Education is for life. Not only should our children learn something new each day but we as parents should also. A good question to ask at your family meal table is “What is something new you have learned today?”
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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.
In a day when many families eat on the run, around the TV, or at different times, why is it important to come together as a family and SIT AT THE TABLE FOR FAMILY MEALTIMES? Because...1. The table is a GATHERING PLACE. There is nothing like food to gather the family together. And when we come together, we relate to each other. And when we relate together, it binds us closer together.
2. The table is a COMMUNICATING SPOT. It's where we interact with our children and talk heart to heart and soul to soul. Food and fellowship go together. They are twins. It’s “face-to-face table fellowship.” God didn't intend us to eat on the run. When Jesus fed the 5,000 plus, He made them first sit down in groups before He fed them.
3. The table is an ENQUIRING PLACE. It's where we have more time for the children to ask us questions and we can ask them questions. We become part of one another's lives.
4. The table is a DISCUSSION ASSEMBLY. I believe it is as important to prepare what you are going to talk about at the table as what you are going to eat. Think about topics you can discuss when you sit down for your evening meal—biblical, spiritual, geographical, or political, etc. Ask fun questions and get everyone involved.
Or you can ask each person to come to the table prepared to share about a book they have been reading recently. Or share about a person who has impacted this world. Sometimes, we have a general knowledge quiz at the table. Use your imagination to make your family table fun and exciting.
5. The table is a RELAXING OASIS. Ooops. I know that it's not often like that when you are still training little ones. However, be diligent to keep training for you will eventually reap wonderful blessings. Food releases oxytocin which is a calming hormone. Therefore as you gather together as a family to eat and share together, you relax. Isn't that great?
6. The table is a SPIRIT-FEEDING PLACE. We must change our mindset. The table is not only a place to feed our children's hungry tummies, but a place to feed the whole man—body, soul, and spirit. If we let our children leave the table before we feed their spirit, they leave half fed.
The physical food fills us up, relaxes us, and prepares us for the most important feeding, the feeding of the spirit—the reading of God’s Word which feeds the inner man. It is even more important than the outer man. We call it Family Devotions in our home, but you may use a different name. Christian families in The Netherlands call it "Finishing up the Meal." They don’t leave the table only half fed, but finish up their meal by feeding their spirit, the most important part of our being.
Don't starve the inner man of your children.
7. The table is an ALTAR, A PLACE FOR PRAYER. After the reading of God’s Word we love to pray and worship with a hymn or worship song. It is a great time to pray as the whole family is gathered together. You can understand why the enemy tries his hardest to stop us from gathering together at the table. He knows we’ll most probably miss praying together and he doesn’t want prayer! It’s prayer that destroys his works and enhances God’s kingdom.
Don’t let the devil win in your home.
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Currently my sister and her husband are living with us as they wait for their new home to be built. Because we are together, often memories of our childhood come up and we talk and laugh about them.The other day we were reminiscing about how all the children on our street would converge on to our front lawn and play together. After a big conflab about their next venture, they’d soar into action.
My father possessed a large box of boxing gloves, and the neighborhood boys loved to have boxing matches (or wrestling matches). This often culminated with boys going home with black eyes and bleeding noses! Did anyone worry about it? No. Did concerned parents call up and complain? No. The boys were back the next day for another round!
Now we live in a different world. Many parents today would be calling the CPS to complain about these parents allowing their boys to be so rough, coming home with torn clothes and bleeding faces! But these boys loved every minute of it. They were boys! And the parents thought nothing of it! They wanted their boys to be boys. To grow up to be men who could face the struggles of life and know how to take a blow!
What a life these children had. On our back paddock they’d set up racing tracks. They wrecked every bicycle in the neighborhood. Each time my parents bought me a bicycle it would be in pieces in two weeks by the time my brother had finished with it.
They built underground tunnels that went for hundreds and hundreds of yards. It must have been good practice for when my brother later owned his own plumbing business.
Psalm 144:12 speaks of our “sons as plants, becoming great in their youth.” We don’t keep them like little boys. We train them to become mature and grow into manhood even in their youth.
Of course, they won’t be playing all the time. They are also learning how to work hard, how to finish a job, and take responsibility.
Make opportunities for your boys to be boys.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Painting: Susan Blackwood
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When you are facing sickness or troubles, minister to someone else who is sick or in trouble and you’ll be amazed how healing will come to you.
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“The newborn babe is a fresh act of God. He is the latest revelation of God’s creative handiwork.”- S. D. Gordon
I love this quote.
Drawing by my current Above Rubies helper, Greta Adams.
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Keep your eyes upon the Lord rather than your difficulties and obstacles. God is bigger than any challenge you are facing today.
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What is your ultimate vision for your children? To get them into the best college? Push them to get a degree and make a name for themselves? Or to see Christ formed in them? To see them walking in the truth? To see them passionate for Jesus Christ and His kingdom?We encourage and spur on our children according to the vision we have for them. I am sure, along with me, your vision is higher for your children than the temporal things of this world. You long for them to grow into the likeness of Christ and to walk in the fear of the Lord.
To do this takes more intensive mothering. You not only care for your children physically, but you watch over their souls and their spirits. You not only encourage your children, but sometimes you must warn them. It’s much harder to warn and admonish. But we do it out of our intense love for them and our desire to see them walking in holiness.
Colossians 3:16 tells us that God’s Word should “dwell in you RICHLY in all wisdom.” That means we must also get it RICHLY into our children’s hearts. This Scripture then goes on to say: “Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” ADMONISHING one another. What does that mean? The word is “noutheteo” and means “to put into the mind, to reprove gently, to warn.” In other Scriptures this same word is translated as “warn.”
I love the words Paul wrote to the new Corinthians believers. He wrote from the heart of a father, but it also speaks to us as mothers too. 1 Corinthians 4:14: “I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn (noutheteo) you. For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers.” Paul wrote to warn them, but do you see his heart? He wrote to them as “BELOVED SONS.” He warned them because of his great love for them and his longing to see them grow in Christ.
Acts 20:31 shows us again how Paul warned his children in the faith. For three years Paul “ceased not to warn (noutheteo) every one night and day with tears.” How did he warn and admonish? With tears. Tears in their presence and tears before the throne of God.
Dear mothers, let’s not lack in our mothering. We are nurturing the spirit of our children as well as the physical. We cannot let sin and waywardness go unattended. We must admonish and warn, but we do it with tears. We do it because they are our BELOVED sons and daughters. We will not let them be taken over by the deceptions of the devil.
Be encouraged today,
Nancy Campbell
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Do they have a biblical world view? Are God’s truths penetrated into their hearts and minds more than the ideologies of this world? Can they contend for their faith? This is your responsibility as a parent.
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God is Father. He loves to father. He is the source of all parenting.Talking about Jesus Christ, God says in Hebrews 1:5: “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” As we read this Scripture, see God’s heart as a Father. Jesus Christ is His “beloved Son.”
When we have a desire to bring forth children, we reveal the heart of our God. To desire to be a father and a mother is God-like. God gives to every man unique and differing gifts. However, no matter what gifts or career a man has, his greatest calling is fatherhood. He is made in the image of God who is a Father. Everything else in life serves this highest purpose.
It is the same for us as women. Each one of us has different gifts and abilities which we use for the blessing of others in this life. But we are essentially mothers. Or I should say quintessentially, for we were created for this purpose. When we embrace mothering and our nurturing anointing, we reveal God’s heart. The core of His heart.
Embrace your beautiful calling, mother. You are in God’s perfect will. You are revealing His likeness to the world.
To reject mothering is to reject the likeness of God. (And precious mothers who are unable to have children of your own, please don’t despair. You are also great mothers as you release your nurturing anointing to those God brings into your life).
We see such a hatred today to God’s ultimate plan for families. It comes from the pit of hell. When it comes to our attitude toward family, we are either on God’s side or the devil’s side. There is no in-between.
Be blessed,
Nancy Campbell
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Are you making this a priority in your home each day?
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I wonder why the modern women, even Christian women, hate the word submission. Help! I wonder what they do with this Scripture in 1 Timothy 2:11? “Let the woman learn in silence with ALL subjection.” The Greek word here is “hupotage” which is a little stronger than the usual word for submission which is “hupotasso.” Other translations of the Bible translate it this way:
CJB: “fully submitted.”
NASB1995: “entire submissiveness.”
MLB: “complete submission.”
What does the usual word, ‘hupotasso” mean?
“Hupo” means “under” and “tasso” means “to set in order.”
I know that you are familiar with the Scriptures on this subject. Let’s remind ourselves of just one or two:
Ephesians 5:24: “Therefore as the church is subject (hupotasso) unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
Colossians 3:18: Wives, submit (hupotasso) yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.”
Oh, I know there will be lots of “buts.” It’s amazing how we have the audacity to "but" at the Word of God, isn’t it?
I think that often women don’t embrace submission because they don’t fully understand who God is. Our God is not one God, but three in one. The triune God live together in perfect harmony and unity, each submitted to one another. God did not make up the idea of submission as a negative to place upon people. No, it is inherent in the Godhead. It is who God is. And we are created in His image.
Look at this Scripture in 1 Corinthians 15:28: “And when all things shall be subdued (hupotasso) unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject (hupotasso) unto him that put all things under (hupotasso) him, that God may be all in all.” God who is ALL IN ALL, wants to give all authority to His Son and put all things under Him. But when that time comes and all people and dominions and kingdoms will bow down to the Son of God, then the Son submits all things back to the Father. Submission is a delight in the heart of God.
If we want to be like Him, we will want to have a spirit of submission in our hearts towards our husband and to all, as it says in Ephesians 5: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
It is the spirit of Jesus. Read Philippians 2:5-8. It is the opposite of the humanist and feminist spirit today that will not submit to any law of God and who only want to be a law unto themselves.
To which kingdom do we belong?
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Yesterday I shared how day care is counterfeit for a mother being with her little one in the home. There is no way to give back to your child all they miss by being in daycare and away from mother. The constancy of motherhood can never be duplicated. In fact, the baby begins to bond with the mother while in the womb and listens to hear her voice when coming into the world.It is interesting to note that when a babe is nursing at the breast and their eyes begin to focus, their first focal length is about eight inches, the length from the baby’s eyes to the mother’s face. God intends that the first thing a baby beholds is his or her mother’s face. Face to face is true communication. It begins at the breast and should continue through life.
That’s why it is important for us to gather our families around the table to enjoy face to face table fellowship. When we do not eat our meals together and when family members are instead glued to social media, they are not living in reality but a counterfeit world.
It is God’s plan for the mother to nurse her baby from the breast. Bottle feeding is also counterfeit. Now please don’t get upset. I know there are sometimes physical difficulties that don’t allow a woman to breastfeed. I have dear friends who have faced this problem. But we know it is God’s original plan and therefore the mother needs to be with her baby. The baby needs her, and she needs her baby. The nursing mother is blessed with oxytocin and prolactin which release calming, joyful, and mothering hormones that enable her to mother even more intimately and powerfully.
Now here’s another counterfeit, the pacifier. It’s actually a “mother substitute.” Oh my, I hope that doesn’t make you too angry with me. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use one, but the fact of the matter is that God created our babies with a sucking instinct that is to be satisfied by the mother. Sometimes we can’t believe that our baby wants to nurse AGAIN, and he has only just been fed.
Nursing a baby is far more than just feeding a baby. It is nursing the baby to minister to every need of the baby. When we read Isaiah 66:10-13 we see an allegory of where God likens the city of Jerusalem to a nursing mother. We don’t even read the word food, but we read the beautiful attributes to satisfy, console, delight, comfort, and the anointing of peace. The baby needs more sucking than only for feeding. It is important for their facial development. It is important for their inner soul.
And once again, it is a blessing to the mother. The more the mother suckles her baby at the breast, the more she holds back ovulation. Satisfying the baby’s sucking needs is a natural form of contraception.
A few thoughts for you to contemplate.
Love and blessings from Nancy Campbell
Painting: "Maternity," 1959 -- by Jurandir Ubirajara Campos
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God has the genuine, the devil has the counterfeit. This is true in every situation. The devil hates every plan and purpose of God and therefore seeks to deceive people and give them a counterfeit of the real. Often the counterfeit looks very good, especially to the wise of this world, but God laughs at the wisdom of man. It is foolishness in His eyes.Motherhood is God’s genuine plan for caring for children—for all generations. What do I mean by motherhood? To embrace it with your whole heart. To receive with joy each little baby God sovereignly gives to you. True motherhood does not give away a baby, toddler, or young child to someone else to raise. This is the devil’s counterfeit.
And yet it is accepted as norm in our society today. Truly we have turned things upside down. God says these very words in Isaiah 29:16 (ESV): “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?”
No one can mother a baby like the true mother. Day care workers can be conscientious to protect, feed, and care for babies and young children, but they do not intuitively understand the inner needs of the child. They don’t even have the hormones of oxytocin and prolactin filling them with motherliness. In fact, they are doing it for pay!
Oh, there is a great difference when we do something for pay than when we do it instinctively. I remember watching my daughter, Serene, nurture her last baby, Solly. She mothered her to pieces. Nursed her constantly. She was rarely out of her arms or her baby carrier. When she was on her lap, she was talking to her, adoring her, squeezing her fat little thighs, massaging her, and doting on her.
And then she had all her siblings vying to hold her, laugh and smile at her, and love her. A baby in a day care is watched over, but never gets this amount of love and attention. And it is all for delight and love. The mother isn’t dreaming of money.
Job 7:2 talks about the employed person who waits for his or her wages. A day care worker can do her work diligently, but ultimately, they do it for pay. They wouldn’t be there if they weren’t getting paid. Conversely, the mother nurtures out of her mothering anointing. Jesus also speaks of the difference between the hired worker and the true shepherd in John 10:11-13. The true shepherd gives his life for the sheep whereas the hired worker does it for pay.
Let’s not get sucked into the deception of this society. There’s just too much deception around. Let’s stand up for the real and genuine, even if we need to sacrifice and go without!
Love to you today,
Nancy Campbell
Painting by Annie Henrie Nader
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God loves to rejoice over His children. Zephaniah 3:17 tell us that God rejoices over us with joy. He even sings over us. Isn’t that wonderful?Deuteronomy 28:63 and 30:9 tell us that God rejoices over us for GOOD. He loves to do good things to us and for us. The interesting thing is that the first good thing He wants to do for us is to multiply us. To give us children. Lots of children. Who thinks that’s good?
Well, if we don’t, we are opposite to God, aren’t we?
Do we have the same heart as God? Do we rejoice to embrace children? We shold also rejoice over our children. Not complain about them but rejoice over them. And when our children grow up and get married, we’ll rejoice when God gives them children.
Isn’t it sad that many parents warn their children to wait a few years before they have children. I think many of you have been reticent to tell your parents that you are pregnant again, knowing you will receive negative remarks from your parents.
Isn’t that strange? Parents should REJOICE that God is blessing their children with a new precious life. That they are building the family dynasty. This is for their GOOD. There is no greater blessing than a precious new life, filled with potential, given to the parents to prepare for God’s destiny for them in this life, and for the eternal world.
Read Psalm 107:41-43 which tells us that God loves to make “families like a flock.” A flock is more than one or two. And then it tells about the response of those who see these growing families. It says that those who are wise will rejoice and understand the lovingkindness of the Lord and “all iniquity shall stop her mouth.”
Let’s be a rejoicing people in the goodness of the Lord.
Love from Nancy Campbell
Painting: LovettaReyesCairoArt
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I wonder if Christian parents understand the agenda of our current public school system. I believe it is imperative that we know what our children are being taught each day. And how do we know unless we are there in the classroom checking it out?Here are just a few quotes of thousands I could give you of the agenda of our public education system:
John Goodlad who was the former dean of University of California, Los Angeles[ Graduate School of Education and who has promoted many educational reform programs states:
“Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to fully control their education.” And again: “Public education has served as a check on the power of parents, and this is another powerful reason for maintaining it.”
Two more quotes from Goodlad: “Most youth still hold the same values as their parents. If we don’t alter this pattern, if we don’t socialize, our system will decay.” And “A standardized curriculum of basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic cannot prepare people to participate in democracy. Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now.”
~ John R. Goodlad
John J. Dunphy who believes the Bible is “a dangerous book” wrote the following in The Humanist magazine, 43:1: “These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication of the most rabid fundamentalist preacher, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool, daycare, or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent in its promise of a world in which the never-realized Chistian ideal of “love thy neighbor” will finally be achieved.”
Samuel Blumenfeld, author of eight books on education wrote: “The most potent and significant expression of statism is a State educational system. Without it, statism is impossible. With it the State can, and has, become everything.”
He also stated: “The plain unvarnished truth is that public education is a shoddy, fraudulent piece of goods sold to the public at an astronomical price. It’s time the American consumer knew the extent of the fraud which is victimizing millions of children each year.”
Ed Martin states: “The leftists believe the state owns the children. That’s why they are working overtime across the country to completely erode and destroy parental involvement and consent from their children, especially when it comes to transgender counseling and surgeries, or underage girls being pressured into abortions.
“The treachery is unconscionable, but it’s happening right now – don’t think your school is immune! When the government owns its people, there’s no room left for liberty. The Biden Administration needs to hear this message from We the Parents loud and clear: “NO!”
I could continue filling pages. I think it is very sad that many God-fearing parents unwittingly send their children to be taught humanistic propaganda each day, the opposite of everything they believe. We as parents have the responsibility to protect and guard our children’s minds and souls. Our greatest task is to fill them richly with God’s truth, daily. Every day. Until their minds and hearts are filled with it. And it is coming out of their mouths (Isaiah 591).
Do the truths of God’s words come out of your children’s mouths? Do they have a biblical mindset or a humanist mindset? Do you really know?
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:1, 2).
And it’s not only the influence of daily brainwashing of humanism filling their brains but the influence of their peers. As children move into their teen years, it is their peers that will influence and steer them far more than their parents. We must also guard who they make friends with. Proverbs 13:20 says: “He who walks with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
Are you guarding and protecting your children? Are they filled with God's word? Do they have godly friendships?
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Blessed with a new tablecloth which a friend recently gave to me. I love tablecloths and enjoy using different colors. Tablecloths brighten up a table and make it so welcoming.
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Can you believe that our government is currently preparing the nation for another mask wearing, social distancing, vaccinating lockdown? In other words they want another plandemic (not a typo). We dare not give in to their evil plans. We better start exercising our courage muscles now and be ready to say No to this lockdown of society.Our nation cannot stand to go through it again as businesses closed and were never able to open again, churches closed (which should have never given in to the tyranny), family members could not visit loved ones in hospital, people were brainwashed with fear and lies, and we are still constantly hearing of people dropping dead through vaccinations. We want to live a culture of life, not of death.
We the people of God must live in the light (Romans 12;12; Ephesians 5:8, 14; 1 Thess 5:5; and 1 John 1:7), not the shadows. We don’t cover our faces but live with open faces (2 Corinthians 3:18).
“We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
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Sometimes you may not feel like loving your husband. Feelings are not facts. Love him in spite of your feelings. Smile at him. Tell him you love him. Be loving. You will be amazed how your actions change your feelings.
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We want this for ourselves. We want it for each one of our children.So, how do we get it? The Bible tells us it comes through chastening and discipline! Ouch. We don’t like that answer very much, do we? And many children don’t like it at all.
Hebrews 12:11 (BSB) says: “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.”
I like the TPT which says: “. . . yet later it will produce a transformation of character, bringing a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who yield to it.”
This “transformation of character” needs even more than discipline. It is yielding to the discipline. Do you notice that? The blessing comes to those who yield to it. Often our first reaction is to resist correction and discipline but we must learn to yield to it. When we yield do the disciplines of life that are necessary for us, we are changed and formed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). If we resist, we stay in our same old rut. Are you yielding to God’s discipline in your life?
We must also teach our children to yield to our training and discipline. This is how their character will be transformed. If they rebel and resist the discipline while they are young, they will keep facing the same problems all their lives until they yield to God.
If we truly love our children, we will train and discipline them. We will not tolerate disobedience and rebellious behavior. We are not content for them to grow up pretty good citizens. We long for them to be formed into the image of Christ. We long for them to be transformed by the Word of God and training and instruction. We do not want them to be ordinary saints, but men and women who are passionate for Jesus Christ where everything else in life is subordinate to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives.
This will only happen as they yield to your correction and discipline. Pray that God will give your children soft hearts. Pray that they will have yielding hearts to your training and the moving of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
Let’s be families where each one of us (mom, dad, and all the children) daily yield to God’s correction and instruction in our lives.
Be blessed today,
Nancy Campbell
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