YOLO or YLT?

Ruth 1:16-17, 2 Corinthians 5:15

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You only live once. So the world tells us. So, get as much happiness out of this life as you possibly can. That seems to be the mentality of our world today. That if you’re not happy in your job, quit. If you’re not happy with your friends, well, find some new ones. If you’re not happy in your family life, in your marriage, get a divorce, because happiness is key. Because you only live once.

There’s a woman in the Bible by the name of Ruth that seems to be living in direct contrast to that concept of YOLO or You Only Live Once. Ruth is this woman who has lost her husband at a young age, and she yet cares for her mother-in-law, who has not only lost her husband, but also her two sons as well. Ruth’s husband being one of them. Yet, even though Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, gives her the right to go back home to her family to maybe find a new spouse, a new husband to marry and be happy and to have kids. Yet Ruth clings to her mother-in-law, Naomi.

It’s interesting to think about what she does that she’s willing to leave her family and her homeland. She’s willing to take on a life of poverty and difficulty. She’s willing to live with this woman, Naomi, who doesn’t want people to call her Naomi, a name that means pleasant, but instead wants people to call her bitter because the Lord has made her life bitter. She desires to do all of that. It seems to be the exact opposite of the concept of YOLO. You only live once. Live your life for your own happiness.

Why would she do this? Well, in Ruth chapter one we hear this about her. Ruth says this to her mother-in-law, Naomi.

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to abandon you or to turn back from following you. Because wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you make your home, I will make my home. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely and double it if anything but death separates me from you.” (Ruth 1:16-17 EHV)

We hear why. We hear why she would give up on her own happiness to serve her mother-in-law, Naomi. It’s because of a promise she made to God. To the Lord. She had come to know the Lord as the true God, but not only as the true God, but as her own personal Savior. The one who is sending the Messiah into the world, the one who would come to redeem her and make satisfaction for her sins. To give her life forever in his name.

You see, Ruth wasn’t living for the here and now. She wasn’t living for life here on earth and for her happiness here. But she was living for the one who gives her eternal life forever because of the Messiah, her Savior, the one that God was sending into the world. Saint Paul writes in the New Testament concerning this one the Messiah.

And he died for all, so that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him, who died in their place and was raised again. (2 Corinthians 5:15 EHV)

You see, God encourages us instead of having that attitude of living for our happiness or YOLO, you only live once. Maybe instead YLT you live twice, right? We live here and now, but we also will have life forever in God’s name, in eternity, because of the one who has purchased our redemption, who has paid for our sin and given us the certainty of everlasting life.

So let us not live our lives here and now for our own selves, for our own happiness, but instead to live for the one who has given his life for us, to guarantee us that we will live twice. We will live forever, eternally in heaven. (WWLTWWLFEIH) Amen.