Marriage, ordained by God, is one man and one woman! Perfect design.
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Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs
Through the weekly and daily devotionals you can be constantly encouraged in your great role of parenting, the highest career in the nation. You can also stay updated on what's happening with the Above Rubies ministry.
“And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers” (Isaiah 61:5).It is impossible to refute that the Bible is not true when this Scripture, along with others saying the same thing, are being fulfilled in Israel today. Every year hundreds of young people, and families from many different countries of the world travel to Israel to help plant, prune, and harvest the vineyards in the Heartland of Israel. They are fulfilling Bible prophecy that was given so long ago.
And you can be part of it too. If you would like to experience fulfilling Bible prophecy yourself, contact HaYovel.com and you can check out how you can be part of it.
~ Nancy Campbell
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Did you watch the debate last night? It was very sad to see Joe Biden, staring-eyed and in such an incoherent state. His wife and those behind him should be ashamed for allowing him to speak in such a weakened state.But I was also sad to hear Donald Trump state his latest position on abortion. It truly grieved my heart. Although, on the whole, he believes in life, he stated that he also believed in exceptions. But there can be no exceptions when it comes to life. If it’s life and there is a heartbeat, you cannot destroy the baby. It is murder.
I personally know people who were conceived through incest, and they are living a beautiful life today. I personally know people who were conceived through rape and yet are living a happy life today. There are mothers who are happily married and now giving life to their own children who were conceived through rape. Even though it is a dreadful thing to go through, we have no excuse to kill an innocent baby.
What do we do about Donal Trump? We must pray for him. And we must continue to vote for him. We have no alternative. The democrat stance on abortion is horrific. They allow babies to be killed up to the third trimester. Even just before they are born. And even after they are born! Plus, they are destroying this country with their Marxist ideologies. And even not to vote gives a vote for this extreme socialism.
Trump is still the most prolife president. He enabled Roe v. Wade to be revoked and we need to read again the statement he made on January 17, 2021: “Every human life is a gift to the world. Whether born or unborn, young or old, healthy or sick, every person is made in the holy image of God. The Almighty Creator gives unique talents, beautiful dreams, and a great purpose to every person. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, we celebrate the wonder of human existence and renew our resolve to build a culture of life where every person of every age is protected, valued, and cherished.”
Keep praying for this man. Instead of complaining, pray. God will do mighty things through our prayers.
Nancy Campbell
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How close are you joined together as husband and wife? How close does God want you to be joined together?The word that God uses for marriage closeness is the Hebrew word “dabaq.” It is translated “cleave” in Genesis 2:24 which means “to cling to, to follow close, to stick, to be joined.”
Other English words are used in other passages and each word helps us to understand more of the oneness God desires in the marriage relationship. I love the passage where it is used to describe the leviathan in Job 41:15-17 (HCSB). Let’s read the description: “His pride is in his rows of scales, CLOSELY SEALED TOGETHER (dabaq). One scale is SO CLOSE TO ANOTHER THAT NO AIR CAN PASS BETWEEN THEM.” They are joined so closely that they cannot be separated.
What do you think of that ladies? God wants us to be joined so closely that no air can pass between us! Impossible to separate. What a great description of cleaving!
When Jesus was on earth, He confirmed Genesis 2:24. When answering the Pharisees about marriage, He said in Matthew 19:4, 5 (HCSB): “’Haven’t you read,’ He replied, ‘that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female . . . For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.’”
Jesus not only confirmed God’s original words but elevated them to a greater level: “Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not sperate.’” This means we are to be glued together, never to come apart. We are so stuck together that’s it’s well-nigh impossible for anything or anyone to pull us apart.
My grandson said to me recently, “Nana, they call a husband and wife a couple. But doesn’t God say they are one?
“Yes, you are absolutely correct,” I replied.
Maybe, rather than saying, “Look at that lovely couple walking along,” we should say, “What a lovely “oneness” walking together.”
How close are you making your marriage?
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Painting by Kin Johnson
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“Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought”
(Isaiah 41:11-12).
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A modern trend in parenting is to make our children happy. Whatever we can do to make them happy is the aim, even if it’s giving in to their whims and wants.I don’t believe this is the kind of parenting that works. Of course, it’s easy parenting. It takes effort and disciplined parenting to train children to become mature adults who are ready for life and ready for marriage and raising a family.
Our purpose should not just be to make them happy (although of course we want them to be happy) but to train them to be responsible, hard-working, honorable, trustworthy, reliable, unselfish, evil-hating, and God-loving people.
Some parents think that easy parenting is loving parenting. I don’t think this is true love. True love longs for our children to become all that God wants them to be. True love deals with the negative and selfish ways of our children. True love does not want our children to grow up taking bad habits into their adult life. When we allow our children to get into the habits of disobedience, rebellion, and moods, it shows we don’t care about them at all. We are not thinking of what it will be like when they get married one day.
The Bible tells us that God corrects those He loves. Actually, it’s stronger than that. Hebrews 12:6 says: “For whom the Lord LOVETH he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” That’s because He loves us and longs and yearns for us to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
Of course there is balance. We ultimately want our children to live in a home of happiness, joy, fun, and laughter! But in reality, this doesn’t work if we constantly face rebellion and moods and disobedience. That’s miserable parenting. No wonder some parents don’t want any more children.
When we train our children, we can then relax, and enjoy the atmosphere of a home of peace.
Proverbs 29:17 states: “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.”
How much do you love your children?
Love from Nancy Campbell
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“Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land ASSUREDLY with MY WHOLE HEART and with MY WHOLE SOUL”
(Jeremiah 32:41).
Do you feel the heart of God in this Scripture?
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“And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God” (Amos 9:14-15).
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Many mothers find cooking for their families a chore. “Oh no, not another meal to cook for this hungry family.” “Here I go again, day after day with no let up!”Dear mother, can I encourage you that preparing meals for your family is not insignificant? Do you remember what Jesus said in Mark 9:41? “For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink IN MY NAME, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.”
These are the words of Jesus. They will never fail. If Jesus says that we will not lose our reward if we give a cup of water in His name, what about preparing a WHOLE MEAL?
Every time you prepare a meal for your family—breakfast, lunch, and supper, God is watching. When you do it with the right attitude, when you do it as unto Him, when you do it in His name, He promises that you will not lose your reward.
Oh, what a blessing to be a mother. Just think of how many rewards you are going to receive from cooking meals day after day and year after year! And especially as you prepare each meal “as unto the Lord” and with a joyful attitude. This attitude takes you to a whole new realm. Because you are doing it for the Lord, you will want to make each meal special, knowing that Jesus desires to sit with you at your meal.
Don’t you love these words?
Christ is the Head of this home,
The Unseen Guest at every meal,
The Silent Listener to every conversation.
Many people have these wonderful words hanging on their wall. It’s a great reminder, isn’t it? Jesus wants to be included at your meal table.
I hope you have a wonderful time at your meal table this evening as you sit down with your family.
Many blessings to you today,
Nancy Campbell
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Did you notice I wrote the words, sacred AND secular, rather than sacred OR secular? God does not separate religious things with secular things. He wants everything in our lives to be touched with His divine presence. He wants everything in our homes—each person, each piece of furniture, and even all the pots and pans and utensils to be anointed with His presence (Zechariah 14:20, 21).Everything that God created is holy. All His creation is holy. God doesn’t see a church building as holy and the trees and flowers as earthly. They are all holy unto Him. They all praise Him.
In Exodus chapter 30:22-33 God tells Moses how to make the anointing oil and what to do with it. They had to use a gallon of olive and oil and four different spices—pure myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus, and cassia. It was well-balanced—two sweet spices along with myrrh which is bitter tasting. Myrrh and Cassia speaking of the fragrance of Christ through His suffering.
But most importantly, this oil was to be holy! It was called the HOLY ANOINTING OIL. Verse 32 states: “It is holy, and it shall be holy unto you.” And God commanded him to anoint every piece of furniture and every vessel in the whole place—and the high priest and his sons.
One of the pieces of furniture in the tabernacle was the table of shewbread. This table had to be anointed with this holy anointing oil too.
Everything in the tabernacle was a type for us today. He wants us to be anointed with this sweet and holy anointing oil which is presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He also wants every material thing in our homes to be anointed with His presence. He wants our tables to be anointed with His sweet and holy anointing.
You most probably feel that your dinner table is the opposite to sweet and holy! You are in the throes of raising and training children who are not robots. They don’t like their food. They complain. Some may argue. They cry. Sometimes its bedlam!
Please don’t despair dear mother. Keep training. Keep praying and asking God to pour out His sweet anointing on your family mealtimes. Pray for His holy anointing to come to you. You will reap what you sow. As you train your children and they grow older, you will move into such blessed and holy times together.
Without a vision nothing happens. But when we have a vision and understand that God wants to come to our tables and manifest His sweet and holy anointing, we will press toward this vision in our family lives.
Love from Nancy Campbell
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I was arrested by a Scripture I read this morning in Isaiah 26:18 (NET): “We cannot produce deliverance on the earth, people to populate the earth are not born.” The NLT says: “We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world.”Wow, these words are very powerful, and yet true. There are so many hurt and broken people in this world and all around us. There are so many who need salvation, deliverance, and healing. God is waiting to show them His salvation and deliver them from all their bondages. But how does it happen? God uses His people. We are His body on the earth, and He works through us.
The sad thing is that thousands of people are missing from the earth. Men and women who God wanted on this earth to bring His deliverance and salvation. But they are not here because for the few decades or so God’s people have thrown away God’s plan and decided they had a better plan.
Instead of receiving the children God planned from them, they limited their families to the average two-child family in the nation today. Millions are missing. We have not populated the nation with the godly seed. We don’t even have a majority to vote for righteousness, let alone the army of God’s people who should be bringing salvation and deliverance to the lost and hurting.
Oh, that the eyes of God’s people will be opened to God’s ultimate plan. The more children God gives us to bring into this world, the more impact we have for the kingdom of God. God wants His salvation and glory to fill the earth. He wants His people to be “more and mightier” than the heathen (Exodus 1:7-12).
Psalm 105:24 tells us that God “increased his people greatly: and made them stronger than their enemies.” We become weaker when we diminish. We become stronger when we multiply. These are plain facts. Plus, they are Bible language.
I love the quote from Frank Boreham: "We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions abroad, when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies at home. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, GOD SENDS A BABY INTO THE WORLD TO DO IT. That is why long, long ago, a Babe was born in Bethlehem."
Let’s live God’s way,
Nancy Campbell
Painting by Franziska Schenkel
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Don’t be swayed by the lies of feminism that degrade the role of wife and mother. Embrace who God created you to be.
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by Kathy Walker
1. You have more people loving and serving the Lord.
2. You get to see how God provides.
3. There's almost always someone around to visit with, play with, pray with, or read to.
4. You get lots of experience in sharing.
5. You get lots of experience in communicating.
6. Your hand-me-down clothes are often softer than new clothes.
7. You have your own cheering squad in whatever you do.
8. You get lots of constructive criticism.
9. You can have a big party without inviting anyone from outside your family.
10. You can have your own basketball, volleyball, baseball, or soccer teams
11. You see lots of different outlooks on the same things.
12. You experience the maximum "many hands make light work."
13. You get to see at close range how God uses people with different perspectives and spiritual gifts to accomplish His purposes.
14. You can have your own choir at home with all voice parts.
15. You can read or perform plays together and there is a different person for every part.
16. You can have your own orchestra.
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If only we could truly comprehend the privilege and power we have as mothers to bring into this world an eternal soul who will live forever! Without mothers this world would come to a halt and eternity would stop filling.
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“O that God would give every mother a vision of the GLORY AND SPLENDOR of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse into the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny,--she would see that in all God’s world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers and she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her.”
~ James Russell Miller (1840 – 1921).
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Our God is a good God. And because He created us in His likeness and image, He wants us to reveal His goodness. He wants us to be good wives and mothers. Oh my, sometimes we feel as though we are “bad” wives and mothers. We can fail so often.But it’s good to encourage one another, isn’t it? Our best encouragement comes from God’s Word itself. Did you know that the word “good” occurs 720 times in the Bible? It’s all about God being a good God and us doing good things. And many times this word is written especially to us as wives and mothers.
1 Timothy 5:10 tells us we must have a REPUTATION FOR GOOD WORKS. And what are these specific good works?
Embrace child rearing
Practice hospitality
Washe the saints’ feet
Help those in distress
Show forth all kinds of good works
This Scripture also tells us to DILIGENTLY fulfill all these good works. Acts 9:36-42 gives us the example of how we are to be FULL OF GOOD WORKS.
1 Timothy 2: 10 tells us to DRESS ourselves with good works. We should be more concerned about doing good works than worrying about what we wear.
Titus 2:3 exhorts the older women to be TEACHERS OF GOOD THINGS. And what are these specific good things? I now you know them but it’s good to remind ourselves, isn’t it?
To be self-controlled
To love our husbands
To love our children
To be discreet
To be pure
To be keepers at home
To be good and kind
To be submissive to our own husbands
Do you notice that all these things are to do with home and family? They are not only good things, but BEAUTIFUL things. The word also means “lovely and beautiful.” The Passion translation says the older women are to be “teachers of beautiful things.” God doesn’t want us to do them in a skimpy way. Grudgingly. Or survival mode. No, He wants us to do them exuberantly.
Dear mother, you are DOING A BEAUTIFUL WORK in your home as you pour out God’s nurturing heart to your children and to the needy around you.
Be encouraged and blessed today,
Nancy Campbell
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Never be ashamed of your great career of raising your children in your home. You are in the perfect will of God. You are fulfilling the biblical mandate. You have the most powerful career in the nation!
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Chatting with a couple recently, the husband said to me, “I’m concerned about our teenage daughter. When she gets up in the morning, she is very uncommunicative and miserable. The wife spoke up on her behalf and said, “Oh I think she’s just tired.”I couldn’t let it pass. “Just a moment,” I replied. You don’t allow her to get up with this attitude, do you? And if you think it’s tiredness, make sure she gets to bed earlier.”
There is no excuse for any member of the family to come to the family kitchen in the morning with a sour face and uncommunicative attitude. We must teach our children to come with a cheery Good Morning. Of course, as parents, we set the example.
As each one comes into your kitchen each morning, greet them with a smile and a cheery welcome such as, “Good morning, welcome to the day.” If they don’t give a cheery reply, keep saying it until they do. Get them into the habit.
Dear mothers, family life is where we prepare our children for marriage. Your children should never have to go to a marriage seminar to prepare for marriage. You are preparing them each day of their lives. You are training them in the right habits for their future lives.
What a terrible thing for a husband to wake up to a wife with a sour face and grumpy spirit. And non-communicative. That doesn’t build a marriage. It slowly pulls it down. Don’t ever let your children get into this habit in your home.
Don’t let them get into entitlement habits either. They will destroy their future marriage too. Deal with every negative habit in your children’s lives that would be detrimental to their future marriage, and the future success of their lives.
I cannot even believe how many parents allow their children to be a “wet rag” in the home, stay in their sour moods, or act selfishly.
Don’t allow it to continue for one minute! You are setting them up for heartache later on.
Blessings to you today from Nancy Campbell
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During testimony time at an Above Rubies retreat, a mother shared how they had just moved into a new home. As she began to get everything into shape, she decided to begin at the center of her home. She said, “I began with my table, and then my dining room. I wanted to make them special and beautiful. I want to make them a place of wonderful memories for my children.”This lovely mother was doing the right thing. When God told Moses how to build the tabernacle in the wilderness, He showed Moses where to specifically place the three pieces of furniture in the Holy Place.
The first piece of furniture was the table! God began with the table, which was called “the Table of Shewbread.” God said it was to be placed on the north side in the Holy Place. The Scriptures tell us that Heaven is in the north, and God wanted the table to point toward Heaven where He already has a table.
Did you know that God had tables in His heavenly kingdom before we ever had them on earth? God is the originator of the table. And the table in your home is important to Him. He wants to come and dwell with you at your table.
Make your table a place of beauty and a place that draws the family together.
He also wants it to be in order. Did you know that God loves order? In Exodus 40:4, 22, 23 God said: “And thou shalt bring in the table, and SET IN ORDER the things that are to be set in order upon it . . . And he (Moses) put the table in the tent of the congregation, upon the side of the tabernacle northward . . . And he set the bread IN ORDER UPON IT before the LORD (in the presence of the Lord).”
Proverbs 9:2 tells us that the wise woman “furnishes her table.” She sets her table and makes it beautiful. There is something about preparing an orderly table. When you set an orderly table, it impacts those who come to the table. When your children see an orderly table, subconsciously they want to be orderly too.
We must care for every room in our home but remember to start with your table and dining room, because that’s where God starts. Make sure that this part of your home is lovely.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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