Friends of Terra Vista

Friends of Terra Vista A place for friends of Terra Vista Baptist Church to enjoy connecting and sharing pictures, personal news etc!

09/10/2026

“Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, ‘Whose young woman is this?’”

RUTH 2:5


PONDER THIS
Samuel Rutherford, a man who knew suffering, has been quoted as saying, “Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace.” Has it seemed like you’re a nail, and some hammer is coming out of nowhere, beating on you? Does it seem like you are a piece of metal, and there is some file that is gnawing and scraping and reducing you? Does it seem like you have been flung into a furnace and are being consumed? Remember that God holds the nail and the hammer. God holds the metal and the file. It is God who has allowed you to be in the furnace and watches over the flame.

Ruth surely wondered, “Why this hammer? Why this file? Why this furnace of fire?” But if you back out and look at the bigger picture, you see that it was saving grace, it was sovereign grace, and it was God moving everything so that Ruth showed up just at the right time in the barley field when Boaz was there because God had a plan.

09/09/2026

“And the close relative said, ‘I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.’”

RUTH 4:6


PONDER THIS
Who was this nearer kinsman? If Boaz pictured the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the nearer kinsman who cannot redeem? He pictured Adam. Everyone is either in Adam or in Christ. Who is my real close relative? Adam. We’re all related to Adam, and in Adam, all die. He is the near relative to us all.

I was preaching in a revival one time. A woman came up afterward and said, “You’re a Rogers, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes ma’am.” She said, “Well, I have been doing some work on our genealogy.” She stood up real tall. She said, “Because I’m a Rogers.” And she said, “You will be happy to know that the Rogers came over on the Mayflower.” I said, “Well that’s wonderful.” But then I said, “I traced it back further than that.” Boy, did she get excited, and I said, “I traced it all the way back, and you need to know that we came from a crooked farmer and a drunken sailor. The farmer was Adam, and the sailor was Noah. That’s how far back we go.” Thanks be to God—our story didn’t end there. Adam was our near relative, but Jesus has acted as our Redeemer.

Everyone is invited to our Open House at Terra Vista Baptist Church on Sept.19 from 10:00 to 2:00. Hope to see everyone ...
09/09/2026

Everyone is invited to our Open House at Terra Vista Baptist Church on Sept.19 from 10:00 to 2:00. Hope to see everyone there!

09/08/2026

“Then it shall be, when he lies down, that you shall notice the place where he lies; and you shall go in, uncover his feet, and lie down; and he will tell you what you should do.”

RUTH 3:4


PONDER THIS
We should be careful not to misinterpret Ruth’s actions here. There was nothing improper, dirty, or impure. She was placing herself at Boaz’s feet under his protection. In Ruth 3:9 she requested that Boaz take her under his wing. She was saying, “I place myself under your protection; I am fully committed to you!”

Question: Can you have an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ if you’re not fully committed to Him? The answer is no. Is Christ Lord? I must ask myself every one of these questions. Have I placed myself at the feet of my Redeemer? The most sacred place on Earth is not in the pew, not at the altar, not behind the pulpit, not some temple somewhere. The most sacred place on Earth is at the feet of Jesus when you are fully committed to Him.

09/07/2026

“Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.”

RUTH 3:3


PONDER THIS
Christianity is not a code, it is not a cause, it is not a creed, it is not conduct, it is not church; it’s Christ. The mark of a Christian is a love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And the true desire of every child of God is to know Jesus Christ intimately. We want more than redemption; we want a relationship. We want more than the gifts; we want the Giver. We want Jesus Christ to be real to us.

You can know about somebody without knowing somebody. I want to know Jesus, not merely know about Him, don’t you? I want Jesus to be more real to me than any person I see face to face. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know Him.” In today’s passage, Naomi instructed Ruth on how to know Boaz, and Ruth followed her direction. God has told us how to know His Son, Jesus, through His Word. Will we follow?

09/06/2026

“So Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, ‘Please let me go to the field, and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find favor.’ And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter.’”

RUTH 2:2


PONDER THIS
Ruth and Naomi were penniless, and by this time Naomi, who had turned to bitterness, couldn’t go into the fields. She was too old for that. So, Ruth said, “Well, I’m going into the fields. Maybe I can find some grace here.”

But I want you to see the hand of God in all of this. Number one, when did they get back to the land? Just in time for the barley harvest. This was not by accident. Then she went into the fields to glean, and whose field did she go into? There were no signs there that said this field belongs to this family or that family, no fences of demarcation. She simply went into a field, and it was the field of Boaz, her near kinsman. You can see the hidden hand of God.

Then when she’s there in the field of Boaz, who happens to come to the field at just that moment? Boaz himself. Boaz sees Ruth out there, and he says, “Who is that?” Ruth had gone through so much. She was broken and bankrupt, she was bruised and beaten, she was cursed and crushed. Did God do all of that out of cruelety? No, as you see the bigger picture, you see that God had a sovereign plan in it all.

09/05/2026

“There was a relative of Naomi’s husband, a man of great wealth, of the family of Elimelech. His name was Boaz.”

RUTH 2:1


PONDER THIS
Consider how Boaz was a picture of Christ. Number one: he was from Bethlehem, as was the Lord Jesus. Number two: he was a near kinsman to Ruth, as Jesus is a near kinsman to us. He acted as a near kinsman to redeem us. That’s why Jesus stepped out of the ivory palaces and came into this world of woe and was born of a virgin’s womb. He took flesh and blood to be made like His brethren. Further, to redeem, you had to be wealthy enough. You had to have no obligations against you, you could not be bankrupt yourself. Boaz was a wealthy man, and all the riches of Heaven reside in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Not only did you have to be a near kinsman, and not only did you have to be wealthy enough to redeem, but you had to be willing to redeem. And the Lord Jesus, thank God, was willing to redeem, just as Boaz was willing to redeem. Boaz came to the fields where Ruth was, just as Jesus came to where I am. Boaz redeemed Ruth, but he also pointed to Jesus who is the Redeemer for the whole world.

09/04/2026

“Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.”

RUTH 1:14


PONDER THIS
When Ruth made the decision to stay with Naomi, not only was her life changed, but my life was changed. Did you know that Ruth, this pagan girl, became an ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ? She married into the royal line and, according to the flesh, she became a part of the house of David. Before this decision, she had so much against her. She had a cursed life. The Bible teaches that there was a curse upon her. Deuteronomy 23:3 says, “An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord forever.” The Law said, “Keep her out! She’s not worthy.” She had a cursed life. But what the law could not do, grace did for this woman. And what the law could not do for me, grace has done. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2:12, “you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” But thank God, the grace of God has brought us in.

09/03/2026

“Now it came to pass, in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion—Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there. Then Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left, and her two sons. Now they took wives of the women of Moab: the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there about ten years. Then both Mahlon and Chilion also died; so the woman survived her two sons and her husband.”

RUTH 1:1-5

PONDER THIS

Why did Elimelech leave Bethlehem? He was afraid he couldn’t survive. He left the house of bread with the wrong motive, the wrong method, and the wrong master. And what does he do over there? He dies. And what happens to his little boys that he was so concerned about? They die.

There’s an old story about a rich merchant of Baghdad who had a servant. And the servant came to him and said, “Master, I want you to give me one of your best horses. I must flee.” And the merchant said to his servant, “Why do you need to flee?” The servant replied, “I was in the marketplace today, and a sinister figure jostled me, and I turned, and I looked in his face, and I was staring in the face of Death. Master, give me a horse, I must flee to Samara.” The master, loving his servant, said, “Take my best horse and flee if you will.” And then the rich merchant went to the marketplace, and there he saw Death. And he said, “Death, why did you startle my servant when you saw him?” And Death said, “I didn’t mean to startle your servant; it was your servant that startled me. I didn’t expect to see him here. I have an appointment with him tonight in Samara.” Elimelech sought life on his own terms, but all he found was death. We must be careful not to do the same.

09/02/2026

“When she saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped speaking to her.”

RUTH 1:18


PONDER THIS
Have you ever gone out to dinner at night, and you and your spouse get in the car and say, “Well, let’s go out to a restaurant”? “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know, where do you want to go?” And you begin to talk this way while you’re driving the car, and you turn this way and that way and all around town.

Last night I was invited to some friends’ house for dinner; it was a wonderful meal. When Joyce and I got in the car, we didn’t have to drive all over town. No, we didn’t have to decide at every corner we came to, because we knew where we were going. When you make a big choice, a lot of little choices are automatically made. In the same way, when you are set on following Jesus, you don’t have to weigh every decision along the way. You go in the direction He has called you. Ruth was determined to go with Naomi. A few big decisions take care of a lot of little decisions.

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4412 Oakwood Drive
Chattanooga, TN
37416

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