LOVE IN YOUR HOME
Part 1

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit
in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.”
(1 Peter 1:22 NKJV).

It’s easy to love when someone loves you, isn’t it? Reciprocal love is sweet and special. But how do you love when someone does not like you? How about when they throw abuse in your face? Hate you? Disrespect you? Misuse you? What do you do then? Maybe you can cope with it when it is someone outside the home. It’s not so personal but how do you survive when they are members of your own family?

I am sure you are familiar with the different Greek words for love. One is eros which is sexual love. It gives pleasure to the senses. It is a God-given love, but this love is not enough to hold a marriage together. It takes other kinds of love.

The word phileo is tender, affectionate love. It is friendship love. It is a maternal love. It is the love we feel with our emotions. Titus 2:4 speaks of phileo love when it exhorts the young women to “love their husbands . . . to love their children.” Couples can live very happily together when both show phileo love to one another. But when phileo love turns off in either the husband or wife, what happens then? This is when we need agape love.

In 1 Peter 1:22 Peter encourages the saints in their “love of the brethren,” translated from philadelphia, meaning brotherly/friendship love. But he urges them to move on to agape love as he writes: “see that ye love (agape) one another with a pure heart fervently.”

Peter writes again in 2 Peter 1:7: “Add to godliness brotherly kindness (philadelphia); and to brother kindness love (agape).”

In 1 Thessalonians 4:9 Paul also urges the saints on to greater love. “But as touching brotherly love (philadelphia), we need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love (agape) one another.”

Agape love is God’s love. It reveals the character of God. It goes beyond natural feelings. It keeps loving even when abused and hated. It keeps loving even when the person is ugly and horrible.

Agape loves because it wills to love whereas phileo loves according to how we feel.

Agape loves indiscriminately, whereas phileo discriminates.

Agape loves unconditionally whereas phileo is conditional.

Agape loves in spite of whereas phileo loves because of.

Agape love never fails whereas phileo love can fail.

Agape love is not naturally in you or me. It is only in Christ. 1 Timothy 1:14 and 2 Timothy 1:13 speak of “the love which is in Christ Jesus.” The amazing revelation is that Jesus Christ lives in me. Because He lives in me by His Holy Spirit, agape love is in me. Romans 5:5 says: “The love (agape) of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

In Christ, I can love with agape love. This is miraculous. This is supernatural. As we believe it, affirm it, confess it, and walk in it by faith, we can love the unlovely, love when abused, love when rejected, and love when despitefully used. This is the glorious power of Christ’s redemption. He not only redeems us from our sin but comes to indwell us by His Holy Spirit with all His love, joy, peace, and longsuffering.

Agape is described by many different words in the New Testament. Each one of these words are a challenge to me. I am sure they will be to you too. You may also like go through these adjectives with your children, teaching them the way God wants us to love each another. You could take one adjective a day, or a week, and seek to develop this aspect of love in your family life. And please don’t forget to look up the Scripture or Scriptures.

1. ABIDING Love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

This kind of love remains through thick and thin.

2. ABOUNDING Love (2 Corinthians 8:7; Philippians 1:9; and 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9-10; and 2 Thessalonians 1:3.

This is God’s way. Never average. Never normal. Always ABOUNDING. The Greek word for “abound” is perisseuo and occurs frequently in the New Testament. God wants us to abound in so many qualities, including love. We’ve discovered it before in this devotional, but let’s check it again. It means “to superabound, to excel, to be abundant, enough and to spare, exceed, increase, over and above.” This reminds me of something I read years ago: “If a little bit of love isn’t effective, increase the dose.” A little bit of love is not enough for some situations. To be effective, you need to pile it on.

The Way’s translation of 2 Corinthians 8:7 says: “Full you are to overflowing . . . of the love that leaps from your hearts to mine.” What an exciting description of love. I think of a frog jumping from one rock to another. Can you get the picture of love leaping from one heart to another in your family? Love is not stagnant love. Leaping love is vibrant, pulsating, and overflowing. It doesn’t stay in the heart, but leaps from one member to another within the home.

Imagine if every member in the family tried to love this way, even for one day! What miracles could happen! What about a week? What about a month? Are you going to try this in your home? Could you encourage each member to do at least one ABOUNDING act of love each day? That means something that is out of the ordinary. What an exciting way to live.

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, please teach me what it truly means to love with Your love. My love is so shallow and I long to experience the deepness and fullness of Your love. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m releasing the graces of  forbearing and forgiving love in my home today.

Did you know, I am now doing a podcast for you each week called FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell? I know you will be blessed and encouraged. Go to www.aboverubies.org and you’ll see the icon. Or go to http://ARPoddy.buzzsprout.com

QUINTESSENTIALLY FEMININE
Part 2

“Let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible,
even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price”
(1 Peter 3:4).

The ultimate quintessence of motherhood is the
revelation of God’s maternal heart to the world.

Nursing a baby is very much part of our femaleness. There are some mothers who deny themselves the privilege and joy of nursing their own baby, and yet this is primal and quintessential to being female. ¹ The Bible tells us that “Even jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel like ostriches in the wilderness” (Lamentations 4:3).²

Our little daughters naturally behave femininely. They haven’t yet been conditioned by society. They love to mother. That’s all they want to be when they grow up until society re-programs their brains. They love babies. They love to dress like princesses, which is another area of our femininity we have lost. As we look around today we see most women in the uniform of the day—jeans and top. I don’t say you should not wear the “uniform,” but does it really convey who we are? Nor do I say you can’t wear pants. The men in biblical days didn’t wear pants but wore long flowing robes. The important thing is to make whatever you wear look feminine.

When my little granddaughters go to my dress-up box, what do they want to wear? Each one of them wants to be a princess. They look for the princess dresses, and if there are not enough to go around, they create them out of sheets and old curtains! I have never noticed that they want to dress up in a business suit!

One of my Above Rubies helpers shared with me that she and her sister sewed civil war time dresses with hooped skirts for a historical fair they were attending. They had to run some errands, and rather than changing into street clothes, decided to wear their dresses. They were amazed that in every store, both workers and shoppers, stopped to exclaim, “Oh you look so beautiful!” or “What beautiful dresses!”

I was thinking about this when traveling some time back. Delayed in a long line at an airport, I decided to look around for beautiful women. Every woman wore the “uniform,” but I spotted one lady who stood out from everyone else. She was dressed in a flowing apricot-colored sari with scarves flowing around her. She looked gloriously feminine and I feasted my eyes upon her as I waited. How sad that we have degenerated so far from our intrinsic femininity that we can only wear a dress that makes us feel like a princess or a queen if we “dress up in a costume!”

I believe a woman also reveals her femininity in her home. This is the domain God planned for women—to make her home a restful place where God’s presence dwells, to raise and nurture her children, to create a delightful atmosphere her children will remember into the next generation, and to be a successful home-maker and gardener. Proverbs 24:15 calls the home a “resting place.” Hosea 11:11 (KNOX) says, “In their own home, says the Lord, I will give them rest.” When we lose the anointing of rest upon our lives, we need to get back into the home.

In the home a woman can bask in the provision and leadership of her husband. She loses her femininity, her grace, and her peace when she rules her husband. A truly feminine woman trusts in her husband’s provision and authority. This does not mean she is a doormat. God has given women a sphere of leadership, not to rule over her husband, but to govern the affairs of her home (1 Timothy 5:14). It is her prerogative to efficiently administrate her home and garden. This is not an insignificant task. It is a full-time career, especially as God blesses the couple with more children.

It is not just loving our children,
but loving and embracing the role of motherhood
that releases us into the joy and glory of our divine career.

Gentleness and meekness are also the inner essence of being female. 1 Peter 3:3-4 (Williams) says, “Your adornments . . . must be of an internal nature, the character concealed in the heart, in the imperishable quality of a quiet and gentle spirit, which is of great value in the sight of God.” These qualities in a female are very precious to the heart of God, and to husbands. In fact, they are a woman’s charm. They are called an “unfading charm” in the Amplified Version.

Is it weak to have a gentle and quiet spirit? No. It is a woman of strength who keeps a gentle spirit in the face of harshness and rebuke. It is a strong woman who keeps an even temper when she feels overwhelmed and angry. Have you tried being meek for a week?

The anointing of gentleness on a mother is beautiful to behold. Motherhood is equated with gentleness. And yet it is more. Just as Jesus was revealed as both a Lamb and a Lion, so too, God has put within the woman a gentle anointing, but also a “lion-like” spirit which rises up to protect her children, or to resist the enemy that comes to attack her marriage or home (Revelation 5:2-6). 

This “quiet and gentle” spirit is also revealed in our speech. Soft and gentle words exemplify femininity. Sweet words are becoming to a woman. If I start to get on my “high horse” my husband says to me, “Nancy, you’ve got to be sweet to me.” Oh my! I don’t have a chance to get harsh! Sweet words endear us to our husband. Sweet words bless our children. Sweet words personify our femaleness. Shakespeare’s famous words are apt for us:

 "Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman."

Solomon, speaking to his bride in Song of Songs 4:11 says: “Your lips, my bride, drip honey; honey and milk are under your tongue.” Could your husband testify that every time you open your mouth sweet words drip from your lips?

In Song of Songs chapter 7 (The Message), the Bridegroom is overcome as he admires every part of his bride. And then he exclaims that she is “quintessentially feminine.” He cannot think of greater praise.

We have come so far from God’s original intent for us, His female creation. Can we allow God to work in our lives to bring us back, little by little, to the original glory He planned for us? Let’s stop measuring our lives by the world around us but by God’s original design?

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, You have given so many amazing aspects to femininity. Help me to fully embrace each one of them. Help me to show to my family and to the world around me what it means to be female. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m tired of the “blur” in society today. I will seek to be truly feminine.

NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

Footnotes:

1. To read more about the blessings of embracing motherhood and femininity go to: http://tinyurl.com/FullFemale
2. See also Job 39:14-17 and Isaiah 49:15.

QUINTESSENTIALLY FEMININE
Part 1

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”
(Genesis 1:27).

I read these beautiful words, “quintessentially feminine” in Song of Songs (The Message) and was arrested by them. What does it mean to be feminine? I don’t mean feminine according to society’s standards, but rather what is quintessentially feminine. It means the perfect embodiment of who God originally created us to be. It is who we are in our purest form. Instead of looking around us to see what other women are doing to find our standard, we check the plumb line of God’s Word or even at our inherent inclinations which God has divinely put within us.  

One of the most beautiful aspects of femininity is pregnancy. The pregnant figure is beautiful. In this awesome time of a woman’s life, she has the privilege of housing and growing a new life, a life that will not only be born into this world, but an eternal soul that will live forever. Absolutely nothing in this world is more powerful than nurturing an eternal soul. This season of a woman’s life is only for a certain time. It is her time of visitation which is only about 20 plus years of her whole life, not many years when you consider that most women live into their eighties and nineties today. It is the privileged time of a woman’s life when God can visit her to conceive life.

Every conception discloses a visitation of God. Mere man cannot give conception. After Hannah dedicated her firstborn Samuel to God and took him to live at the temple, God “visited” her five more times and gave her five more children (1 Samuel 2:21). Genesis 21:1 also tells us how God “visited” Sarah and she conceived.

There are only two kinds of human beings in this world—a man without a womb, the male; and a man with a womb, the woman. The womb is distinctive to God’s female creation.¹ To embrace our womb is to embrace who we are; to reject the function of the womb is to not only reject the true essence of femaleness, but to reject our Creator who designed us.

Does the handicraft disown its Craftsman? Isaiah 29:16 (RSV) says: “You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay; and 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’?” Have we become so shaped by a godless society that we no longer understand who we are? What perversity!²

To reject motherhood is to reject the
transcendence of our femaleness.

Motherhood is also part of our innate femininity. Noah Webster’s 1928 dictionary describes quintessential as “the highest essence of power in a natural body.” Motherhood is primal, powerful, protecting and permeating—not only in our children’s lives but in all of society. Motherhood is not something we perform at a certain time of our life. Motherhood is who we are as a female. When we reject mothering, we reject who God created us to be. The desire to nurture is divinely inherent in every woman, even those who seemingly reject motherhood. Those who refuse to embrace children into their arms will usually have a cat or a dog, which they nurture like a human baby!

To embrace motherhood is to embrace quintessential femininity. Motherhood is the highest career in the nation. It is a divine mandate. It is the glory of the nation. We read in Hosea 9:11 how God told Ephraim that He would take away their “glory” as punishment for their sins. What was their glory? Conception, pregnancy, and birth!

Not only is motherhood innately within us, but it reveals the nature of God. One of the names of God is El Shaddai which reveals God as a nursing mother. Motherhood is not something we “have to do,” but it is the revelation of the nurturing heart of God. 

Webster (1913) describes quintessence as “an extract from anything, containing its rarest virtue, or most subtle and essential constituent in a small quantity.” We are not El Shaddai, but a little “shad” revealing to the world the rarest virtue of motherhood. When we embrace, and live in the glory of motherhood, we show to the world what God is like. When we reject motherhood, we deprive the world of seeing this characteristic of God.

There are some women who cannot conceive naturally. Are they denied motherhood? No. When a woman expresses her nurturing instinct to mother the hurting and needy, the elderly, the orphans and widows, or even to adopt a child, she finds her fulfillment in mothering. The most renowned mother of our last century was Mother Theresa, a woman who never birthed children, but who was the greatest example of motherhood as she poured out her life for the downtrodden.

PRAYER:

“I thank You, dear Father God for the gift of femaleness. You chose to create me female. This is how I will fulfill my destiny on this earth. Help me to understand the fullness of Your plan for me as a female. Help me to walk in the glory of femaleness You created it to be. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I live in the fulness of my femininity to glorify God.

NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

Footnotes:

1. Go to http://bit.ly/ProtectYourWomb * an important document which every woman should read.

1. The Hebrew word for “you turn things upside down” is hophek and means “perversity!” Read also Isaiah 45:9-10; 64:8 and Romans 9:19-21.

THE BIG QUESTION!

“But now, O LORD, thou art our father;
we are clay, and thou our potter;
and we all are the work of thy hand.”
(Isaiah 64:8).

“When are you too old to have a baby?”

No woman is too old to have a baby if God grants conception! Fruitfulness belongs in God’s hands.

Women are in their childbearing years until they reach menopause, until they can no longer conceive. Most women reach menopause at the average age of 50 years—some sooner, some later.

However, even though you are in your childbearing years until you go through menopause, your fertility decreases as you get older. The current statistics are that most women are infertile by the time they are 45 years and 80 percent of women are infertile in their forties.

Your years of visitation disappear very soon. And you never know when it will happen. My daughter, Evangeline (who is blessed with 10 children) was hoping for more! But her last baby at 43 years was her last! She couldn’t believe it! She and her husband were hoping for five more!

Be open to God for His perfect will for your life. If He gives you more babies, they are His perfect and intended will for your life. If He doesn’t, you are still in His will. It takes away all the stress and frustration when you give the matter to God.

You may say, “Wow, I’ve never heard this before.” True. We live in a society that is educated beyond their intelligence. Most women want to stop childbearing in their early thirties (or even before), but we only need to look at our bodies to see the way God created us. If God wanted women to stop childbearing at that age, he would have planned for them to go through menopause at that age. But that’s not now He created us.

When you think about it, the age is perfect. If a woman starts having children when she is in her early twenties, by the time she gets to her mid and late forties, she has children who are marrying or ready to marry. She never has to go through the empty nest syndrome which most modern women of our age do. God never intended this.

He intends women to keep mothering all through their lives. This is what we were born to do. This keeps us maternal. This keeps us feminine. This keeps us in the will of God. This keeps us home. This keeps us beautiful. As our children grow, then the grandchildren start coming on, and so we are always mothering. God’s design is so wonderful.

And think about this: When God blesses us with a larger family and our older daughter is married. She has loads of eager baby sitters of younger siblings. They are desperate to hold the baby and love on the baby. It relives the stress of first-time mothering.

And as the baby grows, instead of being lonely, and the mother having to be the 24/7 entertainer of the baby, the baby has loads of uncles and aunties waiting to keep the little one entertained. Each generation is a blessing to the other.

My beautiful granddaughter, Meadow, recently experienced a second miscarriage. While she was going through this painful time, her younger sister, Autumn (14 years) was able to come and stay with her and care for her little one-year-old. Such a blessing.

Isn’t it sad that we have turned so far away from His perfect design for us?

Put your fertility in God’s hands. Relax. If God gives you more children, you will be blessed beyond measure. You are never too old to be pregnant and give birth to children until you go through menopause. Many mothers testify that they enjoy their best pregnancies and best births in their forties.

1 Corinthians 6:19: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and YE ARE NOT YOUR OWN? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

PRAYER:

“Thank you, dear Father, that I can trust the way You created me. You are the Potter. I am the clay. I thank You that You are a good God. You want the very best for me. I put my life into Your hands. I trust You because I know that Your plan is always the best. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

By planning my own life, I could miss out on unexpected blessings that I would have never dreamed about. I am going to trust God for His plan and submit to His ultimate sovereignty.