It is sad to see so many marriages breaking up today, even amongst the Christian church. I think that one of the things that hurts marriages is pride. We are too proud to say sorry. We are too proud to back down. We are too proud to have a submissive spirit.

I was reading in Proverbs 21:4 NIV this morning, "Haughty eyes and a proud heart produce sin." God hates pride and runs from it. We can guarantee that we don't have God in our marriage when we have pride.

On the other hand, God loves humility. He always aligns Himself with humble hearts. We can know for sure that God will come into our situation and into our marriage when we keep a humble spirit.

Which one are you aiming for? Which one am I? The proud spirit, or the humble spirit?

Love from Nancy

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We have been talking about building a beautiful home for God and were inspired that David wanted to build a home for God that was "exceeding magnificent." Why did he want to do this?

We find the answer in 1 Chronicles 22:19, "Arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord God... Why? ...to bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to built to the name of the Lord."

The ark of the covenant of the Lord was where the Shekinah glory of God resided. David's longing and passion was to bring the presence of God to the house. This should also be our ultimate aim above every desire we have for our home--to make it a place where God's presence can dwell and be manifest. In every heart. In every room. In every situation.

Make this your prayer, your passion, and your purpose today.

Love from Nancy

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We continue to discuss the vision we should have for building a home for God. David wanted to build a home that was "exceeding magnificent" (1 Chronicles 22:5). We discovered that "exceeding" means to be "above the normal."

What does "magnificent" mean? In the Hebrew it is "gadal" and means, "To make large, advance, exceed, excellent, great, grow up and increase, lift up, magnify, promote." This gives us a big vision, doesn't it?

Our home should never become stagnant. We should always seek to be advancing and thinking of better ways to beautify our home. We should be constantly praying about how to allow more and more of the presence of God in our home.

We should always want increase--increasing in the presence of God and increasing in better functioning and order. And of course, we'll always be open to the increase of children. This is what makes a home magnificent. It's not things. It's life--babies and children.

Our passion will be for our children to grow in the knowledge, but primarily in the knowledge of the Lord and His truth. Therefore, we'll be thinking of ways to enable them to grow in God. We'll arrange the whole order of our home in order to have Family Devotions with our children morning and evening. We'll establish a memory program for them to learn the Scriptures.

And we won't limit this to our children. We will be a family that grows together. We'll all be learning in the ways of God. We'll walk together in the ways of God. We won't leave one child behind.

We'll be seeking to make our marriage greater every day.

Keep building a magnificent home--increasing and advancing in the ways of God and in the blessing of children.

Isaiah 54:2-3 says, Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right and on the left."

Love from Nancy

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What kind of home do you want to build for God? An average home? One that is like everyone else around? It so easy to assimilate to be like everyone else, isn't it? We judge our style of living according to others in our church or neighborhood.

But, God never intends us to assimilate. God does not want His people to conform, but to be separated from the norm (Leviticus 20:24,26; 2 Corinthians 6:17-18).

Last post I wrote of the vision to build an "exceeding magnificent" home for the Lord. The word "exceeding" in the Hebrew is "ma'al" and means "above, very high, the upper part." This word, "ma'al" is translated "above" 53 times and "upward" 59 times!

I think we should change gears in our brain from building an average home that meets the standard of everyone around us, and instead seek to build a home that is above the normal, above the mediocre, and above the status quo. We should seek to build a family that not only just functions, but is abundant in every area, giving glory and honor to God. We should build a home that is above the average, so we can reach out and show the way to those who are still in the average rut.

In the average home today, there are more TVs in the home than children. The "above the norm" home will have more children than TVs.
In the "above average" home the siblings will be friends rather than fighting with one another.
An "above the norm" home will be filled with the joy of hospitality.
The "above the norm" family will take time to pray and read God's Word together each day.
The "above the norm" family will spend more time in productiveness at home rather than running here and there to every extra-curricular activity.

Aim for the "above average," not "below average."

Love from Nancy

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