Episode 19 – God’s Lifestyle Plan

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Rocky: Welcome to the podcast FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy: Many blessings to you and all your children and. of course. your husband today. We are carrying on with our passage in Jeremiah 29, and I have Nadia Pitana with me again today. I know you enjoyed her last week, and I know you’ll be enjoying her again today. In this passage, the God of the heavenly armies, even though they are in exile, wants them to keep doing the things that He originally gave them in the beginning. God’s plans never, ever change. Everything that God says is unchangeable. We have to get that into our very being. I don’t know how it is that some people think that God writes something, and maybe He changes it as maybe it doesn’t fit with our 21^st century. No, God cannot change. It is impossible, for He is God. Everything He writes, what He wrote in the beginning, is for every generation.

I might read this passage to you today. I usually read from King James, but can I read to you from the Common English Bible? It says, “The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles, I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and settle down. Cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. Get married and have children.”

Now we are up to the next one . . .

No. 4.

“Then, help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number; don’t dwindle away. Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you in exile. Pray to the Lord for it because your future depends on its welfare. Don’t let the prophets and diviners in your midst mislead you. Don’t pay attention to their dreams. They are prophesying lies to you in My name. I didn’t send them, declares the Lord.”

We see that we are up to number 4, and God is still talking about children. This time, instead of saying “Marry and have children,” He’s saying, “Make sure you have grandchildren.” It says here: “HELP your sons find wives.” That’s very proactive isn’t it? That’s a little bit opposite to the way we think today, even in the church. Mostly, parents are not helping their sons and daughters to get married.

Some other translation says: “LET your children get married.” I think that applies to some parents. “It’s ok if they meet the one God has given to them when their maybe 26 or older. Oh yes, they are ready to get married.” What if they meet them at 17 or 18? Are you going to let them get married? Well, that’s what the Bible says.

In fact, back then in Bible days they married young. They weren’t old when they got married; they got married young. The statistics reveal that the marriage age is getting older and older so that now its 29 years for men and 28 years for women. That’s getting old. Do you notice? All those beautiful child-bearing years in your twenties have been wiped out? The devil is very good at that because he knows our fertility decreases as we get older. In those prime years, if he can keep people from marrying, especially among God’s people because this is in the Christian church, couples in the Christian church.

It saddens me when couples get together, and they keep on hanging out together, but they don’t get married. What’s the story? What about, as I asked, if they are even younger? Do we let them get married? No, not if it’s not the right one. If it is a godly young man or a godly young woman and you know that it is the right person for your daughter or son, of course you let them get married. They are not too young to get married, that is the Biblical age to get married, or even younger in Bible days. We need to get with the Word. In fact, it says here to help your sons and your daughters to find the right one. We are meant to be proactive because God wants our children to get married. He wants us to raise them for marriage.

Many parents today, even in the Christian world, are not raising their children for marriage. They are raising them for their careers. They are raising them to get everything they can materially. They aren’t really raising them with a vision for marriage and for raising a family. No young man or woman is ready for marriage if they aren’t ready to embrace children because that’s what you do when you get married, according to the Word.

Right here: “Marry and have children and then get your children to marry and have children so you can have grandchildren.” Any grandmothers listening today? How many grandchildren do you have? Are you actively encouraging grandchildren to get married? This is all God’s heart because he loves a couple coming together. It’s a beautiful thing—it’s all God.

In the very beginning, God brought the women to the man. God did it. God still does the same today. He delights in bringing the woman to the man. It’s a God thing. It’s a miraculous thing. I was talking to our Above Rubies’ helpers around the table the other night, and I was saying, “Girls, this is a miraculous thing.” When I think about how my husband and I got together, well, yes, I saw him, and yes, my heart fluttered, but really it was God. God did it. It could have been with some other guy, but no, God caused my heart to flutter for this guy. What about you?

Nadia: God.

Nancy: Yes, it’s God. When you look back, it’s God. It’s God; He does it. I’m thinking, here’s Arden here, recording for us. God brought Esther to him. She was one of our Above Rubies’ girls. She came all the way from Canada, but she had come all the way from China before that because she was adopted from there. He was only very young, but he took one look, and he knew that was the one God had for him. We all witnessed it too. They married young, and they have been so blessed. Let’s get with God.

What does the next thing say?

No. 5:

“Keep increasing in the land of your exile, and do not diminish.” Do you get God’s heart? Some other translations say: “Don’t decrease; don’t dwindle away.” We have got to increase, multiply. That’s what the Word says in the very beginning. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. We are to multiply. I was recently watching the news and the race between the Democrat and Republican in Ohio. The caption read on the screen, “They are neck and neck.” It was such a close race. We aren’t meant to have neck and neck races because God’s people aren’t meant to be neck and neck with the spirit of the world. God’s people are meant to be mightier.

You are going to hear from Nadia soon, especially when we get onto a certain subject in one minute. Let me read this in Exodus. Back in Exodus, the children of Israel were under the domination of the Egyptians, and their lives were hard with bondage and bitterness. If you ever see the Ten Commandments, you see what they are going through, yet in the midst of it all, it says: “The children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and WAXED EXCEEDING MIGHTY; AND THE LAND WAS FILLED WITH THEM” (Exodus 1:7).

Verse 9 says: “The people of the children of Israel were MORE AND MIGHTIER than the Egyptians.” That really scared them. Do we scare the people who are not with God? Do we scare them today? No, we don’t scare them much at all. We are not much of a threat to them. Yet we are meant to be a threat; God’s people are meant to be a threat. The children of Israel were a threat; they were more and mightier. So, the Egyptians afflicted them, but the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.

Here we are in this cushy lifestyle. We have everything so easy here in America, and we can’t even multiply in good times. They were multiplying in persecution, bitter hard times of bondage, but they still obeyed. This is what God wants. We have to get out of being victims of the lies and propaganda of the enemy who has deceived the people of God to limit their families. This is the lie of the devil. This is the plan of the devil because the devil knows that his greatest threat is the people of God.

The more godly children born into this world, the more it is a threat against him and what he wants to do because more of God comes into the world. We fill the land, not only with people, but we fill it with God’s image, with His truth, with His salvation, with His mercy, and with His love. This is what we are meant to do, and we are giving a righteous vote.

This is one of the very important things. We are coming up to the end of this year to our midterm elections. I believe that every God-fearing believer has to get out and off their bottoms because there is such antagonism and such hate and such desperation for the left to win these elections because they want to take back everything that our president has been doing. We are in a very blessed time when so many laws have been changed and we are having many freedoms again. God is so good, and we have a window of opportunity. May God save us from being “neck to neck.” May God raise up His people that we may be “more and mightier” than the Egyptians. What do you say?

Nadia: Amen!

Nancy: Amen! We dare not diminish, dwindle away; we dare not decrease. But what happens next? This is amazing . . .

No. 6: It says: “Seek the peace of the city where I have carried you to. And pray unto the Lord for it. For in the peace thereof, you shall have peace.” Here’s another command, dear ladies. We have been talking about payer in some of our podcasts. God specifically says: “Come on now, don’t forget to pray. You are not in your beloved land now; you are exiles, but you pray for where you live.” I would like Nadia to share a bit about this because, as a family, they are prayer warriors, and I’m challenged by their life of prayer and fasting. I specifically wanted Nadia to be on this podcast. Tell us what you do in your family to pray and how you feel about prayer? How important is it in your family?

Nadia: Well, prayer is very simple. We are told, “If my people will humble themselves.” The only thing that keeps us from prayer is pride. The recognition that I need God causes me to pray. When a family is no longer calling upon God, they think they have it right. They have it all figured out, I don’t need God in my life. When we realize how we need Him, we will call upon our God. When we realize, and also recognize that our children need him and will need him, we will call upon Him.

Therefore, they must be equipped to know how to pray for the things that will come around into their lives. I think prayer is very essential, just as air is essential, just as doors are essential in our home. We lock our doors, right? Nobody just leaves their home unprotected and allows anyone to come in to their home. Prayer is that shield. It’s what we use to spiritually, physically, and emotionally cover our family.

Nancy: I know you and Pitana love to pray, but how have you taught your children to pray?

Nadia: Again, you can only give what you have, so we did it before they were ever born. I would rise up early, when my husband was going to work, before ministry. I would get up early. He would be going by five, so I would get up by four to have that time in prayer with him before we started the day. When the children came along, I couldn’t.

We do want to find time, even in our family devotions, to allow time to pray. It is not just, “Ok, we got the Word.” We have to pray that the Word will get into our hearts. The Bible says if we just hear and don’t do, we deceive ourselves, yet we can’t do it on our own.

The other major thing I was thinking about the other day was that they go around praying. Just as important as going to church is for us, prayer meetings are just as important. Since they were little, we went to church for the service, but we also went to church for the prayer meeting. When you are a part of a church that has a prayer meeting, which are very few nowadays, get your children there because that communicates that it’s important. Those prayer meetings are usually on weeknights, and it’s late, but that is an important thing for us. I had to readjust, and they went to bed late, but it communicated to them that it’s important to call on this God that we serve.

Nancy: That’s a wonderful thing. I think.about homeschooling. You can go to a prayer meeting; you can take your children, and even if it’s late, and they have to sleep in in the morning, well, who cares? They are doing something so powerful.

Nadia: Well, others who don’t homeschool take them to sports events and still show up. Which one is more important?

Nancy: I know. I’m such a great believer in having children in prayer meetings. We have a prayer meeting here every Wednesday night. We encourage all the grandchildren to come. In fact, there’s usually more children at the prayer meetings than there are adults. Often, Colin will say at the beginning” “C’mon children, all the children pray first,” because some of them will go to sleep as the meeting goes on, so we get them praying first, so they get their prayers in. You only learn to pray by praying.

Nadia: There is no other way. We travel a lot as a family, and when we are in a place where there is no prayer meeting to be found, we always open our home for a prayer meeting. We invite people, and if they can’t show up, we still have our own prayer time as a family. We make it a priority.

Nancy: Amen. Your children love to pray?

Nadia: Oh yeah, because, as you pray, you grow to love prayer because you see the results of prayer.

Nancy: That’s right. Can you tell us any special answers to prayer? I know you’ve had so many, but can you isolate one or two and think of them?

Nadia: On the way coming here, I was sharing a testimony because we were praying for specific finances. We just started a TV ministry, and we needed the finances to come because we just did a recording to pay for it. My oldest son said, “I woke up at night around 3.00 am and I heard you talking.”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Wow, you stayed up that late?”

I said, “No, I went to bed, but the Lord gave me a dream, and I woke up to pray about it.”

He said, “Oh, what was it?”

So, I was sharing. I said, “Before I went to bed, the Lord had answered our prayer. Somebody sent in money to pay for the recording.” He was like, “They did?” He was excited because we had been praying about it.

They already saw that provision, from things like sickness. We had a son break a leg and had a cast on, and they said it could be five weeks before he could heal, and even then, we would have to see if it’s healed properly. Well, at that time, my belly was big, and I had a two-year-old that needed to be carried around with a cast. He was potty-trained, so he didn’t want to go back into diapers; he wanted to be carried here and there and that was heavy, and as I did it, I began to get contractions. I had about eight weeks left in the pregnancy and I didn’t want to go prematurely.

We don’t have family around, so I began to cry out to God. I called my husband at work and said, “I can’t do this, I’m having contractions. If I keep carrying this baby like this, we will have a premature baby.” He came home for lunch, and we said the Word of God is true. He doesn’t change. Let’s agree that the same Word that says, “by His stripes you are healed” God heals. We are going to agree for healing. We laid our hands on him. We got our five-year-old, Jeremiah. We all agreed. We laid hands on him. We believed, and the Bible says, when we believe, it’s done.

Let’s get him to the hospital. We went to another hospital, another emergency room. We had taken him the day before; that’s when they put a cast. We went to another hospital with different doctors, so we waited there. While I was there, I was having contractions. Actually, I was the one laying down on the bed because I was having contractions.

The doctor comes in and he says, “What’s going on?” I said, “It’s not me, it’s my baby. I need you to take the cast off.” He said, “I can’t do that; this cast just got on yesterday. You need five weeks for the leg to heal.” I said, “No please, I need you to take it off.” We prayed that God would move his heart to go past his natural understanding, his medical understanding, and get the cast off. We prayed and prayed. He finally gave in.

He said, “I am going to take it off just because I know that you will be back before this day is done begging me to put it back on. He will be in so much pain, you will come back today; I guarantee it. We will put it back on.”

We said, “No, we will not come back in the name of Jesus. You take it off, and we thank you.” Off they went, and they used this machine. Oh, my goodness, you think they are going to cut off his leg to get it off. The whole time, he is saying, “He’s going to be in pain, and it’s going to be horrible.”

My husband is saying, “No, it’s going to be fine.” He gets it off, and says, “The boy sat still, the prayer worked. When I touch it, he’s going to scream.” My husband says, “He’s going to be fine.” He touches the place, no pain. He squeezes; the boy is fine. He cannot believe it. He puts the boy down; the boy walks.

We were so in shock that we didn’t even stay to witness to him because we were thinking, let’s get out before they realize what just happened. We took off, and we kept our appointment in five weeks with the specialist. We showed up and the boy is playing outside in the hallway waiting, and the doctor comes and says, “Where is Samuel?” I said, “Right there.” She said, “No, no, no, where is Samuel with the broken leg?” I said, “Right here.” She said, “No, that can’t be the same boy.” 

She didn’t believe us. Took the same x-rays. You know when the bone is healed, it still shows where it got hurt, and the only way she could believe it was by looking at a second x-ray. She said, “I don’t know what happened. I can see that this is where it was broken, and it’s healed. I don’t know what you did.” We said, “Well, Jesus healed him.” They have testimonies like that.

Nancy: Praise the Lord. That’s so beautiful. You were saying how Jeremiah, your oldest, just turned 13 a week ago, and you told me how, as a 13-year-old, he spent his birthday praying and fasting. Was that his idea?

Nadia: Well, as mothers, you encourage. We had, as a family, been on a 21-day fast.  We were going to finish it shortly after his birthday. We were doing a Daniel fast. I said to him, “Don’t you think being 13, because biblically they thought that was a man (some people believe that Mary were that age when Jesus was born) . . . that’s a big responsibility. Don’t you think you need to seek God the Father to find out what He has for you.” He said he was actually thinking about that.

I said, “Do you think you need to do a deeper fast than us?” He said he was actually thinking about that. He picked a day, two days before his birthday, and went to be with the Lord and to just find out, “God what plan do you have for me?”

Nancy: Wow, so he just went out into the land?

Nadia: Well, I cleared his schedule, and he woke up early. He was in his room just praying and fasting throughout the day,

Nancy: How wonderful. Praise the lord!

Nadia: Out of that, came the message God gave him. He is now starting a podcast to minister the Word to young people. God gave it to him very clearly.

Nancy: That’s what he felt in his heart? That’s amazing.

Nadia: God gave him a message. While God was giving him a message, God was telling me about a podcast.  He didn’t know how he was going to go about it. Over his birthday, I said to him, “The Lord told me that it is time for you to begin, that we should let you start a podcast.” He was like, “Oh, He gave me a message, but I didn’t know how I was going to give the message.” He will be starting that soon.

Nancy: I think we should get Jeremiah in here to get him to say something. There’s nothing like hearing from a young boy whose heart is for God. Let’s go find him, shall we?

Nadia: Yes.

Nancy: Now, here is Jeremiah. He has just turned 13. I think it would be lovely for you to hear from him. Now Jeremiah, you are 13 now, and if you were a young Jewish boy, you would be becoming a man now.  What’s on your heart? What is God putting on your heart at this age of your life?

Jeremiah: To love Him and love people and talk with Him any time of the day. Like before I go to bed, I always just pray to Him and hear from Him which is really a good thing. Also, love people.

Nancy: I know you love to pray. In fact, as a family, don’t you pray and fast on Fridays?

Jeremiah: My dad prays the whole night on Friday nights.

Nancy: Really? Do you children ever join him for any part of it?

Jeremiah: Yeah, when we were younger, he wanted to motivate us, so we would get a treat if we prayed with him in the middle of the night. As we got older, the treats went away, but we still wake up, and pray with him for a little bit.

Nancy: You do? If you wake up, you go out and pray with your dad. That’s so wonderful. Your mom was telling me how, on your birthday, you put it aside to pry and fast. Tell us how that went.

Jeremiah: I was really hungry. I think it was worth it. I got to hear what God wanted to tell me and what He wanted me to do. 

Nancy: She even said you want to start a podcast to talk to young people.

Jeremiah: Yeah, well my parents, for my birthday, gave me the chance to do a podcast.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful. What would you really like to talk to them about?

Jeremiah: About being God’s child.

Nancy: Yes, but you’ll have to say more than that.

Jeremiah: Yeah, well being in the kingdom of God.

Nancy: Yeah, well you’ll have to say more than that.

Jeremiah: Well, that’s basically it for now.

Nancy: You’ll be seeking God to know what to say?

Jeremiah: Yes

Nancy: And how to encourage them.

Jeremiah: Yes.

Nancy: That’s so great. Thank you so much Jeremiah. Time is going again. Perhaps I could just mention to you the last point.

Number 7.

“Don’t be deceived.” When God said that, He didn’t say, “Don’t be deceived by the Babylonians among who you are living, but don’t be deceived by the prophets who are in the midst of you.”

We can’t be gullible and take everything that anybody says, even in the body of Christ, even in the church. We need to seek God and His Word for truth. Now, if we do these seven things, we get the most wonderful promise. Verse 11 which so many people love: “I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Many take that promise, but they don’t realize it comes at the end of those seven commandments that God gave. As we obey these seven commandments that God reminded them about, then you’ll have a future and a hope. Isn’t that good?

Ok, we are going to pray. We will both pray.

Nancy: “Oh father, I thank You for the precious ladies listening today. I ask that Your blessing will come upon them in their homes. Give them a heart for prayer. Give them a heart to seek after you. Help them to be a family with a passion for God, a passion for prayer, a passion to seek Your face, and a passion to lead other to your ways. Save us from wanting to be like everyone else. Help us to be those who are truly set apart for You and following Your ways. In the name of Jesus, Amen.”

Nadia: “Father, we thank You for the promises You have given us in Your Word and instruction. We might have a desire to pray. Peter had a desire to pray when Jesus took the disciples in the garden. They had the desire to pray, but they could not pray. He said, “Can you not even pray for one hour?” They needed something. They needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. We see in Acts that when they received the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, in Acts 2, they were empowered. They were able to become men of prayer. Those who couldn’t pray a little bit when Jesus needed them became people of prayer that influenced nations.

I pray for these ladies in their homes, Lord God, that they will have an encounter with You. That they will be filled with Your Holy Spirit, as we see in the book of Acts. That out of that, they will be empowered to pray. Because Your Word tell us that we know not how to pray, but the Holy Spirit prays for us, interceding for us, with the groanings that cannot be uttered. We need the help of Your Holy Spirit to pray for us and for our children. In Jesus name, Amen.”

Nancy: Amen. Blessings to you today.