Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs

I believe our young families have a desire to see more life in the churches they attend. They’re not all attracted to dead, dry, traditional formalism. They are not attracted to legalistic, heavy, stoogy doctrinal teaching that has no life and power to edify or save. Young families would rather be where people are being filled with the Holy Spirit, set free, healed from their bondages, and filled with the holy fire that comes down from heaven. Young families want to feel the presence of God. They want to attend a church or gathering where the atmosphere is pulsating with the power and love of God. Young couples, along with their children, are starving for the reality of the truth. They want their children to tune into heaven and turn on to the real power of God.

They want to be amongst others who are on fire and who are enthusiastic for truth. They want to be amongst others, be they young or old, whose hearts are beating with the love of God and who do not want to stop rejoicing and worshipping God.

Gone are the days of short-winded services that barely last an hour. Stiff, starchy time frames are not for those who like Mary, want to sit at Jesus’ feet and love on Him. We want to be in a church where God is moving so powerfully that no one wants to leave.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Christian parents, we do not want our children to grow up in so-called Christian homes where we have a “form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). Our children deserve much more than dead, dry, Biblical doctrine that has no presence of God accompanying it.

Each one of our children need to see that our God still opens the eyes of the blind and causes the deaf to hear. They have a right to see that our God still heals the sick and performs miracles, signs, and wonders. He still raises the dead and sets the captives free.

Our children need to know what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is still the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrew 13:8). We owe it to our children for them to see these things happening before their own eyes. How can they possibly stand before the intellectual atheism of this age if they do not experience a real encounter with the miraculous power of our God?

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

See! Children are the LORD’S estate,
The body’s sweetest fruits;
Like arrows in a giant’s hand,
Are they, your youthful sons.
The man is blest who has with them,
Filled up his quiver full,
He will not shame when he may meet,
His foemen in the Gate.

Leonard Ravenhill said: “In all thy getting, get unction.” Unction is another word for anointing. Perhaps we have been wrong in primarily equating the anointing with preaching and certain music which moves us deep down in our hearts and spirits.

We read in the Scriptures that the original anointing oil was applied to the High Priest of Israel and to his sons who were set apart from the secular to serve the Lord in a religious sense. The kings of Israel were also anointed with olive oil and set apart to lead God’s people in a civil sense.

The anointing was often accompanied with divine wisdom, authority, and prophetic utterances. The anointing enabled the anointed to accomplish amazing and miraculous feats to overcome their enemies. The anointing brought God on the scene.

I believe that the Christian families of our nation need Holy Spirit-filled fathers to raise sons and daughters in the ways of God, especially in these challenging times.

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

If God as a father gave His very best for us because He wanted us to become His own special sons and daughters, how can we not be like Him in our fatherhood?

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Painting: “Testing the Waters” by New Zealand artist, Barry Ross Smith.

I praise the Lord that my fractured hip and pelvis have healed well. This happened nearly eight weeks ago when I felt outside a thrift warehouse where I deliver day old bread. Praise the Lord for His tender mercies that enabled me to leave my crutches at home and I managed to walk through the airports without assistance.

Tomorrow I will begin again to share with you the needed encouragement to men. The need is very great. Fatherlessness is America’s biggest social problem of epidemic proportions. Twenty million children in USA are without present fathers.

57.6 percent black children
31.2 percent Hispanic children, and
20.7 percent while children.

Plus, millions more who have fathers who are present, but ae not emotionally present.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

How can we say we love our children if we are not prepared to give to them loving smiles, loving time, loving conversation, loving interest, and even loving discipline? Proverbs 13:24 says: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth hi quickly.”

John 3:35 says: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” Even Jesus, the beloved Son, suffered the testings and disciplines of life (without sin) given to him by the loving hand of His Ever-loving Father.

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Painting by Harry Anderson

I am shocked and horrified at how many children in our nation who do not have fathers present in their lives. The U.S. Census Bureau states in Fatherhood Data and Statistics that 24 million children, one out of every three, live without a biological father. These statistics are tragic!

Absent fathers have drastically weakened the nation. Fatherhood is an awesome responsibility. Failure to take up this challenge through lack of interest or selfish priorities reveals a great weakness of character that is not acceptable. In fact, if is plain irresponsible.

Marriage breakdown and divorce is also a main contributor to absent fatherhood. All children need loving, understanding, kind fathers who make every endeavor to be present and involved with their families. Every child is another link in the generational chain and parents must make every effort to make that generational link as strong as possible.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Painting: “Daddy Loves Me” by Jane Heinrichs

Most men react more rationally and calmer when a child has an accident or gets into trouble. I know that men cannot always be there because of working away from home, but when you get a lunch break or some time to take a break, please give your wife a call. Check up on what’s happening at home.

A husband’s reassuring voice of wisdom goes a long way to calm a wife’s frazzled nerves when things are not going well. When you are at home, be at home. In other words, be involved with your family as much as possible. I think it is possible for some men to be at home, but they might as well not be home. They shut themselves off from their family.

Genesis 22:7 says: “And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father: and he said, here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for burnt offering?” Like Isaac, there are many sons and daughters crying out, “My father, my father, where are you? Please answer me. I need your help and wisdom now.”

Fathers, when you are at home, make yourselves available. Even though you may have responsibilities to take care of, even at home, be ready to drop what you are doing to attend to the needy request of your own flesh and blood, your children.

Beware of being overly taken up with your smart phone, computer, favorite hobby, or self-interest. Remember, you are a father FIRST OF ALL. You are an honorable, attentive father. Fatherhood is a crown for your head. Put it on and wear it with godly pride. It is your privilege.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Painting: “Once, they were young” by Pascal Campion

All fine jewelry is kept in a safe place where it is protected from thieves and destroyers, such as the Crown Jewels.

Sending one’s wife out of the protected environment of a godly home into the unprotected work place is not esteeming her value to be worth more than rubies. While your valuable treasures are kept in a bank vault or in a strong steel case with an expensive lock, your most treasured and loved wife is placed in a work environment of sleazy, flirtatious predators. This does not make sense to me.

No wonder our homes are falling apart and our treasures are thrown to the wind. If you regard your daughters as crown jewels, you will also protect them from the wolves of the work place or crazy colleges.

Father, you have a divine responsibility to protect your living gem stones.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

However, because they are more masculine in their ways, fathers must constantly remember they are not coaching a football or basketball team that needs knocking into shape. Nor are they army sergeants bulldozing new recruits into shape. Army drill sergeants and football/basketball coaches are often mean-spirited and aggressively controlling in order to produce a winning team.

This is not the way we raise our children, who are our own flesh and blood, into the image of God. Our children need to know that we love them, not only by our words, but even more importantly, by our actions and attitudes.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet the head Chaplin of one of the Los Angeles prisons for men. He told me the successful story in getting male prisoners to send Mother’s Day cards (provided free by Hallmark) to their mother on Mother’s Day.

Because it was such a huge success the prison authorities decided to provide Father’s Day cards for the inmates to send to their fathers on Father’s Day. All the men at the prison received a card to send to their fathers, courtesy of Hallmark. Sad to say, it was a complete failure. No one seemed to have any high enough esteem to send their fathers a Father’s Day card. How very sad, and yet what a revealing indictment regarding the failure of fatherhood in each one of those prisoner’s lives.

In many ways, one could conclude that one of the main reasons for their sons being I prison was the failure of their fathers to be loving, encouraging fathers. Conversely, how wonderful it is to hear sons and daughters speak highly of their fathers.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

And I must illustrate these tales,
Must imitate the northern gales
That toss the Indian’s canoe,
And show the way he paddles, too.
If in the story comes a bear,
I have to pause and sniff the air
And show the way he climbs the trees
To steal the honey from the bees.

And then I buzz like angry bees
And sting him on the nose and knees
And howl in pain, till mother cries;
“That pair will never shut their eyes,
While all that noise up there you make;
You’re simply keeping them awake.”
And then they whisper: “Just one more,”
And once again I’m forced to roar.

New stories every night they ask,
And that is not an easy task;
I have to be so many things;
The frog that croaks, the lard that sings,
The cunning fox, the frightened hen;
But just last night they stumped me, when
They wanted me to twist and squirm
And imitate an angleworm.

At last they tumbled off to sleep,
And softly from their room I creep
And brush and comb the shock of hair
I tossed about to be a bear.
Then mother says: “Well, I should say
You’re just as much a child as they.”
But you can bet I’ll not resign
That story-telling job of mine.

By Edgar A. Guest

Fatherhood is an HONORABLE estate.

Painting by Daniel Rodgers - "Learning to Ride"

Some may ask: in what way, should our children know we are for them if what they are doing is sinful and contrary to godly parental standards?

• They need to be assured that no matter what, we will continue to love them even though we do not love their sin. We are for them in that we constantly pray for their repentance.
• They need to know that we are for them being set free from the devil’s slavery and bondage.
• They need to know that even though we cannot put a roof over their rebellion when they are old enough to live away from us, they will always be welcome to come home when they repent.
• They need to know that we will never hold their sinful past against them when they desire restoration based on repentance.

The Father God reassured His children, Israel, with this truth repeatedly through the Scriptures. Even though our heavenly Father was constantly driven to anger and had to apply righteous discipline, His anger was always quickly appeased at the first instance of repentance.

Read 1 Kings 21:27-29 and Psalm 78:31-72.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

The righteous cry out: “Help. Somebody please show us what to do.”

Malachi 4:5, 6 says: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

We must pray for this special anointing that was prophesied for John the Baptist at the first coming of Christ to come upon another “John the Baptist” or many with this anointing for this generation that awaits the second coming of Christ.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

God was never an absentee Father with Jesus--from eternity past to eternity to come.

Fatherhood and sonship are inseparable positions. Each one of us fathers need to sit up and take note. Every father needs to be more deeply involved in the lives of all their children—sons and daughters.

God our Father is the prototype of all fatherhood. Ephesians 3:14, 15: “For this because I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.”

God desires that all families should be under the influence of a godly father. We have allowed present day culture to virtually destroy God’s vision for fatherhood. What we now call fatherhood is almost unrecognizable compared to the image of our Father God from the beginning and revealed through Jesus when He was here on earth. It is truly a time to recap on the true image of our Father God.

Far too many fathers do what they think is right. The problem in most cases is that they have never been taught. How can we ever succeed in any career, especially one that deals with living souls who have eternal destinies, without first being trained by true, godly fathers?

To be continued. Be encouraged,

Colin Campbell

Painting by Daniel F. Gerhartz

John 14:23 gives us an even greater revelation of God in the lives of those who love Him and keep His words. Jesus said: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

This is amazing fatherhood. It reveals how much God our Father desires to be intimately involved in our lives. He wants to live with us. God is not an absentee Father. Perish the thought.

To be continued.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

We as Christian men must pray now for our president, Donald Trump, and all members of his cabinet. How can they be successful if we do no care enough to pray earnestly for them? We also need to pray for great repentance for all moral and civil disobediences. Locking up those who are rebellious, rioters, and murderers, although I agree it must be done, does not necessarily change their hearts and ways. We are reaping the results of a great national failure of godly fatherhood and motherhood, marriage, and pretty much all biblical family values.

But there is still hope if we repent and pray!

Malachi 4:5, 6: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heat of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

Pray for the turning of fathers’ hearts to their children and families. Fatherhood is not absentee fatherhood, but available fatherhood. Jesus confessed that His Father was always with him.

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Thank you so much for your prayers for my healing. My wife and I are scheduled to leave in four weeks for ministry in New Zealand and so I am trusting for a supernatural healing.

~ Colin Campbell

Fatherhood, without doubt, is one of the most important foundations upon which we build a healthy society!

Fatherhood is one of the greatest roles a man can have the privilege to live and fulfill.

Without the function of true fatherhood, society quickly fails. Strong fathers are necessary to make strong families and strong families make a strong nation.

Christian men are greatly privileged to know God as their Father. Jesus said in John 14:6: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” To know God as our Father is indeed a priceless treasure to experience. In the Gospel of John alone the name of the Father is mentioned approximately 123 times. Jesus spoke of God as Father more than any writer in the Bible.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus taught us to pray: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9). To me, this surely means that the name of God as Father is a hallowed name, a name to be reverenced, to make holy and sacred.

God is the prototype of all true fatherhood. There is a strong sense of love, intimacy, care, protection, and mercy that God graciously provides for us through our relationship with Him as our personal father. God is the greatest Father of all. He is perfect fatherhood.

We are so amazingly and unbelievably privileged to always address Him each time we pray as “Our Father” or even better, “My Father which art in heaven.”

Be encouraged.

Colin Campbell

Painting by Terri Meyer (watercolor). The artist describes the painting: “My grandson melted into my father's arms.”