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plus power; not Jesus plus patience, not Jesus plus love. When
you receive Christ, you receive all of Christ and He is all of
those things in your life. You may not enjoy all of those things
but you do not need more of Christ; you need more eyesight.
We need to see what we already have in Christ.
Every time a person gets saved he is in Bethlehem. He is totally
blessed. If you are not enjoying fullness in Bethlehem it is not
because you have not received it; it is because you left it. The
Book of Ruth begins where every Christian begins; on level
ground. Nobody has an advantage with God. We have Christ,
and that is all we need, and sometimes we depart from that and
we go off to Moab.
In Ruth 1:20&21 Naomi said, “Do not call me Naomi; call me
Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went
out full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why do
you call me Naomi, since the LORD has witnessed against me
and the Almighty has afflicted me?” Now if you have an NIV
or a New American Standard Bible, you will notice in the
margin for the word “Almighty” that it says “Shaddai” or “El
Shaddai”. The Hebrew word for God in this translation is “El
Shaddai”.
What does the word El Shaddai mean? Let me paraphrase it. It
is one of the most marvelous titles of God. It is the word that
means “the God who is more than enough; the all-sufficient
One”. Isn’t it an amazing thing that Elimelech and Naomi go
away because God and Bethlehem was not enough? And when
she comes back, she says, “I have come to know God as the
God who is more than enough; the El Shaddai.” All of that
suffering that God allowed in the land of Moab, all of that
hardship, the tears that they faced, the graves that they had to
go to, all of that was designed to show them that God is more
than enough.
Sometimes we might feel like when we are away from
Bethlehem, that maybe God hates us, and He has washed His