PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 208: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, PT 19
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 208: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 19
The land of motherhood is a JOYFUL land. God wants us to live a life of JOY AND GLADNESS. How can we do this when we face hardships and when people speak against us?
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Well, hello again, ladies! So wonderful to be with you. Always enjoy talking to you. Here we are, still going through the land of motherhood. It’s such an amazing, large, and incredible land that we haven’t exhausted it yet! We’re up to POINT . . .
No. 15. IT’S A JOYFUL LAND
Before we get into this amazing subject, I must catch you up with what we’ve been doing. Well, what have we been doing? Not this last weekend, but the weekend before, Colin and I went up to Branson, Missouri. We were asked to go and see a musical show there called Pilgrim.
It was so amazing! It is put on by the Arise Collective Theater. You can find out about it by going to arisecollectivetheater.com. They also have a phone number: 616-446-2450. These two families, plus many others, there’s a whole cast and team of 70 who put it on.
It’s the whole story of Pilgrim’s Progress. It was so professional. They were putting it on nightly for three weeks at a theater in Branson. The last night we were there, and it was packed out, with 1800 people. It was very professional, but very anointed. You would be blessed to see this show. I know they have some more times coming up in Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan. You could check it out. It’s worth seeing.
One of the things I loved about the whole show; they did show very clearly the challenges and the struggles that Pilgrim had as he made his way to the Celestial City. He didn’t get there on a plain smooth path but had to face many situationslike we all do in life.
But there was one person there, dressed in white, who represented God, who represented the Holy Spirit, who was always there with him. Now Pilgrim couldn’t see that He was there. He didn’t know that He was there. But He was always there, just guarding, watching. There were times when the enemy came with such power that He would put forth His hand and push back the enemy. Other times He would come and put His hand on Pilgrim’s shoulder to comfort him.
There were times when He did nothing, but He was there, because He knew that Pilgrim had to learn how to overcome, because this life is where we learn to overcome. Our rewards in the heavenly realm are to the overcomers, aren’t they? But it was very beautiful. We were blessed, so blessed, to enjoy that.
Now, here we are, going through this wonderful land. As you know, if you’ve been listening to all these podcasts about the land (we’re taking the description of the land that God gave about the land He gave to His people Israel). There are 20 different descriptions, and we are likening them to our land of motherhood.
Because the land of Israel, the Promised Land that God took His people to, was a type of the land that He brings us into in the kingdom of God. It’s also a type of the land that we live in as mothers.
I was reading this Scripture again the other day, in Jeremiah 32:41. This is in the context of God bringing His people back to the land, because although He brought them into the Promised Land, sadly they sinned, and they did even worse than the people who were there before them. God had to cast them out.
But God will never give up on His people. God will never give up on His promises. He promised that He would bring them back, which He is doing in this day, in this hour. We are living in a day of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. There is nobody who can say that the Bible is not true, because here we are, seeing it. Promises that were given thousands of years ago are now being fulfilled before our eyes. He is bringing back His people from the four corners of the earth to the land of Israel.
GOD WANTS TO PLANT YOU IN THE LAND – WITH ALL HIS HEART AND WITH ALL HIS SOUL
You see God’s heart in this Scripture: “Yea, I will REJOICE OVER THEM to do them good, and I will PLANT them in this land.” How is God going to do that? It says here: “I will PLANT them in this land ASSUREDLY with MY WHOLE HEART and with MY WHOLE SOUL.” God Himself is speaking and saying this is not some little thing that He may do. No, He is doing it with His whole heart and His whole soul.
This same passion that God has to bring His people back to His land that He gave them is the same longing, the same passion He has to bring us into His kingdom land, the kingdom of God, with all that He has for us to experience and to enjoy in this land. Oh, dear precious ones, how much we fall short of all that God has for us in this kingdom land. We struggle along, and we don’t partake, we don’t feast of all that God has given us, I'm just thinking now, as I’m saying these words, I’m thinking of all the wonderful promises.
2 Peter 1:3-4. I love these Scriptures: “According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” Do you notice that He’s given us “all things”? Not just some things. They are given to us for “LIFE and godliness.” Not just godliness, but for life. To live life, to live life in our homes, to live life, dear mothers, with your children all around you, and all the challenges that you face. Yes, He has given you all that you need.
2 Peter 1:4: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” God has given us everything that we need. He has given us His life, His divine nature, which He puts in us when we are born again so that we can live this life that He wants us to live. These promises, we take it by being in the promises, by partaking of the promises. They’re not only promises.
Did you notice that God actually gives three adjectives to describe the promises? God loves adjectives because one word is never enough to describe what He is wanting to tell us. It says these: “EXCEEDING GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES.” That’s what they are. This is God’s same heart for you, dear mother. With all God’s heart, with all God’s soul, He wants to bring you into the land of motherhood, for you to enjoy it, not just to come in and hang around the edge.
That’s what a lot of mothers do. Yes, they have a baby. “So, oh, help, I’m entering the land of motherhood! Oh, wow! But help! I don’t know much about it.” So many mothers, they’ve never grown up in a family where the mother has continued to be blessed with children. They’ve hardly had anything to do with babies. They don’t really even know much about it . . . “What am I going to do with this baby?”
They’ve been so brainwashed in the public education system that motherhood is insignificant. “I’ve got to do my career, and I’ve got to fulfill this.” They enter the land, but they’re just on the edge. They keep going out, and they think, “Oh, I’ve got to get back to my career, so I’ll have to put my baby in daycare.” They have a little bit of motherhood on the edge, but they keep going back out of the land. They’re not really living in the land at all. They’re just in for bit, but they’re out.
But God wants to bring us IN—into the land. In fact, He said this over and over again to His people. As you read through Deuteronomy, you’ll notice it. “I brought you out of Egypt, that I may bring you into the land.” This is what God wants to do. He wants to bring us in with all His heart, and with all His soul.
Of course, the devil’s trying to keep people out of the land of motherhood. He hates motherhood. He hates everything that God has planned, and he seeks to woo women out of the home, woo them away from motherhood. Whereas God is not only wooing us in, He’s saying, “Oh, don’t you understand My heart? I want to plant you in the land. Plant you where you settle, where this is your life. I want to do it with all My soul and with all My heart.”
I trust you are hearing the heart of God to you today, dear precious mother.
Well, let’s have a look at this land, shall we? This land of joyfulness. It is a joyful land. Let’s see what God says about it.
Deuteronomy 12:7, and there in Jerusalem: “And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households.”
Deuteronomy 28, in the cursing part. You know, of course, that Deuteronomy 28 is the blessing chapter. But sadly, the end part is the cursing part, and there are more curses than there are blessings. We get all the blessings when we obey His commandments.
In the cursing verses, it says that “all these curses shall come upon thee” because you did not “keep His commandments and His statutes” which God gave you. Because you did not “serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things.”
That’s very, very challenging, isn’t it? When we don’t appreciate what God gives us, we complain, and we grumble, and we moan. We don’t serve the Lord in our homes and in our mothering because this is what God has given us to do. This is the task where He wants us to serve. When we do not do it with gladness and joyfulness of heart, well, instead of the blessing, we get the curse. That’s pretty strong, isn’t it?
In Joshua 1:15, God, through Joshua, is speaking to the Reubenites, and the Gaddites, and half the tribe of Manasseh. Because if you will remember, before they went into the Promised Land, these two-and-a-half tribes saw land that was this side of Jordan. They said, “Wow! We love this land! Can we have this land?”
God said, through Moses, “Yes, I’ll give you this land. But you’ve got to go over Jordan with the rest of the tribes, and you’ve got to help them fight the giants and take on those cities there and possess the land for all your other tribes. When you’ve done that, you can come back, and you can enjoy the land that I’ve given you on this side of Jordan.”
Now they have possessed pretty much most of the land. Joshua says here now to these two-and-a-half tribes: “Return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it.” Yes, this is what God wants us to do. He wants us to enjoy the land.
In Isaiah 61:7 it says: “In their land they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.”
Isaiah 35:10. Now when we get over to these Scriptures, we are speaking more of the return of God’s people to the land, when they’re coming back into the land the second time: “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Isaiah 51:3: “For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.” Now He’s bringing them back the second time.
This is what is happening now. God’s people are making aliyah and coming back to the land, this land that had become desolate, absolutely desolate, and a desert. Just like the malarial swamps when the children of Israel first came back to the Land when it became a nation in 1948. It was, my, it was challenging when they came back. But as they have come back, they have worked the land. This land is now blossoming again like the rose, as God said it would. He said it would become like “the garden of the Lord,” like Eden.
Do you notice, in these Scriptures, we find these twins, “joy and gladness”? Joy and gladness. God speaks to them over and over again. These are twins. They go together. Joy and gladness. That’s meant to be the lifestyle of the land—joy and gladness.
Isaiah 51:11: “Therefore the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy.” There it is again! “And sorrow and mourning shall flee away.” (This Scripture is repeated again from Isaiah 35;10).
Isaiah 52:9: “With the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the LORD hath comforted His people.” We see that that is God’s heart, Joy and gladness are meant to be the testimony of the land, His land, the kingdom of God.
What does it say in Romans 14:17? “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink but . . . (do you remember? What is it?) “But righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” This is the description of the kingdom of God. “Joy in the Holy Ghost.” It’s meant to be the description of the land of motherhood. “Joy in the Holy Ghost.”
Psalm 113:9 is another description of the land of motherhood. It says: “He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.” God equates motherhood with joy. At the end of that Scripture, it says, “Praise ye the Lord.”
So, precious ladies, is this the description of your lifestyle? In your home and in your mothering? I wonder, because I have to admit that I see so many mothers with such unhappy faces. They look so sad! That is not the description that God intends. But I see mothers who have frowns on their faces. They look so unhappy. Oh, goodness me! Where is their joy? Well, you say to me, “Well, you don’t know what I’m going through, and all I have to put up. I don’t know, I’m just overwhelmed and I’m facing this and that. I don’t know, I can’t cope with all these children.”
Well, lovely ladies, can I tell you something? We live our lives according to how we think. Often, it’s how we’re thinking in our minds. Because we’ve been so brainwashed by our public education, and by society, and by all the humanist philosophy that is all around us, we’re brainwashed by it. We think, “Oh, I’m here in this home and I’m wasting my life.” It’s all negative.
No, you’re listening to the wrong information. You’re listening to the garbage that comes from the pit of hell, because these are the lies and the junk that the enemy puts in your mind. We’ve got to start listening to the Word of God, dear ladies, to what God says. We have to get what God says into our minds, into our hearts, and into our mouths. It has to be into our very being, so that it’s coming out of us. That’s what we speak. So, we’re speaking joy! Yes!
“He maketh the barren woman to keep home, and to be a joyful mother of children.” The kingdom of God and the kingdom of motherhood is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It’s how you think. You’ll live how you’ll think. You will live according to the lies of our humanist society, or you will live according to the truth of what God says!
As I’ve been thinking about the joyful land, I’ve been looking again in the Word at the Scriptures. Dear precious ladies, I would keep you going for weeks if I was to give you every Scripture about joy and the Word of God. It just goes right through the Word, from Genesis to Revelation.
You see, God is a God of joy. This is where it comes from. Joy comes from God. I’m not talking about just feeling happy because everything’s going great. No. Joy even when things are not going great. We can only know that as we walk with God, and He dwells in us, and we dwell in Him. This is where we begin to know true joy.
Today, I thought we could look at a few things. OK, when are we to have joy and to rejoice? What circumstances? Well, I have quite a number of points here. Can we look at some today?
WHEN DO WE REJOICE, ladies?
Is it just when everything’s going good and I feel happy today? Maybe tomorrow you’re feeling sorry for yourself. No, it’s not anything to do with feelings.
Now, I will admit I started out my mothering that way, living by my feelings. Oh, it’s a terrible way to live. Oh, goodness me, how can anybody live by their feelings? Because your feelings are deceiving. They deceive you, and you begin to think these negative things, and these self-pity things.
I believe women are so prone to self-pity. “Poor me!” And if we dwell on those thoughts, we get worse and worse, and we go down further and further. All it is, is feelings, and feeling these thoughts that the enemy is putting in our mind, because he’s the one who does it. They don’t come from God at all, because they’re not the truth.
We’ve got to get with it, ladies! Get on God’s side. Get with the truth! My! The only way we can really live an overcoming victorious life is when we walk in the truth!
No. 1. ALL THE DAY
David confessed in Psalm 89:16: “In Thy name shall they rejoice all the day.” “I beg your pardon. Do I have to “rejoice all the day”? Couldn’t I even just do it for five minutes?” No. The Bible says: “all the day.”
Psalm 71:8: “Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honor all the day.”
Psalm 90:14: “That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” “Oh, can’t I just do it some days?” No, all of your days.
No. 2. WHEN A BABY IS BORN
The Bible tells us we are to rejoice when a baby is born. Well, that’s a good one, isn’t it? We usually always rejoice when a baby is born. I love Luke 1:58. It talks about when Elisabeth’s baby was born. It says: “Now Elisabeth’s full time came, that she should be delivered. And she brought forth a son. And her neighbors and her cousins heard how the Lord had shown great mercy upon her, and they rejoiced with her.”
I believe that is just the testimony of what we should do when every baby is born, to rejoice. Well, I think most people do rejoice when a baby is born. I think often the problem is when a baby is conceived. Isn’t that sad? This is when the baby begins. And yet, there are many who don’t rejoice.
Sometimes even the mother herself is not rejoicing. She thinks, “Wow. Oh, I’m not ready for this baby. How can we afford this baby? Oh, this is not the right time.” But dear precious ladies, when God gives you conception, it comes from God. God has visited you and it’s a miracle! We should rejoice!
Many mothers are too frightened to tell their mothers or their mothers-in-law that they’re having a baby, because they know there’s going to be a negative reaction. That is so ungodly, and so antithesis to the Word of God! Because every conception and every birth should be celebrated, and we should rejoice.
We go back to Psalm 107:41. Interesting passage here: “Yet setteth He the poor on high from affliction, and maketh him families like a flock.” Isn’t that interesting? God loves to make families like a flock. Now, sometimes God only gives a couple one or two children. But mostly, it’s a little flock.
The flock isn’t one or two. Imagine just having one or two sitting around your table. It’s not a flock. A flock, well, a Middle Eastern flock that they’re talking about is not a huge flock. Not like our sheep farmers in New Zealand. I come from New Zealand, where farmers often have thousands of sheep.
But no, Middle Eastern shepherds have a small flock. But oh, it’s a little flock. That’s what God wants to give us. “The righteous shall see it and rejoice! And all iniquity shall stop her mouth. Whoso is wise and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the Lord.”
Did you notice, precious ladies, when the righteous see, when they behold a little baby, they hear a little baby is conceived, or a little baby is born, what do they do? They rejoice! They rejoice there’s another baby coming into this family! This little flock is growing! Because a flock is meant to grow. Anybody who has a few sheep, they want their flock to grow! We rejoice.
No. 3. THAT YOUR NAME IS WRITTEN IN HEAVEN
Luke 10:20: “Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”
No. 4. WHEN PEOPLE PERSECUTE YOU, HATE YOU, AND SPEAK AGAINST YOU
Oh, this is interesting. What do you do when you’re going through that situation? And I’m sure you’ve been through it. I’ve been through that many, many times. What do you do?
Well, Matthew 5:11-12 says: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad. . . for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
Let’s have a look at it, shall we, ladies?
“Blessed.” You know what that means? It means “supremely blessed.” “I beg your pardon? You mean to say I have to feel blessed when someone hates me, when they actually say lies about me? They’re not true, and how dare they say that!”
Well, the Bible says you’re supremely blessed and what are you meant to do?
“Rejoice!” Now, the word in the Greek is chairo, and it means “calmly happy, you don’t get in a state about it.” And we haven’t finished yet!
And “be exceeding glad.” Now, what’s that word? It’s the word agalliao. Well, something like that. I know I may not always pronounce it correctly. And that word means, get with it, ladies. It means “to jump and leap for joy. To show one’s joy by leaping and skipping. Ecstatic joy and delight..”
Well, I wonder, have you ever in your life actually done what the Scripture says? You’re going through this sad time, and these people are talking against you, and they’ve even done evil things against you. And you’re mad, and you’re feeling grieved and hurt. But no, the Bible says, “Jump! Jump up and down for joy!
I wonder if any of us ever obey the Bible, because we don’t feel like doing that. Who would feel like doing that? Nobody in the whole world. But we don’t do what we feel like! We do what the Word of God says, and God’s Word always works. You try it. I have tried it. Goodness me, you jump up and down for joy and you jump all the hurt out of you. You see, God’s Word is so opposite to how we feel, isn’t it?
And the Luke account, let’s read it. Luke 6:22-23: “Blessed,” supremely blessed, “are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye,” be calmly happy, “and leap for joy.” Here it is again, “Leaping for joy, for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.”
Now here we’ve got another word. This time it’s the Greek word skirtao, something like that. It means, “to skip, to jump, to leap for joy, to sympathetically move, as in the quickening of a baby in the womb.”
Can you believe it? It’s the same word that is used in Luke 1:41 and 44: “And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.” And later she said, “For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”
Now, just as we end, I’ve got to tell you a similar Scripture in the Old Testament that relates to this. In Psalm 31:7 it says: “I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy: for Thou hast considered my trouble; Thou hast known my soul in adversities.” The word “rejoice” in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word giyl. And guess what it means? “To spin around under the influence of any violent emotion, to be joyful, to rejoice.”
So, ladies, here we are. We get these Scriptures that mean that when we’re going through these difficult times, that we are to actually jump for joy, leap for joy, spin around. Do you think you could actually try it? Well, I’m not making all this up. I’m giving you the literal words of God. OK?
Well, may the Lord abundantly bless you. Shall we pray?
“Dear precious Father, we thank You that Your land that You bring us into, the land of the kingdom of God, the land of our motherhood is the land of joy. It’s where you want us to live in joy and gladness.
“Lord God, we pray that You will help us, help us to live by the truth of Your Words. Not by our feelings, not by the lies of the enemy, but by the truth of Your Word.
“Oh, Lord God, bring us into a larger place. We pray that we will experience all that You have for us. In the precious name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.