Do you know if you have won the heart of your Lord? Do you know that if you are hungry for Him, you will have the desire to win his heart? The apostle Paul affirms that this was his purpose in renouncing his previous life:
And certainly, I still esteem all things as a loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord, for whose sake I have lost everything, and I consider it a waste to win Christ.
Philippians 3: 8
Paul was completely captivated by his Lord. Why did he feel the need to "win" Christ? The Lord had already revealed himself clearly, and not only to the apostle but also in his life. Even so, Paul felt compelled to win the heart and affection of Christ.
His whole being - his ministry, his life, his very reason for living - was focused exclusively on pleasing his Master and Lord. Everything else was trash for Pablo, even the "good" things. I think one of the reasons why he never married was to
have more time to attend to the things of the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 7:32). He invited others to do the same "so that you walk as it is worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in everything"
(Colossians 1:10)
One may wonder if that idea of winning the heart of Jesus is biblical. Are we not already the object of God's love? Actually, his benevolent love extends to humanity whole But there is another kind of love that few Christians ever experience. It is a relationship of affectionate love with Christ, like that between husband and wife.
That love is expressed in the Song of Songs. In that book, Solomon is described as a type of Christ; and in a passage the Lord speaks thus with respect to his wife:
You set my heart ... my spouse; You have seized my heart with one of your eyes, with a choker on your neck. How beautiful are your loves ... my wife! How much better than wine your love ...!
Song of Songs 4: 9-10
Later he says: "Turn away your eyes from before me, for they have overcome me" (6: 5). The wife responds: "I am my beloved's, and he has his contentment with me" (7:10).
The wife of Christ will be formed by a holy people who long to please their Lord, and who live so obedient and so detached from everything else, that he can "steal" Christ's heart. In the passage quoted, it says that the heart of Christ was imprisoned "with one of your eyes".
I think the idea of "one of your eyes" is to have an undivided mind, centered only on Christ.
This undivided devotion to Christ - as well as the symbolic love between husband and wife - is expressed in another book of the Bible: Ruth. It is the story of a young convert who won the heart of her earthly master. I consider it a prophetic story, a message that speaks to us powerfully today, because we win Christ in the same way that Ruth won her master, Boaz.
But in trying to investigate that concept, reviewing all the biblical commentaries within my reach, I could not find a single author who saw in the book of Ruth that spiritual and prophetic sense. Only one writer hardly suggested that, because Ruth was a Moabite, God could be speaking to us of the gentiles "grafted into the olive tree". But that story contains much more than a simple historical meaning. I think we need to look more closely at that beautiful narrative, because it teaches us a lot about how we have to feed ourselves to try to win the Lord's heart.
The story of Ruth begins with these words: "There was famine in the land" (Ruth 1: 1). This hunger represents the same kind of famine that the Church experiences in our days: the lack of God's presence, a yearning for the true bread of God. Because of the famine, the Israelite Elimelech took his wife Naomi and her two sons, and fled the country of Judah to Moab. Later Elimelech died there, and Naomi's two sons took pagan wives, Orpah and Ruth. They all stayed in Moab for ten more years.
But Moab was a place of idolatry. It represented the congregation of the wicked, the seat of scoffers. In effect, the name Moab means fornication. Moab himself, from whom the region had taken the name, had been born of an incestuous relationship between Lot and one of his daughters. It was that people who seduced the Israelites in Sitim, in the desert, and after that a plague attacked them and twenty-four thousand died.
God forbade the Israelites to marry Moabite women, "for they will certainly make your hearts bow down after their gods" (1 Kings 11: 2). The same happens today in the spiritual sphere when a famine of the Word of God takes place: the people of God turn to the world, yielding to the seduction of the idolatry and mixing with the wicked. The famine in the Church has pushed many believers to Moab, the place of idolatry. And how well Noemi learned it when she lost her children there: Moab is a place where young people die!
However, back in Judah, the famine was finally over. Naomi knew that God was once again visiting her people with an abundance of bread. Suddenly, the memories of previous blessings flooded Naomi's soul, and she began to long for the holy place where she once lived. She was sick of Moab, her idolatry and her death. "Then he rose up with his daughters-in-law, and returned" (Ruth 1: 6).
Ruth and Orfa said goodbye to their parents, friends and family. They told their lifelong loved ones that they were gone forever. They went with Naomi to Judah, a place where God was visiting his people!
We can see the parallel in our world today: some believers have temporarily resided in Moab; in lethargy, coldness, worldly pleasure and success. But in their midst, a holy remnant has persevered. They have endured the very exaltation of the evangelists of television, the sordid sensuality in the house of God, the foolishness in the pulpit and the mockery of Christians who have abandoned faith. Those hungry people have prayed, fasted and interceded, and the Lord has heard their cry.Why is Times Square Church, and others like it, crammed with hungry seekers? Because the word has spread that God is visiting his people in those places! People have heard that there is a proclamation of a word coming from God. Yes, the famine has passed. God has sent bread from heaven. If you have not yet tasted the heavenly manna, then leave Moab and return to where God is visiting your people!
That was exactly what Naomi's two daughters-in-law planned to do. Note that the name Noemi means "grace." Following his mother-in-law was a way to follow the grace of God.
It represented a distancing from the life of the world and an approach to living by the grace of the Lord. They were attracted by the Spirit of God, by the news of their visitation. Today, in the same way, there are thousands who are heading home, back to the fullness of Christ: far from the madness, compromises, mediocrity and emptiness of a gospel of comfort and prosperity.
The sad thing is that many who decide to return to God stop at the border. They do not come off completely, they do not pay the price. I have seen this happen to many people: they begin with great fervor, and they assure that they are hungry. But then they get stuck on the border between Moab and Judah, and go back to their old steps. Of
In a similar way, we see in the Bible that when Orpha and Ruth reached the border, they found themselves faced with a decision: were they going to follow Naomi - that is, the grace of God - towards the fullness of the Lord? Their respective names offer us a key to the Answer: Orfa means "stubbornness". Ruth means "friend, companion."