🙏 Costly Obedience Is Never a Loss | Ruth 4 Devotional (7-Step QT)
7-Step QT Notes
1. 🙏 Quiet Time
Pause.
Take a deep breath.
Ask God to show you where you may be obeying Him only when it feels safe, easy, or beneficial.
2. 📅 May 7, 2026
Today’s passage reminds us:
Obedience to God may look costly, but it is always our greatest gain.
3. ✝️ Ruth 4:1-6
Boaz went to the city gate, gathered the elders, and gave the nearer redeemer the first opportunity to redeem the land that belonged to Elimelech’s family. At first, the redeemer agreed to buy the land, but when Boaz explained that redeeming it also meant taking Ruth the Moabite to preserve the dead man’s name and inheritance, he refused. Fearing that it would impair his own inheritance, the redeemer gave his right of redemption to Boaz.
4. 📖 Key Verse
“I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it” (v. 6b).
5. 📝 Reflection
In today’s Quiet Time passage, two men appear. Both were willing to buy Naomi’s land, but they made different choices when it came to taking Ruth as a wife. Why did they respond differently? It was because they had different attitudes toward God’s law.
First, Boaz sought to obey God’s law by purchasing Naomi’s land (Leviticus 25:25). In that process, taking Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, as his wife in order to preserve the dead man’s name and inheritance was also a responsibility required by God’s law (Deuteronomy 25:5). Boaz was willing to accept even this responsibility.
But the other relative was different. At first, he was willing to obey the law of redeeming the land. However, he refused to take Ruth as his wife and preserve the inheritance in the name of the dead man. The reason was that he thought it might damage his own inheritance.
In the end, Boaz fully obeyed God’s law, even at personal cost. Yet God used Boaz to continue the genealogy of David and Jesus. So did Boaz truly suffer loss? Or did he receive God’s remarkable blessing?
Beloved brothers and sisters, when we obey God’s Word, selective obedience is not right. God’s Word is to be obeyed fully, whether we like it or not, whether it seems beneficial or costly to us.
Today, I want us to consider one more thing. It is truly foolish to obey God’s Word only when it seems profitable and to disobey when it appears costly. How can we truly know whether God’s Word will bring gain or loss? Can we judge that by our own experience and knowledge? Are we really in a position to decide whether the Word of God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe, is beneficial for us or not?
In today’s passage, the other relative obeyed God’s law selectively because he feared that his own inheritance might be harmed. But did he truly protect his inheritance? Scripture does not preserve his name. Boaz, however, obeyed at personal cost, and God preserved his name in the genealogy of David and Jesus.
Therefore, obey God’s Word fully. May you realize today that obeying the Word of God, our Creator and Ruler, is our wisest choice and our greatest gain.
6. 💬 What does this passage speak to you today?
- Where am I tempted to obey God only when it benefits me?
- What am I trying to protect more than I am trusting God?
- Is there an area of my life where I am saying, “I cannot obey because it may cost me too much”?
7. 🙏 Prayer
Lord, teach me to obey You fully, not selectively.
Help me trust Your Word more than my own calculations.
Give me faith to obey even when it feels costly.
May my life show that Your way is always best.
Amen.
Scriptures
📖 (Ruth 4:1-6, ESV).
1 Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down. 2 And he took ten men of the elders of the city and said, “Sit down here.” So they sat down. 3 Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. 4 So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.” And he said, “I will redeem it.” 5 Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.” 6 Then the redeemer said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”
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