Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

Despite all the highly commended good works of the church at Ephesus, they had allowed a great problem to occur. They needed to repent quickly or else they would lose their candlestick from being regarded by the Lord as a true church (Revelation 1:20 and 2:4, 5).

Revelation 2:5: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent.”

This was more than just a problem. It was a sin from which they had to repent. Problems do not always necessitate repentance. However, sin always requires godly sorrow and repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Falling from our “first love” or failing in “enduring love” is a very serious situation. It disqualifies us from calling ourselves a church. At least, from God’s perspective, although not necessarily from man’s perspective. I am sure there are many churches that call themselves legitimate and are proud of their good works. However, from Heaven’s perspective their candlestick has been removed long ago. How sad is that!

“First love” according to Scripture: First love responds to the first and second commandments:

Mark 12:30, 31: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy HEART, and with all thy SOUL, and with all thy MIND, and with all thy STRENGTH, that is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

To me, first love is related to the first and second greatest commandments concerning the length, depth, height, and width of our love for God and our neighbor. Even though the second commandment is regarding our love to our neighbor, Jesus says that the second is like unto the first.

Jesus told a story in Luke 10:29-37 to explain who is our neighbor. To the Jews he was a man going down to Jericho who fell among thieves and was stripped of his clothes, wounded, and left half dead. The priest and the Levite would not help him. Only the Good Samaritan, who was not a Jew, would help him. The Good Samaritan met the conditions of what it means to love one’s neighbor as one’s self.

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus clearly explains that when we show love to the needy, we are showing it to Jesus who is God.

There will come a day when Christ will judge all the nations of the world and divide the sheep from the goats. The sheep represent those who are humble and listen to His voice. The goats are proud, intelligent, and listen to their own reasoning.

Jesus said that . . .
He had been hungry and the sheep gave Him food.
He had been thirsty and the sheep gave Him drink.
He had been a stranger and the sheep took him in.
He had been sick and the sheep visited Him.
He had been in prison and the sheep came to Him.

We clearly see that first love has first works.

1 John 4:20, 21: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.”

Beware of sectarianism which divides the churches and hinders brotherly love from enduring.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

1. They labored in good works. They were not behind, neglectful, or lazy regarding good works. Jesus Himself labored long hours in the ministry to meet the needs of the people. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 2:9 that he, along with the others who worked with him, labored night and day because they would not be chargeable to anyone.

2. They were patient. Patience is a good work. There are many times in life when we are called to wait and be patient with people and circumstances. How easy it is to face the test of patience.

3. They would not tolerate evil. To not bear those who are evil is also a good work. They refused to tolerate evil people. They obviously excommunicated themselves, perhaps because they exposed the evildoers and denounced them. There is far too much tolerating of evil in the church today.

4. They examined the church eldership that called themselves apostles, but they found to be liars. Jesus also commended this as a good work. By doing this they protected the church from those who call themselves apostles (who expected to preach in the pulpit and get offerings of money) but were false and spoke false doctrine.

They did all the above works for the Lord’s name sake and did not faint. This testimony of the Ephesians church was pretty amazing compared to church standards today.

But it was not good enough!

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

The agape love that God sheds abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5) is an enduring love which enables us to endure whatever we have to face in life. God’s love for us never fails.

Lamentations 3:22, 23: “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

Romans 8:35-39: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ, shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Paul continues giving a whole list of hardships. However, he states that he is persuaded that there is nothing in Heaven or earth that can stop God from loving us.

Therefore, we must ask ourselves the following questions:

• Why do we cut off one another?
• Why do many Christians separate themselves from one another?
• Why are many Christian families are at war with one another?
• Why are many Christian marriages either in a state of tension, stress, arguments, and fightings with each other?
• And why do so many, sad to say, end up divorced?

Where is the enduring love that God, through Christ, has shed abroad in our hearts? It is obvious that so much of the church knows very little about enduring love.

The simple truth is that God has given freely to each one of us all of His enduring agape love, but we for the most part, are still operating in our own fallen, selfish, conditional love. Our human love falls far short of the endurance of God’s love.

As new creatures in Christ, we must learn how to live in the enduring love of God. Only then can we reveal to the world, the church, our own spouses and families, the true “enduring all things” love of Christ.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

The love that believes all things is the same love that hope all things. What has believing all things and hoping all things got to do with the love that God sheds abroad in our hearts? The answer is that believing and hoping all things has everything to do with God’s love dwelling in us.

The truth is that God’s love is the antidote for all things, all situations, and all people throughout all generations.

This great love is the motivating force behind the great commission to “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:19, 20).

God’s love for all things, His belief for all things, His hope things is not exclusive; rather it is inclusive of all mankind.

God’s love motivates the belief of all things that every created human creature can be saved; that all mankind can have an eternal hope burning inside their hearts; that hope is an anchor, both sure and steadfast, that enters beyond the veil into the immediate presence of God’s glory (Hebrews 6:19). God’s love in us is not selfish. It is not exclusive, but all-inclusive to all mankind.

God’s love gives freely to all mankind a system of belief that all things are possible with God. His love provides all mankind who exercise this belief a hope which is more solid than any man-made anchor. This hope, according to the Scriptures, is indescribable, beyond our wildest imagination.

Isaiah 64:4: “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, Oh God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” Read also Psalm 31:19; Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31; and 1 Corinthians 2:9).

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

The love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost believes all things that God has spoken. This love does not believe any wicked person is beyond redemption for the love of God shed abroad in our hearts loves all of mankind no matter how far they have fallen.

This love encourages us to pray that God will grant them repentance no matter how much they may have caused us grief. We never cut our loved ones off when they unjustly treat us, for cutting people off and holding a grudge or negative attitude may hinder God’s redeeming love to save them. We may not be able to fellowship in anyway, but we must never cut them off in our prayers for them.

If we do not make it our goal to know every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and seek earnestly to apply it to our lives we will be hindered in our spiritual warfare against the temptations coming to attack us from the evil one.

It is important for all Christian parents to acquaint themselves and their children with the Word of God. If we neglect the Scriptures, we neglect our own salvation.

Hebrews 2:3: “ How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” Neglecting the knowledge and application of God’s Word sets ourselves up for massive spiritual failure as well as marriage and family failures.

Be encouraged to share the Scriptures with your family. In doing so you will assist them to overcome, rather than be overrun.

Read what Jesus had to say to the multitudes on the Mount concerning the essence of His doctrine:

Matthew 7:24-27: “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and great upon that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the full of it.”

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

We all know that there are many who lie, tell half-truths, spin the facts, as well as exaggerate and embellish the real truth so one does not know what to believe.

Obviously, we cannot, and must not believe any thing that the devil says. We must not believe those who are influenced by the devil.

However, we can believe, and must believe everthing God says. He is the God of truth and it is impossible for Him to lie.

We can also, to a large degree, believe certain people who are proven to be trustworthy and would never deliberately tell a lie or make false statements.

We must also remember that the true doctrine on any subject in the Bible is not based on one Scripture, but rather the understanding of all Scriptures in the Bible on that subject. The truth is found in knowing all the truth on the subject.

This enables us to interpret any difficult passage. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:21: “Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good.” In the context, this refers to the truth of what people are prophesying.

In such cases, one would be wise to prove what is being said by the plumbline of all Scripture. By believing what is prophesied by every prophet will not make the prophesy more true or false. Often prophecies are conditional and require certain behavior of humility, prayer, and repentance. For example:

2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways: then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

To be continued.

Be encouraged,

Colin Campbell

I guess it will have to me!

God was very merciful to conservatives on Election day, November 6th. I was saddened that we lost the House of Representatives. We did not have enough arrows in our quivers to vote in the conservative candidates needed to hold Congress for the Republican agenda.

I believe the answer to this dilemma is simpler than most Christians realize. However, most do not want a simple answer; they want a philosophical answer.

The problem is so simple to see that even a blind man could see it, at least in his mind. That is, we need more people to vote conservative. Many of the races were very close and it would not have taken many more votes to swing the election of the House to a conservative favor.

I will say it again, for the simple answer to sink into our brains as well as our hearts—we desperately need more Christian, conservative moms and dads to bring to birth more children. We need more children to grow up to be sharp arrows, not only to vote in the righteous to rule this great land, but also to be candidates that can rule in the ways of righteousness, peace, and truth.

It’s not hard to see why the Democrats, with their socialist agenda, want open borders, for open borders provide more illegal votes for their agenda. This is a corruption they are pleased to overlook.

The opposition to conservative government wants more voters, but they do not want to bring them to birth or raise them. They would have to sacrifice their careers. It would bind them to their homes. Therefore, they need open borders with all its risks of crime and human trafficking. They are prepared to overlook all the problems related to unregulated immigration to get votes for them to get the power to govern their liberal, socialist agenda.

But wait a minute. Are we conservatives who desire godly, conservative values limiting the birth rate of our own children? Do we send our few children to the state school to be indoctrinated by the leftist agenda?

Where do we think we will get voters for our conservative agenda? The answer is not complex. It is simple. We must wake up and shake off whatever hinders us from bringing to birth godly, righteous voters. We must shake off the small family mindset, the resistance to sacrifice, all selfishness, and the desire to be what the world regards as normal.

Trying to be like the secular world created the 1.8 – 2.00-member average-size family in America. Because of deaths, wars, accidents, diseases, infertilities, singleness, and homosexual lifestyles, as well as the use of contraception, sterilization, and abortion, two children cannot replace two parents. It takes three children to stabilize a population and at least four to increase.

The undeniable truth is that America is a dying nation. Without immigration we cannot survive. We do not want to raise our own children,, except pfor one or two . . .
not because we believe there is anything wrong in raising American children,
not because we cannot afford larger families (we are one of the richest nations in the world),
but rather because we do not want to sacrifice our own selfish ambitions. We don’t want to be other than normal. Normality is a big problem.

If we keep going in this direction of selfish careerism, taking mothers out of the home, and educating the small families we do have with liberal socialism—democrat ideology, transgender lifestyles, and homosexual marriages that cannot reproduce, how will we ever be able to win conservative elections?

We are hypocrites. We substitute giving birth to our own children and are happy to welcome the births of other nations. In other words, it’s fine with us if others sacrifice to have children in third world nations and its right for them to come here illegally so they can vote in place of the children we are not prepared to bring to birth and raise as our own US citizens.

I am not against immigration as I am an immigrant myself and have many grandchildren born here in USA.

I thank God that in His great mercy He enabled us in these midterm elections to not only hold the Senate but to increase it. This was quite a miracle and an answer to many heart-felt prayers. We should all be very grateful to our Great God and His Son, Jesus Christ for His unfailing mercies. God has given to us conservatives another window of opportunity and we must not squander it.

I thank God for President Trump and I join him and his desire to see our nation great again, not just financially and militarily, but also spiritually. I want to see America filled with its own children, raised from our own loins and wombs, and raised with a conservative, morally valued education as well as having legal immigrants who want to be citizens and who love America.

God Himself mandates His people to be fruitful and multiply and take dominion. It’s time we stopped philosophizing and using our own human reason to thwart God’s vision. If we don’t, we will continue to lose the needed voters.

Election time would not e so stressful if conservatives would simply enlarge their own families. Let the left limit their families and conservatives will laugh on election days because we refuse to be fooled!

SO, THERE YOU GO. I’VE SAID IT!

Be encouraged. Colin Campbell

v. 4: “much patience, afflictions, necessities, distresses,
v. 5: “stripes, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watchings, fastings,
v. 6: “pureness, knowledge, longsuffering, kindness, the Holy Ghost, love unfeigned,
v. 8: “honor and dishonor, evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true,
v. 9: “as unknown, and yet well known: as dying, and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
v. 10: “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.“

In 2 Corinthians 11:22-28 Paul lists more burdens he had to bear:

v. 23: “labors more abundant, stripes above measure, prisons more frequent, deaths oft.
v. 24: “Five times I received 39 stripes from the Jews.
v. 25: “Three times I was beaten with rods (most probably with ribs broken and muscles torn), once I was stoned, three times I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
v. 26: “In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, ;in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
v. 27: “in weariness, painfulness, watchings often, hunger and thirst, fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
v. 28: “those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily (toils, hard work, tent making, daily struggles to survive, etc.), the care of all the churches (agonizing for them in prayer, writing to them, visiting them, and teaching them).

The apostle Paul really knew what it was to bear with burdens in order to spread the gospel of Christ. The burdens we bear in our lives fail in comparison.

The apostles and pioneers of the early churches all knew what it was to bear heavy burdens, yet they did not complain. They counted it all jo (Acts 5:41 and James 1:1).

Fathers and mothers, we are called to be burden bearers. We are also called to raise and teach our children to be burden bearers. We should bear our burdens without complaining or negativity, but with joy.

Romans 15:1: “We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.”

Romans 15:1-3 (HCSB) says: “Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not to please ourselves. Each one of us must please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even the Messiah did not please Himself.”

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell