshing floor, but don’t let Boaz see you until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴  Be sure to notice where he lies down; then go and uncover his feet and lie down there. He will tell you what to do.”

3.  Trust

I’m not my only protector

Ruth 3:10-14 NLT ¹⁰  “The LORD bless you, my daughter!” Boaz exclaimed. “You are showing even more family loyalty now than you did before, for you have not gone after a younger man, whether rich or poor. ¹¹  Now don’t worry about a thing, my daughter. I will do what is necessary, for everyone in town knows you are a virtuous woman. ¹²  But while it’s true that I am one of your family redeemers, there is another man who is more closely related to you than I am. ¹³  Stay here tonight, and in the morning I will talk to him. If he is willing to redeem you, very well. Let him marry you. But if he is not willing, then as surely as the LORD lives, I will redeem you myself! Now lie down here until morning.” ¹⁴  So Ruth lay at Boaz’s feet until the morning, but she got up before it was light enough for people to recognize each other. For Boaz had said, “No one must know that a woman was here at the threshing floor.”

Proverbs 4:18 NIV ¹⁸  The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.