Our Loving Duty!

Duty is seen with soldiers, not marriages, now transactional relationships, avg 12 yrs.

Ruth’s love story is not easily seen; not much of a love letter

Our Loving Duty!

Title chapter three The Love Letter

Ruth asks for marriage

Ruth 3:10 “The LORD bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor.”

Ruth’s love is described as kindness, it was a hessed love, loving duty

But loving duty was everywhere

Loving duty is action, selfless commitment, not transactional

Boaz remember, grandmother Rahab, prostitute, story-loving duty, prince, scarlet

We have to move from transactional to transcendent marriages; in loving duty

1. Stop bringing up past mistakes or failures.

Marriages are not a scale, marriages hold no grudges, loves completely, acts in loving duty

2. Don’t consider your spouse as a rival.

Women are not from Venus or Mars! They are from the hand of God for your life

3. Don’t let a day pass by without giving to your spouse.

100% too much, maybe 80, 65, anything less allows transactional slip in…

4. Work to solve and do things together.

The problem is the problem, not your spouse; figure it out together, lower defense

5. It is our loving duty to understand our spouses’ misgivings or concerns.

Not do as you have done to you, but as Christ has done for us, that’s transcendent

When hessed, loving duty flows as in Ruth, the broken family becomes strong

And with us when hessed flows, our loving duty to family and others flows…

We live a gospel that has the power so we can live in hessed commitment

Rom 1:16 …gospel…power of God that brings salvation

When that power is not there, we live in transactional relationships

2 Tim 3:2-5 People will be lovers of themselves… without love… rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.