LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 193: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 4

Christy Ireland joins me again today. We are still discussing the GOOD land of motherhood and the good things God wants us to do in our land. Can you believe that cooking and preparing meals is a good thing? Yes, God says it is GOOD! Even submission is a GOOD thing. Help, is this really true? Listen to Christy's testimony on this subject.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. We are still on point number one: MOTHERHOOD IS A GOOD LAND. And at the end of last session, we were talking on 1 Timothy 5:10 and all the wonderful, good works of a woman in the home.

The first one the Bible talks about is that she brought up children. Do you remember how I told you that word means “to nurture and to feed”? So, feeding and cooking is so much part of motherhood. Now, ladies, I know cooking meals can often be like an interruption in your day. But I don’t want you to look upon it as an interruption. I want you to look upon it as such a blessing! This is part of your anointing of motherhood.

I have always found, raising our children, and even still today, I keep to the same format; that I stop whatever I am doing at a certain time, usually no later than 5 o’clock. I will go to the kitchen to start preparing. And if I’m having company, people over for a meal, and perhaps needing to do more preparation, I will start at 4 o’clock.

WHY NOT MAKE IT LOVELY?

We often don’t eat until 6:30. It takes me a good, at least, hour and a half to prepare a meal, longer if I’m having a lot of people. Because I do love to cook lovely meals. Not just for visitors but for my family. I love to cook lovely meals. Don’t you think, ladies, that everything we do should be lovely? Why just throw some stuff on the table? Why not make it lovely?

I think you may have heard me say this before, but it changed my life, after years and years ago, I was watching that movie called “Babette’s Feast.” In that movie, there is a line of this woman who was a great chef. What was happening in the movie, she wasn’t in her restaurant, she’s a great chef but she was away from her country, and she was working for these people. But she put on this amazing meal.

There was this guy who’d been in the army. He was high up in the army and he’d been to her restaurant in France. This amazing meal reminded him of this restaurant. And he got up, and he was giving a speech, and he said, “There was a woman who knew how to make every meal into a love affair.” Wow!

I heard those words. I’ve never forgotten them. And I thought, “That is my aim. I WANT TO MAKE EVERY MEAL A LOVE AFFAIR.” So, I want to make every meal lovely. Not just the food. I want to make the table lovely. I want to make the atmosphere lovely, so everybody who comes wants to come, and is going to feel the atmosphere of the table and of everyone sitting around together.

It doesn’t just happen, ladies. You have to make it happen. And you’ll have to stop what you are doing. You have to do that. We can get onto projects, and oh, this is what I want to do. Forget the meal!

But there’s going to be a hungry husband and hungry children. If the meal’s not ready, you’re going to not have a very happy husband, and you’re not going to have very happy children!  What do you think, Christy?

Christy Ireland: Yes, it can get a little chaotic if you don’t . . .

Nancy: Oh, by the way, Christy is with me again! [laughter]

Christy: Hello again! Yes, a household can get a bit chaotic if the meal isn’t ready when the hunger hits. That is a lesson that I have had to learn. My amazing husband has been so patient with me, as I love to sew, and I can be up in my sewing room all day, every day, if I wanted to be in. I do have my children up there with me, but sometimes I forget to stop. I myself, might even forget to eat.

AN IMPORTANT PRIORITY

But he has had to show me, yes, you are so good at sewing, at what you do. But you should probably learn how come down and make us some meals every once in a while. He just showed me that there needed to be order in our home and that there were priorities. Cooking meals was a much greater priority than sewing. He taught me how to make priorities in the home.

I do have to stop what I’m doing. I do have purposely . . . I like what you said though, about having a specific time. I probably should do that when I get home. Set an alarm, 4 o’clock. It’s time to go down and start the meal.

But we do have pretty specific eating times in our home, because like I said, we do like order. We like things to run smoothly so we do our breakfast at a certain time. And we’ll have a snack before lunch usually, just to get them over. But they all sit at the table when they eat. That makes things easier. Everybody has the same snack, everybody’s done. Nobody will be ready for food until lunch. I won’t have some children fed and some not fed, and who ate what? That makes things a little hard in our house. Then we have lunch. It’s the dinnertime that sometimes slips my mind but I’m learning.

It’s been pretty cool, living in our camper, because we’re in such a tight space. It’s been really fun, just getting to cook in this teeny, tiny, little kitchen with all my children around, and my girls help. Things are still going very smoothly. So, yes, we do love to give them good food and make sure everybody’s fed, because when everybody’s fed, they’re happy.

Nancy: That’s definitely a way to keep everybody happy, isn’t it? It’s amazing how food keeps everybody happy.

We continue looking at this description of this woman in the home, and the good works that she did. So, “If she has brought up children.”

The next thing: “If she has lodged strangers.” If she has shown hospitality. This was another criterion of a woman that they were going to support. Now Paul said, if this woman has lived this lifestyle, I want you to look after her in the church and provide for her. But she has had to have lived this lifestyle, which reveals that this is the lifestyle that God has for His women.

So, it starts off in the home. Then it’s reaching out in hospitality. Do you notice that it also involves cooking and food? So much a part of our lives. You can’t show hospitality without preparing a meal! I think that’s why some people, maybe, don’t show as much hospitality as they could. But this is what God says here. He’s showing that this is the lifestyle that we’re meant to live.

Hospitality is not something that, “You know, well, maybe I might do it someday.” Or “Yeah, I know those people. They’re so good at hospitality. That’s their gift, but it’s not my gift.” No, the Bible talks about it in His Word. It says that we are all to be “given to hospitality.” We are to love hospitality. The early church met together daily in each other’s homes. I think we need to come back, little by little, to that lifestyle. It’s a beautiful lifestyle. It makes life so exciting. You can never be bored if you have hospitality.

Then it goes on: “If she has washed the saints’ feet.” What they’re talking about, back in Bible days, when people came to your home, they’d been walking the dusty roads. Usually, it was the task of the servants to wash their feet before they came into the rest of the house. But here it says that she washed their feet.

Once again, it’s talking about people coming into your home. If people are coming into your home, you’re not going to sit them down in a chair to look at the walls. You’re going to get them something to drink. You’re going to feed them. So, once again, we’re talking about food and cooking!

God says, “It’s a good work.” Then it goes on, and it says: “And if she has relieved the afflicted.” She’s reached out to the poor, and the needy, either bringing them into her home, or going out to take provision to them, which will usually be food. So, once again, it’s food! Yes! Preparing food!

Not just for your family but those who are in need. There are families, the mother is sick, or maybe the child is sick. So, you’re going to make a meal for them and take it over to them. You’re relieving, and nurturing, and helping the afflicted. You can’t do that without making food! So, there it is again! Just food, food, food! So, you might as well get with it, ladies, OK?

Then it says: “If she has diligently followed every GOOD work.” All these things are called “good works.” Amen!

Christy, we were talking in our last session about that word “submission,” because that’s another one of the good things that the young women are to do, to be submissive to their husbands. You said, “Oh, I’ve got something to share about that, so you must tell us in this session.

Christy: Yes, I had to learn some hard lessons in submission. I did learn in the end that it is amazing and freeing. But to get there was a very, very, very rough road. I was not being submissive to my husband as he wanted to move away from our hometown, our home state, to a totally different state. This was after we had five children at the time.

I basically was just saying, “No, I’m not going to go there.” He wanted to move, and I was not going to go there. So, our family fell into some pretty bad hardships at that time, He ended up having to go through some surgeries. Afterwards he was placed on pain medication.

He became addicted. I don’t know what other word to use. I mean, he became dependent and addicted to these pain medications to where he was getting them illegally, and all this without me knowing. So, when it came to light, our family was being torn apart, completely torn apart.

That’s the enemy. I wasn’t living a life sold out for the Lord. He wasn’t living a life sold out for the Lord. We weren’t recognizing the things that were going on, even in our own household.

This all, the Lord has showed me, came from my insubmission, even to the point where I would be laying in bed with him next to me. He’d be asleep, and I knew he needed prayer and healing from this addiction that he had. I did not want to pray. The Lord wanted me to pray over him, put my hands on him, pray out loud for his healing.

The Lord’s voice was so loud in my head, and I so did not want to pray out loud over my husband, that I would go out to my balcony so that I would plug my ears. I didn’t want to hear the Lord telling me to do this anymore, because I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t. But now I’m not even submitting to the Lord. He’s telling me to pray for my husband and I’m running outside to plug my ears.

It ended up with my husband being gone from our family. He was away. I ended up having to move out of our big, lovely house into a camper with four of our children. We had had five, but our little Andrew was in heaven already. We lived in our camper. My husband lived three-and-a-half hours away from us.

Praise the Lord for this ministry. It's called U-TURN FOR CHRIST. It’s in California. He was able to go to this ministry where they cold-turkey you. They don’t try to get you off of medication by using medication. They get you off of your addiction by sharing the Word of God with you, and praying over you, and making you work very hard.

In all of that, the Lord healed my husband. During that time of not having my husband at my side with me, all I could do was to lean on the Lord and His Word. Now I have this new, new hunger and thirst for the Lord and His Word and prayer. I was a new woman because I wasn’t anywhere without my Bible and my journal. I prayed out loud on every drive I went on. This is how I would pray like I’m speaking to you now. I would just pray, pray, pray.

I saw the Lord heal my husband. Praise the Lord, because like we talked about before, there are a lot of people who go into that and don’t come out of it. It is a miracle that the Lord healed him from that, and that the Lord has continued to bless our family. We’ve been able to go on in our marriage, and be able to go on, continuing to have children. The rest has been such a blessing.

From that, after he finished with his rehabilitation, the Lord just threw blessings in our path. I mean, “Here you go! You’re going to work at the conference center and be the groundskeeper at this amazing Christian retreat!"

From there, the Lord moved us to Montana in a very miraculous way. This time, I went, very willingly. Wherever the Lord directed my husband. I was right behind him. I knew that that consequence came from insubmission, and my insubmission to the Lord, to pray for him. So, yes, I realized, thankfully, that submission was a good thing.

Nancy: That’s beautiful. Thank you, Christy. Now you and Chad are the parents of 12 amazing children. You could never have dreamed that at the beginning, could you?

Christy: Oh, no! No, no. I would have never ever imagined just seeing my life. I’m glad that it is this way, because what I might not have planned for myself.

Another submission is the Lord opened our eyes after we were already pregnant with baby number four. The womb was to be submitted to the Lord. Just as our lives we submit to the Lord, we can’t hold this back. This is to be submitted to the Lord.  He showed us that through His Word.

And, oh my, are we thankful, because that is one of the things, when I’m sitting in our tiny, little camper right now, we’re all around their table. I see all of their faces, so close together. I see their faces, and it just melts my heart. These are my children! I am so blessed!

Nancy: So wonderful! You are so rich. All these beautiful children, there are no greater riches, are there? Last night, we had a wedding rehearsal for Ben and Cherish who are getting married on Saturday. She’s marrying Ben, who is one of, not 12 children, but 12 sons!

I did a podcast a few months back with Cassie. It was “The Mom of 11 Sons.” But now she is “The Mom of 12 Sons”! Isn’t that amazing? Twelve sons. It’s so great, and they’re all such beautiful young men, too, right down to the little ones.

The land of motherhood, it is such a good thing. God wants us to be doing good things in our home. Acts 10:38: “Jesus went about, doing good, and healing all those that were sick.” Well, many of us, we just go about doing. But He wants us to go about doing good!

Even when we’re in the kitchen and preparing meals and doing the mundane things around the home, they’re such good things because they’re establishing a strong family life. You’re building into making your family strong and great.

Let’s just finish with a few Scriptures about good works again. And then I must finish this point! I don’t think I’ll take so many sessions on all the next points. So, don’t worry, ladies!

Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them.” The previous verses tell us that we’re not saved by good works, but when we’re saved and born again, we are then saved “unto good works, which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them.”

God knows your story. He knows everything that’s happening. He’s brought you to your husband. I love that. You know, I love going back to the beginning, because it’s in the beginning where we see the principles.

I love it when God created Eve. Then the next thing it says: “And God brought the woman to the man.” Such a beautiful thing! God brings the woman to the man. I look back, and I think, “I never thought of this at the time, when Colin and I came together. I thought I saw this guy and fell in love.”

But I look back and see, wow! It was God! How did I work it out? Colin lived a long, long way from where I lived and yet we miraculously met. God brought us together. You don’t feel like that about every Tom, Dick, and Harry. He makes it special for two people who come together.

He knows their destiny and what’s going to happen. He knows the destiny of how He brought you and your husband together, and the children He’s given you. He’s ordained this before the foundation of the world. He knew everything. He knew the names of your children, children that you’re yet to have! He knows their names and you haven’t even decided them yet.

But He knows! He knows, because He is omniscient. He has planned everything from before the foundation of the world. He says, “I’ve planned this for you to walk in it.” So, embrace it, lovely ladies! Walk in it.

Philippians 2:13: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

Colossians 3:17: “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”

So, everything you do, you get up in the morning, you make your bed. Do you do that? Even a busy mother? Yes, it’s an important thing to do the little things, ladies. The little things. Even making your bed.

You know, when you make your bed when you get up, it’s a wonderful start to the day. You have already accomplished something. If you leave your bed open, and a mess, it’s left unfinished. So, the first thing in the day you’ve left unfinished. You’re making a habit for the rest of the day.

Now, you make your bed and you’ve finished the job. You’re making a habit for the rest of the day which you are teaching your children. You’re teaching them to make their beds before they even come out of their rooms. Such little things, but they help to keep a home managed and in working order.

And you’re training your children from very tiny. As soon as they’re able to do it, how to finish a job. First job they start in the morning, they finish it! Otherwise, they learn to leave unfinished tasks.

We do it, every little thing, in the Name of the Lord Jesus. And giving thanks! “Oh, just some boring thing I have to do!” No! We give thanks! Yes! We’ve got to get living by the Word, don’t we? Because we usually live by our feelings and how we feel, instead of living by how the Word wants us to live.

James 2:26: “Faith without works is dead.”

James 4:17: “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” My, that’s been a challenge to me so many times. When the Lord has put on my heart something I should do, or something I should do for someone, or maybe even to go and talk to someone about something, and you don’t. Ooh. You don’t really want to, or you’re a little scared they may be offended, or whatever. But when we don’t do those things, it’s actually sin, which is a challenge to me.

Galatians 6:9: “And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Be encouraged, lovely, weary mother. I know you do get weary at times. But keep on, be encouraged, be faithful, and be glad that the end of the day will come, and you’ll have a good sleep.

Isn’t it wonderful? God gives us sleep! It is so wonderful. There are times at the end of the day that I can hardly keep my eyes open. But it’s amazing. You have a good sleep, and you wake up in the morning, and you’re ready to go again! It’s just so amazing, isn’t it? So, even if we get weary, we have renewing of sleep during the night to prepare us for another day.

LOVE IS WORK AND WORK IS LOVE

1 John 3:18: “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” Not just loving in words, but in deeds. Do you know that often we show our love by our work? And in working, we show our love, because love is not just a feeling. It’s actually work.

And even in the home, to love our husbands, to love our children, it takes work. Work to keep the home in order. Work to keep the meals going. Work to keep on top of everything. Work to just serve our husband and care for all our children. It’s work!

But love is work. If we love them, we are not complaining, “I’ve got all this do, and help me, and poor me.” No! We’re loving it! The more work we have, the more we’re going to be showing our love! Yes!

EVERY GOOD WORK

2 Thessalonians 2:17 says we are to be “established in EVERY good word and work.” I won’t give you all the references to these. I’ll put them in the transcription. We do transcribe every podcast.

But the Word of God says that we are to be “prepared unto EVERY good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).

We’re to be “equipped for EVERY good work” (2 Timothy 3:17).

 We’re to show ourselves a “pattern of good works” (Titus 2:7).  

We are to be “zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).  That’s a good one, isn’t it? “Zealous.” Yes. We are to be excited about it.

We are to be “ready to every good work” (Titus 3:1).

We’re to “provoke one another to good works” (Hebrews 10:24).

We must “not neglect doing good” (Hebrews 13:16).

 We must be “careful to maintain good works” (Titus 3:8). 

Wow! Did you know there was so much about that in the Word? We’re just continually exhorted and encouraged about doing good works. It’s really quite amazing! 

Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” 

1 Peter 2:12 says that they may see your “good works, which they shall behold, and glorify God in the day of visitation.” 

Matthew 5:44: “Do good to them that hate you.” 

Matthew 12:35-37 talks about speaking good words out of your heart.

Luke 6:35: “Do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again.”  

Romans 12:21: “Overcome evil with good.” 

Romans 15:2 encourages us to do good to build up others.

Ephesians 4:28: “Work with your hands” to specifically, I think to the fathers of the home, that they’re to work with their hands to do good things, to have enough to eat, and give to others.  

God is really into work, isn’t He? He’s got some good words to the husbands, too, which we didn’t talk about today. “If a man does not work or provide for his family, neither should he even eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10 and 1 Timothy 5:8). God is very specific about working.  

So, lovely mother, don’t despair when you feel that all you’re doing is working around the home. You know, you will love it when you change your attitude. If we look upon it negatively, oh, goodness me! Life’s terrible.  

But when we look upon it as, “I am doing this because I love my husband and I love my children. I love the Lord, and I just want to serve Him. I’m going to do it with joy and thanksgiving!” Wow! Well, your whole attitude has changed, and every moment is exciting and wonderful! What do you say, Christy? 

Christy: Yes, I agree.

Nancy: And you found that worked out in your home?

Christy: Yes, the attitude was a huge factor. If I have a stinky attitude, it’s going to follow, and my children are all going to be that way to each other. If I wake up, I like to wake my children up by saying, “Rise and shine, and give God the glory! Open up the windows! Let the sun shine in!” I’m really like that. It helps to help my children to have a good, fun attitude.

Nancy: Amen! That is a great way to start the day! I love that!

OK, ladies, I think we’ll finish now on this point number one, that the land of motherhood is a good land! Not only good. Remember, I told you the Word of God says it is “an exceeding good land.” Aren’t you blessed to be part of the good land? Do you love it? Oh, yes, begin to confess:

“I belong to the good land of motherhood!”

Next week, we will start on another description of the land. You’re going to be so excited to find out all these wonderful descriptions. So, let’s pray.

“Dear Father, we thank You that You have given us a good land, an exceeding good land. Lord, You’ve told us specifically the good things you want us to do in our land. We pray that You will help us to be faithful, and Lord, to do them with joy, to do them with thanksgiving, because we are doing everything unto You. We ask it in the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

P.S. Forgot to add these Scriptures:

2 Corinthians 9:8: We are to “abound to EVERY good work.”

1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, ALWAYS abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Colossians 1:10: We are to be “fruitful in EVERY good work.”

SCRIPTURES WHERE GOD SAYS HIS LAND IS GOOD

Exodus 3:8; Numbers 14:7; Deuteronomy 1:25, 35; 3:25; 4:21-22; 6:18; 8:7, 10; 9:6; 11:17; 30:5; Joshua 23:13-16; Judges 18:9 (very good); 1 Kings 14:15; 1 Chronicles 4:40; 28:8; Ezra 9:12; Psalm 85:12; Isaiah 1:19; Jeremiah 2:7 and Ezekiel 34:14.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you didn’t get to hear the podcast with Cassie Fox who is now THE MOM OF 12 SONS, you can go to this link:

MEET THE MOM OF 11 SONS!

https://www.buzzsprout.com/183665/9006514

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 192: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 3

Today, Christy Ireland from Montana joins me as we continue talking about the GOOD land of motherhood. Christy shares the joys of mothering her 12 children, and also about her little boy, who was born sickly and passed away at an early age.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Great to be with you again. We’re talking about this wonderful series about the Land of Motherhood. It’s such an exciting series. I told you that I found twenty different descriptions about the land. It’s actually about the Land of Israel, but we’re likening it to the land of motherhood.

We are still on point number one, that IT IS A GOOD LAND. Twenty-four times in the Bible, the Bible speaks of the Land as a “good land.” It also tells us in His Word that motherhood is a good land. We’re discussing the good things that the older women are to teach the younger women. That’s what the Bible calls them. Good things. Beautiful things.

Today I also have another guest with me. This lovely mother, I know she thinks motherhood is a good land so I kind of pulled her in to do this podcast with me.

Now, Christy, Christy Ireland, and her wonderful husband, and all their glorious, beautiful children are passing through Tennessee. I first met them last year when they came to our Above Rubies Family Retreat down in Panama, Laguna Beach, in Florida. They drove all the way from Montana to come to our retreat. They loved it.

While there, of course, they met Daniel and Allison Hartman, who were the ones who put this retreat on. They do such an amazing job! If you’ve never been, you’ve just got to come. It’s just so incredible. Just look on the website. This April it will be happening again. Are you coming down again?

Christy Ireland: We’re hoping to, yes.

Nancy: Woo hoo! That’s so great! Anyway, Christy and Chad got to know Daniel and Allison and found out that they needed help in their busy times with their big successful photography business. So, they loaned their beautiful daughter Emily to them. They’ve just been down to pick her up again, traveling back through Tennessee, and hanging out with us all of us here in Tennessee. So great to have you, Christy.

Christy: Thank you. We love being here.

Nancy: Yes. Well, as I said, they have 12 children. You would never dream it. You can’t see Christy sitting here beside me. But she’s just this little thing. You wouldn’t think she’d ever had one child in her whole life!

They have a beautiful family. Brody is their oldest son, and then Derrick, who is married. How many children do they have?

Christy: They have Marshall, their first son, and then they have a little girl on the way.

Nancy: Oh, how wonderful! Then you had another son called . . .

Christy: Born sick, and he had a lot of health problems his whole little life. The Lord just called him home at a very early age.

Nancy: But I love that story you told me when you were telling me about his life and how at the end of his life you were just holding him. As you were holding him, the nurses told you later what was happening.

Christy:  Yes. So, we knew that he wasn’t going to be able to live long. His body was in septic shock. This infection that he had had attacked his internal organs. He was on sixty different IV medications. He had . . .

Nancy: I can’t believe that. Six-zero?

Christy:  Yes. It was not a pretty sight for a little baby. He had IVs in his head and just everywhere they could get them. Some were going into more than one tube. There were bags of IV fluid everywhere and machines everywhere. That’s not how we’re meant to live. His little body just couldn’t handle all the medications anymore.

When they were placing him in my arms, I hadn’t held him because the intubation tube that was going down his throat was very touchy. You can’t really mess with that. But we asked that they would turn his medications off and turn the machines off so that we wouldn’t have to hear any beeping or alarming.

I was able to sit down, and they placed him in my arms. I got to hold him. Half of his little legs were on my husband’s legs. We were both sitting in one big chair so he was kind of on both of our laps.

The nurses, though, were watching their monitors out at their nursing station. So, they were able to see that as soon as I held him, his blood pressure, even though he no longer had the medication that wasn’t doing anything anyway, went to a good blood pressure. They said they were able to see then that he actually knew I was holding him and that that made him happy. He was happy that I was holding him.

Nancy: I think that’s so beautiful. And doesn’t that just show you the power of a mother’s arms? A mother’s arms are healing. They’re so powerful. That was more powerful than all that medication. And also, how beautiful that you, in those last moments, you could be holding him. And he knew you were holding him. Oh, that’s so beautiful.

So, then they had Emily, this amazing girl who was down helping the Hartmans. Actually, Emily came and stayed with us while she was with the Hartmans. They came and had a weekend with us. I forget what it was about. Something we were having up here.

When the Hartmans came, the Hartmans, oh goodness me. If you don’t know them, these people are so hospitable. Allison cannot go anywhere without inviting the world! So, even when she’s at my place, she invites the world! There was another family that got stranded on the side of the road. So, she called me. She said, “Nancy, they’ve got nowhere to go! Can they come and stay with us here?”

Well, we already had people, and then we had the Hartmans, and then we were going to have this other family with also about ten or twelve children.

Christy:  And the Hartmans have eleven.

Nancy: Here we were! It was time for supper, and I said, “Oh goodness me! I’ve got all these people to feed.” And then we had around the table, there were over 20 children and young people, apart from the adults. I’ll never forget. Emily came along and we had this chicken. She just took it, and she began to make it into this most beautiful dish, with the most amazing flavorings. She had tray after tray, just going into the oven. This girl, how old is she?

Christy: She just turned 17.

Nancy: Yes, just turned 17. She was feeding this multitude with the most delectable food. I was so proud of her! She was just amazing!

So, then they have Cannon, and Frankie, and Gennell, and Hannah, and Ibbi. Oh, I love Ibbi. What a gorgeous name!

Christy:  Yes, Ibbi loves you!

Nancy: Oh, but she’s so gorgeous. Not only are their names gorgeous, they’re such gorgeous children! Oh, yes! And then Jace, and Kindle. She’s so gorgeous, too. But I love how you thought of naming her “Kindle.” Tell me how you thought of that.

Christy: Well, we knew that we needed a “K" name because we do have the alphabet going there. It’s not in order at the beginning, but as we get down to Frankie, we have Frankie, Gennell, Hannah, Ibbi, Jace, Kindle, and Lynlee. So, we needed a “K" name. At first, we were thinking that we would name her "Kendall."

But my husband purchased for me, and this was so long ago. I’m kind of behind the times and didn’t have podcasts and things like that. It was an MP3 or something that you were teaching from a long time ago. You had said that we need to keep the fire kindled in our older children’s hearts, not just the children that we still have at home with us, but our children who are grown up and out of the house.

By this time, I did have children grown up. My son was going to be married right when she was going to be born. So, I wanted to keep that fire kindled in my older children now. That just stood out to me. “Kindle,” I love that name “Kindle,” and I love the meaning of it. That’s how she got her name.

Nancy: Oh, I just love that! Yes, because that’s what the Bible talks about, how we are to kindle the flame. We do that, of course, by coming together as a family and reading the Word, and praying together. We’re kindling the flame, and kindling the Light in each one of our lives.

That is so beautiful. Then we have Lynlee, the last little darling who loves to talk all the time.

Christy:  Oh, yes! Yes, yes. She takes after me.

Nancy: It’s just lovely, introducing all these wonderful families who live in this great, good land of motherhood. In the Scriptures, we are in Titus 2. We are now up to that very word where one of the things the older women are to teach the younger women is to be good. Good! That’s what it says. Well, it just means to be good. Actually, I shared with you in the first session all the meanings of that word “good.” There are so many wonderful meanings.

And then, the next one, which is another good thing. It says that we are to teach the younger women to be “obedient to their husbands.” Wow! To some people, that really doesn’t sound so very nice, especially in this feministic age in which we live. Most women, even Christian women, don’t believe in being obedient to their husbands. Help!

But the Bible says it’s a good thing. Isn’t it amazing that we often think we know better than God? And what God said is good, we don’t like. But you see, it always works out for good. The actual Greek word is hupotasso. Coming from two Greek words, hupo and tasso. Now, hupo means “under,” and tasso means “to arrange in an orderly manner, to assign to a certain position.

So that’s actually the full meaning of the word “submission,” because that’s the same word. Where it says to be obedient to our husbands is the same word that is used in other places where it says we are to submit to our husbands. It’s this word hupotasso.

And yet, there are so many women who cringe at that word. They just can’t get around it. It’s amazing, because one of the greatest and most powerful attributes of Christ Himself is that He is submissive. He was submissive to His Father’s will. He was submissive to the cross. I mean, help!

To be submissive, or to obey our husbands in some little thing he tells us, is pitiful compared to submitting to the cross. Not only the physical agony, but the spiritual agony of when He had to take upon Himself the sin of the whole world, and the pain of the world. He willingly submitted. He said: “I delight to do Thy will, oh my God” (Psalm 40:8).

So, how is it? I can understand people in the world, they don’t believe in submission. Well, you can understand that, because they don’t understand anything of Jesus and Christ and His life. But when we come to the Lord, and we belong to Christ, well, who are we? We are a Christ-one. We have Christ dwelling in us.

But if we don’t have that spirit of submission that He had, does He really dwell in us? But I’ll show you this.

Hupo. OK, it means “under.” You think, “Help! Do I have to come under my husband” Well, let me give you some Scriptures.

Matthew 23:37and Jesus is speaking. He says: “How often would I have gathered thy children together?” He’s talking about Jerusalem. “Even as a hen gathers her chickens under (hupo) her wings, and you would not.” And he’s talking about Jerusalem, likening Jerusalem to a hen, with her chickens all under her wings. She’s got her wings over them, protecting them, and watching over them.

He said, “This is what I want to do. I want to protect you. I want to gather you under my wings. But you would not.” Isn’t it interesting, how we can resist that word? And although it means “under,” it’s a beautiful word. It’s a beautiful word of protection.

Another time Jesus was talking, and He noticed this little mustard seed. And He talked about it, and He said how this mustard seed grows up into this great big tree so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. That same word again, “under.” The same word that is used in submission, “under.” In Mark 4:32. It’s another beautiful description of the birds, just lodging under the shadow of the tree.

That’s what submission is all about. When we submit to our husband, who is our protection and our covering, we can blissfully bask in that protection. It is so wonderful. And I am so glad, because, goodness me, if I did the things that I wanted to do, and I had my way, I couldn’t imagine where we’d be today. Most likely, we wouldn’t even be married, but it would have all been wrong and gone to destruction anyway!

My husband is such an amazing protector over me, keeping me on the right path! Keeping me from going out too crazy. [laughter] Yes. Let me give you another one.

1 Corinthians 10:1-2. That’s sharing how God protected the children of Israel in the wilderness. It says that they were “under the cloud.” In the wilderness, the cloud protected them from the heat.

Isn’t it a beautiful word? It’s so amazing, isn’t it? So, as an older mother, I am commanded and mandated to encourage you, dear mothers, that it’s a beautiful thing, it’s a good thing, to submit to your husband. Has that been how you got on with that in your life, Christy?

Christy: I had to learn some hard lessons.

Nancy: We all have to learn. We never start out just being this perfect, submissive wife, do we? Why is it that we all resist? I don’t know! And so, we learn that it’s the best thing after all.

Christy: It is, yes. I learned that it definitely is so freeing to trust the Lord to my husband, and then trust my husband, that as he follows the Lord, that he will lead our family the way the Lord has us to go. That he is protecting us. I have a very loving and protective husband. I’m so blessed.

I did have to learn some hard lessons, though. I liked to do things my way for about the first ten years. I’m very blessed the way the Lord was gentle with me and my learning. I’m very blessed. I learned at that time, yes, this is a blessing, because the rest of the time has just been amazing! It really has been!

Nancy: Yes, yes, I know. For you see, I think you . . . Actually, it’s the fruit of something that we see. The fruit of resistance and “I’ll do it my way, thank you!” Most times that ends in destruction and the fruit of it is not good at all. God’s way is always the best. Amen!

And so, all these lovely things we’ve been talking about, ladies, the Bible says they are good things. They’re beautiful things. Then, at the end of that passage, oh my. It’s pretty strong at the end. It says that if the older women are not teaching these things, and so few are doing it today. Where do you find older women teaching the young women? And even encouraging them to be at home? Most of the older women are out! Hoo hoo, they’re gone! Their children are grown, I’m out of here!

They’re out in their careers. How can they be showing or teaching the young women when they’re not even doing it themselves? The Bible says here that if we do not walk in this way, we blaspheme the Word of God. That’s pretty strong, isn’t it?

I remember one time using that Scripture in an issue of Above Rubies. My, I just got the most horrific kind of feedback! “How dare you say that?” Well, the funny thing was, I wasn’t saying it! It’s the Bible! [laughter] Isn’t it amazing how women can be so up in arms and mad at something when it’s actually the very living Word of God itself?

Other translations say:

“It will bring disrepute to the Word of God.”

“It will bring reproach.”

“It will bring shame.”

“It will discredit the Word of God.”

“Disgrace the Word of God.”

“Dishonor it, malign it, revile it, slander it, speak evil of it.”

 All those words are translated for when we do not do this.

I think it’s because this is God’s plan. This is God’s perfect will, the plan He made for women. So, when we do not walk in it, we are actually, we are literally blaspheming Him, because we’re refusing to walk in His ways. And we’re showing to the world a different picture than God intends us to show, because by our lives we are created and born to reveal the likeness of God and to reveal His ways. So, if we’re doing the opposite, well, we are not really much of a blessing to God, are we?

Now here we are, talking about this good land. I want you to share a few more things, Christy. I know you started off all excited about this good land with your first baby, but was everything always perfect and good?

Christy: Oh, my! No. [laughter] It got very hard. I was very excited to become a mommy, and I loved everything about being a mommy. But as they grow, they start to get this little mind of their own, and they start to get this little will of their own. I don’t know if I was prepared for that. I really didn’t know what to do.

I wasn’t trained. I didn’t know my Bible. I didn’t know that children were supposed to be disciplined. So, my little guy just got away with things. And boy, did that grow quickly in him! It was actually at that time, when my next baby was borntoo. To me, I was thinking, “Oh dear! What have I done?”

But I still loved being a mother. I loved being a mother, even though it was hard. But then it wasn’t until my baby Andrew was born, my little angel baby, that the Lord opened my eyes to the beauty of being a mother. He just gave me a heart to love it, beyond anything I could have done for myself. Writing a book. He did that work in my heart. To Him be all the glory.

He made me love to be a mother. I love that Scripture that you just shared about the chickens under the hen’s wings. Because that is how I feel toward my children. I’ve never really linked it to that Scripture for some reason, but hearing you say that, oh, I just . . .

When Andrew was a sick baby in the hospital, I was homeschooling Brody through kindergarten. Derrick was three. So, I got to just have them with me every day. I would put them up to lay down next to their brother in his bed or they’d be on my lap. They were just with me every second of the day.

I’ve pretty much kept them like that, even all these years. I still have them here with me today. They go everywhere with me. That’s the way I like it to be.

Nancy: So wonderful! And you were telling me once about how, I think you were up to about baby number seven. Oh! You had all these little ones all around you, and it was getting you feeling a little overwhelmed, and you were complaining. What happened then?

Christy: Oh, my goodness! Thank God for my friend Joanie. She’s been an amazing blessing in my life. She is the picture of a joyful mother. I got to know her after my sixth baby was born. She’s been a very huge example in my life of being a joyful mother.

I happened to be at her house one day after a hard day, or a hard week, or something. I was venting to her. I said, “Oh, this is just so hard! Oh, this, this, this!” Apparently, I was complaining quite a bit and not realizing it until she gently placed her hand on me and said, “Would you mind not sharing all of these things right now? My young girls are listening to you, and I want them to be joyful mothers someday. I want them to want to have children someday. The things that you’re saying might make them maybe not want to be a mother someday.”

I was like, “Oh, my word! I didn’t even realize what I was just doing!” It was the very second she said it, I knew what I had been doing, and the Lord did a work in my heart, just like that, like a flash of lightning. I realized I never ever again want to complain about being a mother.

Nancy: Wow!

Christy: I probably have, [laughter] but I try to recognize it, and I really try to show the joy of being a mother now.

Nancy: Beautiful. That was amazing that that lovely mother was faithful, just to say something too.

Christy: What an example to me!

Nancy: Yes, yes. Imagine how, when we complain about motherhood, what it does to our children? I mean, that certainly is not going to make them want to be mothers if we’re complaining all the time. God equates joy with motherhood. I love Psalm 113:9: “He makes the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.”

We’re talking about this good, wonderful land. That’s not the only Scripture that speaks to us as mothers about the good things.

In 1 Timothy 5:10 it also speaks about the woman there. I can’t believe it. I came to this podcast without my Bible! I can’t believe it! Have you got yours there? I always have my Bible beside me. Let me go to 1 Timothy. Oh, wow, this is amazing! You’ve got the Hebrew-Greek Study Bible! Wow! My favorite Bible.

1 Timothy 5:10. In this passage of Timothy, Paul is writing to Timothy to answer a problem that he had in the church. That was, they had all these widows! I’m not sure why there were so many widows. Timothy said, “What do I do with them all? How do I look after them all?”

So, Paul wrote back, very practically, because the Bible is so practical. It gives every practical thing for our lives. Paul said, “If any of those widows have family, or even grandchildren, they must care for their widows. But” he said, “If they don’t have children, and they don’t have grandchildren, and they don’t have any family to look after them, and they are a true older woman,” and he gives the age. Sixty years of age and over. It's interesting. You can be an older woman in that you’re older than some other mother. I think all along the way, we should always be encouraging mothers younger than us. But the official age of an older woman is 60 years of age. Interesting, isn’t it?

But I was encouraging women before I was 60 years of age. I started Above Rubies before I was 60 years of age. I was encouraging young mothers. I think we’re all meant to do that. We’re all meant to be encouraging those who are just coming on behind. But this was the exact thing that Paul said.

He said, “OK, so any of these ladies, they’re 60 years of age, and no one to look after them.” Oh, and here’s another thing. They had to have lived a certain lifestyle! What was the lifestyle? “Well reported of for good works.” There is it again! That word “good.” It’s just meant to be so much part of the land of motherhood. We are to be involved in good works.

And yes, we can be involved in good works out in the neighborhood, out in our city, helping the poor, and doing this, and doing that. Yes, but we only do those when we have done the first good works, which are in our homes. Because it starts off, and God does everything . . . it’s always in perfect order.

The first thing: “If she has brought up children.” That’s the very first good work that God gives us to do. There it is. “If she has brought up children.” The word “brought up” is teknotropheo, from two words, teknon, “child,” and trephos, “to feed, to nurture, to fill up.” Oh, it’s an amazing word!

What it’s saying here is really the whole thing of motherhood. It’s feeding, right from when your little baby is born. We put the baby to the breast, and we nurse the baby from the breast with feeding. But we continue feeding.

Once that little baby weans, we’re feeding it food. It's just in us to feed our children. So, we’re always feeding. It’s motherhood. So many mothers despise cooking! They’re not really interested. “Oh, well, have to cook another meal.” No! Feeding, cooking, is good work! Amazing! Yes.

Christy: I am in the process of learning to love to cook for my family. All of these years, a lot of them were not very good in the kitchen. But as I see that it is such a need, and I want to nourish my family with good food, good food, it has become more of a priority.

Nancy: That’s the interesting thing. It’s a good thing to cook and to feed our families. But then again, we’ve got to feed them with good food. Yes, it’s not much of a thing if we’re just going to feed them junk food and de-vitalized food and all these white pastas, and rice, and bread, and all that stuff.

As mothers, we have such a responsibility to feed them good food. When God talks about His shepherds feeding their flock, it talks about them taking them to good pastures, and green pastures, and lush pastures. We, as mothers, are meant to do the same. We are to take them to the lush pastures, the good pastures.

Even if it’s not been a thing in our lives, we really need to learn to make it that way. Now, of course, you’re teaching your children. Emily has just become such a wonderful cook, hasn’t she? This is a very important art, because cooking is an art. Like so much of motherhood is an art. Breastfeeding is an art that you learn. Birthing is an art that you learn. Cooking is an art that you learn. We can hone our arts and realize. When we realize it’s an art form . . .

When you think about it, mothers, and you say, “Oh, I don’t like cooking,” just think of the people who go to school and go to college and go to all these special classes to learn to be these great cooks! It is an art! Here you have the opportunity of honing an art, right there in your home which will bless your family and bless so many other people as well.

So, that is a good thing. But, oh, our time has gone. It’s gone so quickly! But let’s pray, shall we?

“Oh, dear Father, we thank You so much that we can come together. We can talk about the things that relate to us as women, the things that You want us to be involved in, in the home. Thank You for reminding us that they are good things.

“You look down upon us, Lord God, and You see that as we mother, and as we gather our children in our arms, as we feed them each meal, day after day, and day after day that it’s a good thing!

“And, Lord, as we are faithful, it’s all building up. It’s going into our crowns that we will have one day. So, I just pray, Father, that You will encourage, and inspire, and bless every precious wife and mother listening today. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 191: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 2

Zadok Elijah Johnson joins me today. Zadok is Evangeline and Howard’s oldest son, who runs the BSC courses for young men (BIBLE, SURVIVAL, AND COMBAT).

We continue speaking about the first description of the land—IT IS A GOOD LAND! One of the good things is to be home, mothers! How does Zadok fit into this? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, today I have my oldest grandson with me, Zadok Johnson. That’s Evangeline’s son. Actually, I think if we were to pronounce your name correctly, it would be “Za-DOK Eli-YA-hu.” Would that be right?

Zadok Johnson: Well, it’s definitely not an American version.

Nancy: I know. I don’t think I’m even saying it correctly for Hebrew. My lovely Israeli listeners, you’ll have to forgive me that I don’t always pronounce the Hebrew words correctly. But Zadok, as we say here in America, means “leading many to righteousness.”

Right from a little boy, Zadok knew what his name meant. I think names are very important. As you speak them into your children, they get the destiny of their name. Zadok grew up knowing this was his destiny, to lead many to righteousness. He’s always had that anointing upon him. He’s still doing it today at 29 years of age. He leads the, what do we call it? BSC, Basic Survival Course. Did I get it right?

Zadok: Bible. Yes, so it’s BSC, BIBLE – SURVIVAL - COMBAT.

Nancy: Well, I heard completely wrong. Bible and Survival and Combat. Maybe some of your sons have already been and absolutely loved it, even though they came home and had to sleep for a week!

Zadok will be having many this coming year. Have you got any organized yet, Zadok?

Zadok: We have six Bible bootcamps planned for this coming year which is super exciting.

Nancy: I guess that’s so far, because they seem to pop up along the year as well, don’t they?

Zadok: Right, right.

Nancy: Where is your first one?

Zadok: We actually haven’t launched that officially on the website yet. I’ve been so busy with logistics and speaking at youth events this winter that I haven’t had time. It will get launched up probably in the next month or two.

Nancy: I see. Yes. So, they can go to the website, which is. . .

Zadok: www.bsccourse.com. That “bsc” is separate from “course,” so you’ll have to type that in clearly: www.bsccourse.com.

Nancy: Yes, so your sons will love that! So, I have Zadok here because he popped over this morning and we were chatting together. He was telling me about how’s he’s been out speaking at some youth events. He has a few little things to say that I’ll ask him along the way.

We are now in our second session of “The Land that Flows with Milk and Honey.” We’re on point number one, IT IS A GOOD LAND. We’re looking at the good things, the beautiful things that God wants the older women to teach the younger women.

We are up to “keepers at home.” We were mentioning how many women don’t like that phrase. But it is a Bible phrase. We either believe the Bible or we don’t believe. I’m amazed at how many “Christian” women don’t actually believe the Bible! Well, they say they do, but there’s so many things that they don’t really believe in it!

Well, let’s look at this word “keepers at home.” There actually are two translations of this word, coming from the different manuscripts. The first is oikourogo. Maybe I’m not pronouncing it correctly. But it comes from two Greek words, oikos, meaning “home,” and ergon, meaning “to work.” So, the literal meaning is “home workers.”

Now, I believe in women working. I’m a great heralder of working women. But where do they work? That is the issue. God wants women to work in the home! Home-workers. This is where we work. This is our life’s work! And it is work! It takes everything of you to work in the home. It’s not a holiday. It is work!

But it’s a marvelous work. It’s a wonderful work. It’s a glorious work. It’s a good work, as Titus 2 says.

But there is another translation, which comes from the Received Text, oikouros.  It also is from two Greek words, oikos, “home,” and ouros, meaning “to guard, to watch, to keep, to have the oversight and responsibility for something.” So, this time it means “home-guarders.”

Both meanings are so wonderful—homeworker, home-guarder. We are in the home to guard over our home, to guard over our children’s lives, to watch that the enemy does not intrude into our homes. It’s a full-time job to be a home-guarder. To be a guarder, you have to be there!

Many of you have a watchdog at your home. When someone comes, your dog will bark, letting you know he’s a good watchdog. Now, if your dog wasn’t at your home, he couldn’t be a watchdog. And we cannot be a watchdog if we’re not in the home.

This is another aspect of the home-guarding. In the King James version, it says, “keepers of the home.” It’s a picture of the keeper of the castle. He guards that castle. He will not allow any intruders into that castle, because that’s his job, to guard over it. It’s also our job, not only to work in our homes, but to guard over our homes.

Now, this word is the only time it’s used in the whole of the New Testament. So, to truly understand it, we can’t go to any other Scriptures. We have to go back to what was happening at the time when that Scripture was written, to understand the actual Greek language at that time.

This word was always used at that time of a stay-at-home mother, and also of a stay-at-home father, who didn’t go out to war. He was called a “stay-at-home father.” It was used even of a dog who was a watchdog, so that is the actual meaning.

Although sometimes those words “stay-at-home” can seem negative and binding. Oh, goodness me, sort of like a prison! Oh, no! No! To be in the home is a glorious thing! Our home is a place where we can accomplish so much! We are in the home. God gave the home to women.

I love going back to Genesis and seeing how God did it all. We read there, in Genesis 2, how God created the man. And then, before He created the woman, the next thing He did was create the Garden home. It was the next thing! He got the home ready before He brought the woman into the world.

We don’t even read about the woman until we go right down in that chapter to verse 18. Genesis 2:18: “I will make you a help-meet.” And then God creates the woman. He brings her to the man. When Eve wakes up to life, she’s already in her home! God had it all ready for her, because this is where He wanted her, in the home.

This is the place that He planned for the raising of children, a place of safety and security, and a place that we guard from the intrusion of the enemy, a place where we can raise our children in the ways of the Lord, away from all the deceptions and the ugliness of the world. Yes, they’re going to go out to face that ugly, deceived, sinful world. They’re going to go out to live in it.

But we have to first get them ready to live in it. It’s like when we plant a tree. You would understand this, Zadok, because you are the great organic farmer. But when you plant a tree, a little tree, a little sapling, if you don’t protect it, it’s just going to die. Yes, have you found experience with that?

Zadok: Yeah, absolutely. They call it “plant shock,” when you put out a plant that has been growing in a nice greenhouse. Now it gets planted out in the early spring, in the cold. It will actually suffer from that “plant shock,” as they call it. You actually have to harden them off.

There’s maybe a one-week time, when before you take your plants out to the field, you actually take your plants out for a few days, and let them experience the elements, shall we say. I think that even applies to humans. You don’t just, children don’t just get kicked out of the home at a certain point. There’s that maturing to be able to handle the things of this world.

Nancy: That is so true. I’ve ruined many, many little saplings and haven’t protected them enough. And they’ve died. They’ve got to be protected in those early years. They have to be, really, they’ve got to be strong enough, and ready enough, and have the Word of God in them enough, to go out and face all those deceptions.

Zadok: Amen. Amen.

Nancy: Yes, that is so true. You know, we’re there, in the home, doing this. It’s not some little insignificant thing. We are impacting the nation. Dear ladies, a nation is only what its mothers are. Because the mothers are there in the heart of the home, training the children. This is what we are doing. We are teaching, and training, and encouraging, and exhorting, and inspiring, and guarding, and guiding, and even commanding, and putting destiny into our children.

It is so powerful! We not only affect the nation, but we affect other nations of the world. My children have grown, of course, and now they’re raising their children, and their children are raising their children! We now have the great-grandchildren coming on

But my children have been to countries I haven’t even been to take the Gospel. My grandchildren have been . . . you’ve been to countries I haven’t been! Oh my, I’ve been to many countries of the world, but you’ve been to some countries I’ve never got to, some interesting countries. What are some you’ve been to recently?

Zadok: Well, not recently, because God has pulled me back to train up young men. But I have been to the jungles of southeast Asia, and in China which was exciting, Bangladesh, and Burma.

Nancy: I haven’t got to those countries yet. But how did you get there? Only because I brought your mother into the world and trained her to be an evangelist for God. She trained you and you went out!

Zadok: Right. Right. I will say I have often thought, everyone I have ever shared the Gospel with, it’s my parents’ reward, and your reward, that what they have sown, I get to reap. Even Jesus said that. “I send you out where others have sown, and you get to reap the reward.”

Nancy: Yes. So lovely ladies, you darling young mums who have just, you’ve got your little ones around you, and you’re tearing your hair out, and you hardly know what you’re doing. Oh, be encouraged! Not one moment of motherhood is wasted. It’s an eternal career. You’re not only preparing them to impact the world but you’re getting them ready for eternity!

Just think, these little children, you can hardly even imagine what will happen one day and where they will go to serve the Lord. Just begin to plant those seeds in them. Give them that inspiration. Put it into them. Don’t just let your children amble along.

It’s become a thing today, that parents like to let their children just do what they feel. Parents have lost that anointing of commanding their children and really impacting their lives powerfully and purposely. That is parenting! Parenting is not just being good friends. Well, that’s important. You’ve got to be good friends. But just letting them, you don’t want to put anything too much on them, because, well, they may not like you. They may just rebel. Oh, for goodness’ sake!

OK, what was Abraham, the pattern father? And what does it say about him? Let me have a look here. It’s in Genesis 18:19: “For I know him, that he will COMMAND his children and his household after him.” Yes! He commanded them in the ways of God.

He didn’t let them decide for themselves whether they would follow God or whether they would come to church. I have some mothers who, their children don’t want to come, “Well, OK, you can stay home.” I beg your pardon! That’s not parenting! Parenting is commanding your children in the ways of God. And that’s what Abraham did. “And they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment.” That’s parenting. Yes!

So, there we are. We’re in the home. We’re doing a great, great job. And you don’t actually have to be running around everywhere. Years and years ago, and I haven’t even seen this car sticker in, I can’t remember how many years, because how long have I been married? Fifty-nine years in March! Whoo!

But when I was a young mother, I saw this car sticker: “If a mother’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car?” Well, actually, the car isn’t the best place for mothering your children. It’s meant to be the home.

Of course, we’ve got to go out. We’ve got to get our groceries and we’ve got to do certain things. But I think because every mother has a car today, they get tempted to be running around too much. Watch it, dear mothers. It doesn’t say, “You’re to be the keepers of the car,” but the “keepers of the home.” That’s where you’ll accomplish so much more.

Now, did your mother run you around everywhere in the car, Zadok?

Zadok: Absolutely not! And, in fact, I’m thinking she probably hiked us more places than she walked us. I mean, more places than she drove us. You even know this, with Mum even turning down many Above Rubies events, even though there were mothers who wanted her to come, that she wanted to see. She would say no, just to hang out with us, and to disciple us.

The other problem with the car is that you can’t spank your children because they’re in the back seat! There’s always the rowdy four-year-old in the very back of the seat, who’s pinching the next brother or sibling. You can’t be on top of them with a family. We were in a big car ride, going up in northern Minnesota. It was so interesting. Why is it that always in cars, it’s maybe a little harder to be on top of them, in a beautiful way.

Nancy: Did you go to lessons, and sports, and everything, all the time?

Zadok: No, not at all. It came from, I think, a focus of leadership. Mum didn’t allow us to control her life. We were, if Mum was into sewing, we had to learn how to sew. If Mum was into knitting, all of us boys know how to knit! Because Mum was determined to have us for friends. We were jumping into her world. Where I see it often the other way around. “Oh, well, my children are into soccer.” I was into soccer, but they never took me to soccer games. I didn’t play soccer on a team.

Nancy: They had plenty of soccer out here on this lawn!

Zadok: Right! Right! I think, yeah, Mum and Dad didn’t take us everywhere. They would take us to the things that mattered to them and to the family. But often it’s the whole family, running around for one of the special children that gets the, shall we say, the point. That can be healthy if it’s monitored. But, yeah, I couldn’t agree more, Nana.

Nancy: I think this has become a way of mothering in our society today. The mothers think that this is what you have to do. You’ve got to take your children to this lesson, and this sport, and that. And the children think that’s what has to happen too.

Zadok: They’re not missing out. That’s the thing. The temptation of the society is, oh, your children won’t develop right, they’ll be missing out of something if you don’t look like all the other mothers. My Mum was the radical and very individualistic. But all of us turned out following the Lord, all ten of us. I think that’s because we saw it in her life. She would rather spend time with us than us going and hanging out with peers somewhere here or there.

Nancy: That is so true. There’re certain things you will do, but just watch over it, and guard it, because you don’t have to. I just want you to know, lovely mothers, you don’t have to do what every other mother is doing. You don’t have to be running around everywhere.

Actually, half the time, when I was raising our children, I didn’t have a car anyway! Therefore, my children didn’t go to all these things. But they all survived. They didn’t only survive, they all have done such incredible, great, amazing things! And they didn’t even have to do all that to do them! No! That’s not what makes room for your children. The Word of God, in Proverbs 18:16 says: “Your gift will make room for you and bring you before kings.”

But, talking about cars, actually, believe it or not, I haven’t even had a car for the last two years! I borrowed my car to someone, out of my good heart, and they never gave it back! So, I just never had one.

The amazing thing is, I survived. Do you know, ladies, I really hardly noticed that I didn’t have a car? Life in our home is so exciting. We have so many functions, and bridal showers, and baby showers, and weddings, and parties, and people coming and going. Hospitality continually.

I give myself the impression that I’m going everywhere! Actually, I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying here. I’m in the home, but everything’s happening. Life is exciting. I’m seeing so many people, and hundreds of people! It’s exciting.

But you see, you make your home what you want it to be. You are the one who makes it. If your home is boring, and you’re bored at home, there’s something wrong, because your home can be the most exciting place in the world, a place where you can accomplish great things.

Yes, because, and especially as a mother, it’s far more than just, OK, looking after your little children. It’s more than that. It’s being inspired to what they will be and putting that into them. You were created, you were chosen, you were commissioned for motherhood. God wants you to be committed to it. And He wants you to complete it!

Many mothers, oh, I’ve just sent out the new Above Rubies, as you know. Each time an Above Rubies goes out, I always have this sad time when older mothers will email me and say, “Thank you, Nancy, for sending Above Rubies to me all these years. But my family has grown now, so I don’t need it anymore. So, I’m going to cancel my subscription.”

And I feel so sad! Because they haven’t yet completed their career! We are mothers, not for a certain time. We are mothers until we meet the Lord. It’s who we are. And motherhood does not finish when our children leave the home! In fact, it doubles, it enlarges, it becomes bigger, because not only do grandchildren start to come along, and then great-grandchildren, but as older mothers, by this time you are an older mother. . .

If you happen to be an older mother listening, you’re an older mother, and now you are commissioned. You are mandated. You are commanded in the Word of God to teach the younger women. So, what are you doing? Cancelling Above Rubies? I don’t think you’re teaching the younger women. And what about your daughters and your daughters-in-law? Help!

You see, we’ve got to pass it on to the next generation. This is a deceived generation like no other generation before. There is such deception. There are so few women in the home. We have got to get the message out. Older women are needed! There needs to be an army of older women who are teaching the young women and showing them the way. In their homes! How can they even show them if they’ve left the home? We can’t even show them.

It’s not just mothering our little ones, then our middlings, then our teens. But it’s them mothering other mothers! That’s our life work.

Oh, Zadok! While you’re here, you must tell me. You were sharing this morning about how you’ve been out speaking at these youth. You know, these are Christian youth, and yet, and yet, you couldn’t believe where they are at in their lives.

Zadok: Yeah, it’s so sad. God brought me back from the foreign mission field to raise up the next generation here in the West. It’s young missionaries. I get the great privilege of working with lots of teenagers and hundreds of young men. It’s just so sobering. Every single time that I get to preach to young people, or share my heart, I come away going, to be honest, first I thought, “Wow, is the next generation just missing it?”

And then I realize, no, they’re not. We are, because we haven’t realized that our words carry the weight of destiny that they will run on. Young people are raised with a “Well, I’m provided for, and I have boundaries in my home,” but not necessarily having the life being spoken into them of destiny.

I was sharing with you, Nana, earlier, how I’ve been at some youth events, and I realized youths are not necessarily purposed with destiny, with vison over their life. They’re lacking in that area. That is really the foundation of other things in our Christian faith. Without vision, people perish. With vision, we have life, that vision of the glories of eternity with God, and living with Him for eternity. We are the most despicable among people if we don’t have that resurrection, that vision.

And yet, teenagers today are living, “Well, you know, hopefully I’ll have some fun." I’m going, “I love fun, but our fun as believers comes from this purpose, my destiny. We’ve got a life to live in this amazing job called the life for God!”

I was thinking, as we were talking earlier, in some ways I have no choice. Yes, I was given a choice to not follow the Lord. But at the same time, I was telling someone just recently this week, “Yeah, my grandparents and parents were determined to make me a public speaker, whether I liked it or not!” I can remember you, Nana, getting up to speak in front of your motherly friends when I was only, what? Ten or eleven years old?

Nancy: Oh, yes. At our Christmas parties and functions, everybody has to get up and say something. When you were little, you could hardly put two words together!

Zadok: Oh, I hated it! I absolutely despised it! In fact, sometimes I thought, “Man, I’ll just hide in the woods this Christmas!” I was thinking, “How can I sneak away from a Christmas shindig?” Because I knew that my grandparents would make me practice, to get me to be a public speaker.

And without even knowing it, it laid the foundation for me now. . . I love sharing the Gospel to hundreds of people. I think that next generation, we’re talking, of course, with you guys being mothers, and you’re two, three, four years old. What if we were speaking life into these young children?

Not just like, “Oh, you’re a great blessing,” but “You’re going to be a world changer! You’re going to share the Gospel with many. Nations are your possession.” These are all Scriptures. Yes, it’s prophetic. Destiny upon people’s lives.

But it’s also just straight Scripture. Actively teaching the nations that you are an inheritance. You are a saint, a royal, holy priesthood, a royal possession unto the Lord. Your heart will be steadfast unto the Lord. Train up a child in the way he shall go, and he shall not depart from it. Well, now we just speak the “not depart from it.” We take that as a command for our own lives. Well, speak that now over them. “You will not depart from the ways of the Lord. That is not your portion.”

To speak that life over children, I am so thankful I was raised in a home where my parents, which received some of these blessings from you guys, Nana and Granddad, spoke that over my life. “You’re going to change the world. You’re going to share the Gospel with many. You won’t be afraid of the darkness, for the Light is in you.”

As a young child, that laid a foundation for my life of confidence in God. I actually, I just have something I want to read here. Someone just recently asked me, “What’s your favorite thing about your family and the family culture I was raised in?’ I was like, “Wow, that’s kind of a heavy question to ask here.”

All of a sudden, the answer came to mind. I really want to honor you, Nana, for this, because I’m getting life out the fruit of that. So, the first thing that came to mind was the heritage in confidence in God’s ability to pull off the unobtainable, to pull off what is too big for man.

I think of my uncles and aunts. I think of my parents, all six of your children. They’ve all been able to pull off what man cannot do. God was upon their life. God was writing their destiny. Then I look at your grandchildren. How many? Because I don’t know how many cousins I have! I should.

Nancy: Fifty plus?

Zadok: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Nancy: And greats? Over twenty plus. We’ve got to keep counting now.

Zadok: So awesome. It’s great to be part of a great big family. But I look at our lives, and God doing impossible things in our family life. Our destiny, our legacy has been blessed by God’s ability to do things that we couldn’t do in our own flesh.

I think part of that is the confident expectation, the spoken word of destiny that you will do things that God can only pull off. I would so much rather train a young man that hasn’t got to go to soccer practice, but instead had parents that were his close friends. Because they were his friends, they were able to speak those words of life and empowerment, “You’re going to be someone who will change the world.”

It’s not just generic because it’s not coming from some random person. But it’s coming from a parent that’s your friend, who’s invested in your life. As you were saying earlier in the podcast, that has not gone off with doing everything else, but instead sacrificed on behalf of their children. Being invested. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the next generation is missing destiny that we ourselves are responsible for implanting at a young age.

Nancy: Yes, and I think today there’s so much outside pressure on parents to be involved in this, and that, and going here, and going there. There’s not the same time for family togetherness. Especially, I think, to me, I’ve always put a great weight upon the family meal table. That’s always been so important to me. I’m so glad that I have been faithful to that throughout the years, especially as the children were growing, because it was our togetherness.

I believe it was something that cemented us together, because we didn’t only come together and just sit and eat a meal. We came to talk, to discuss, to even debate, even though children would be up on their chairs, waving their fingers, getting their point across! We really discoursed. We really communicated. But, you see, that was better than just going off somewhere. It was cementing us as family. It is so important, I believe.

Zadok: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that, because that was our household, too. There might have been missionaries sitting on the floors some of the time. But it was always that discussion! And Mom and Dad were very invested in our lives, making sure it wasn’t a one-sided communication. Not just parents sharing, “OK, go to your room now. OK, clean up the dishes.”

But “What is God speaking to you, Zadok, as a young boy? What is God talking to you?” I love this. I think this is upon the family. It’s transferable, that conquest of seeing God invest, seeing God in small things, and in the big in our lives.

Well, even for example, my family. I can remember almost every day of my life, my mother coming up and saying, “Oh, you’re a world-changer! You can change the world! What’s your plan this week on changing the world? What’s your plan?”

We’d talk to my brothers, my siblings, Rashida or Sharah. “What’s your goal? How are you going to affect history this year?” It was those big, grand, glamorous ideas that sowed in us destiny for not being the average mediocre, or DMR’s as we call them (Daily Minimum Requirement). That was, of course, illegal in our household—the average roadside worker attitude.

I think that’s spiritual, too. Paul doesn’t say, “Oh, well, if we all share the Gospel with a few people.” And then I was sent out to Asia! I went first without asking permission. I went out to Arabia. It was on a purposeful conquest to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth, rather than just, “Well, it’s in my home, and we’re just going to do whatever.”

You’re raising . . . I say mothers change the world. You are raising dynamite. I was in an airplane flying back from a foreign country, Belize, as a missionary. I’m always excited about world missions, but I’m also excited about the mission of the person in front of me.

We’re flying through the night, and there’s that baby, that one baby on the airplane that’s just screaming his little ears off. I feel sorry because all of our jaws were hurting. I’ve got my stevia gum, and I’m trying to yawn and break the pressure in my ears. It’s a 17-hour flight. This mother is flustered and she’s coddling this little baby, jiggling it up and down.

I could see the first five people around here were just quite irritated. It was like a wave. The five people around her were pretending to not notice and they’re looking away. Then, as you get farther and farther away from the mother, people are louder and louder about their irritation of the baby because the mom’s not going to hear and not going to be offended. “Man, I wish that baby would shut up!” It's just that kind of irritation. Of course, no one enjoys hearing constant screaming, but the honest answer is, all of us were babies in that plane at one point. All of us were that baby screaming.

So, afterward, we arrive, we land, everyone is getting up, and this mother is four aisles ahead of me. I quickly slip up and I say, “Excuse me.” She looks at me like, “Oh, here it goes. I’m going to get ratted out.” I said, “Listen, thank you so much for being a mother. Mothers change the world. I want to tell you something.” And she looked at me, very stern-like, because I said it very seriously.

I said, “You know, one of my friends is a nuclear scientist and he works in a power plant in California. He spent his whole life, years and years, over 14 years, I believe, in college, learning nuclear science. He’s got in degrees in abstract math. He’s a genius” I said. “And then there are these scientists, so they built these nuclear weapons, and these nuclear reactors that go on to power whole states and society. They’ve spent their whole life locked away in a little cubicle doing mathematics.

“And then there are mothers, just like you, who spend their whole life, not, shall we say, locked away, but shall we say, pulled away from normal society to build one nuclear reactor, a human being.” And I quoted her a Scripture. I didn’t give her the reference because I wasn’t preaching. I was just encouraging.

I said, “You know, the Bible says to shine light in a crooked and perverse generation.” I said, “You’re creating a weapon called a human being, which will shine like a bright light in this crooked, broken society, and will carry out those implanted things, those destinies that you get to sow.”

I think so many parents, like you said for so many years, Nana. People think children just come and go. And that’s not the truth. They come, they get built, and then they get launched like an arrow. And unless we seize that opportunity to build them with our words then they will just continue to indecisively choose their destiny We’re here for a vapor. So, I think the sooner we can instill that, the better.

Nancy: Amen! And what did the lady say?

Zadok: Oh, she was actually totally speechless. She’s like, “Uh . . . thank you!” [laughter]

Nancy: Well, our time is gone. Thank you so much, Zadok for joining us today. It’s been a good time together, hasn’t it? And we’re over time, but you wanted to say one more thing.

Zadok: I wanted to say, this is the first time I’ve ever sat in on a podcast you’ve done. It’s like a woman’s podcast. I was like, “Oh, oh!” But, no, it’s good. You’re amazing, Nana. Love you.

Nancy: Oh, well. I hope, and I know you’ve been blessed. Let’s pray together, shall we?

“Father, I thank You that we have an inspired one another again today in our great commission and calling of motherhood. I ask, Lord, for Your anointing to fall on every mother, Lord, today.

That they will see, Father, that it’s not an insignificant thing to train a life that You have given and put into their hands. Lord God, it is a powerful thing, and I pray that, Lord, You will pour out Your Spirit upon them, and Your wisdom, and Your anointing, and You will give them a new vision for, Lord, imparting, and inspiring, and commanding Your ways into every one of their children, praying destiny into them, Father. I ask it in the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

You’ll want to check out the Bible – Survival – Combat website:

Bible-Survival-Combat (bsccourse.com)

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 190: THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD, Part 1

This podcast begins an exciting series about your LAND OF MOTHERHOOD. God wants to pour out blessings upon you IN THE LAND. The blessings are not for when you are out of the land, but IN YOUR LAND! He doesn't want you to be in your land grudgingly and grumblingly, but joyfully and purposefully.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Always good to be back with you. Today I am starting a new series. It’s called “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” You’ll soon find out what it is all about.

I’m sure you have received your new Above Rubies magazine by now. That’s if you live in the States. If you live in some other country, it will be still on its way to you. So, you have to have a little more patience.

For those of you in America, I’m sure you have already loved this issue of Above Rubies. I think it is so important to get this message out into the nation. I started Above Rubies nearly 45 years ago. The need was great then, but the need is greater now. There’s more deception.

Even since this magazine has gone out. I have received, oh goodness me, I can’t even believe it. Letters from people who are rejecting the magazine because they have embraced these new alternative lifestyles. Even Christians are being deceived. We must get the truth out!

I encourage you to share your magazine. That’s a little difficult if you only get one, because you want to keep it to yourself and your family. But you are welcome to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask for more magazines. I’m happy to send them to you if you can get them out to people.

We’ve got to get the message out. Take some in your handbag with you, in a plastic bag, so they don’t get all tattered and torn. When you go out to the supermarket or church, or wherever you go, always have one ready to pass on to another mother when you meet them.

Most restaurants and supermarkets have bathrooms where they have changing tables. That’s a lovely place to put a magazine. You can put one in the baby changing table. There it is, waiting for the next mother who’s going to come and change her baby. So, think of all the ways you can to get out this message.

I also have in my hand here the two new volumes of 100 Days of Blessing. I’ve had Volumes One and Two out for a long time. At last, Volumes Three and Four are printed. These two volumes are packed, absolutely packed full of truth, revelation from the Word of God to you, as a wife, as a mother.

They’re not flighty little devotions. They are devotions to get you into the Word, into the truth, to tell you what God wants to tell you about your wonderful role as a mother. I would encourage you to get them. You need them. You’ve got to know the truth. We’ve got to be filled with the truth, ladies. Not just have a little bit of it. We’ve got to know it! It’s got to be in us. It’s got to be part of us.

You will find these devotions, 100 days in each book, that will really encourage you, fortify you, and bless you. You can order them over the internet. Go to the webpage, and you’ll find them there. If you already have One and Two, when you get Three and Four, you will have 400 days of blessings, more than enough for one year. Even when you read them, you can’t get them all in one reading. You’ve got to read them over again.

So, they’re valuable books and wonderful gifts for mothers having a new baby, or even a mother having a birthday, or whatever. You’ll find them such a blessing.

Now, here we are. “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” Well, of course, you know that is talking about Israel. It is talking about the land that God discovered, that He found for His people Israel. That’s what He called it.

But He didn’t only call it “The Land That Flows with Milk and Honey.” I found 20 descriptions about the Land. And ladies, I want to take those descriptions, and I want to relate them to us, as wives and mothers, because every description really and particularly does relate to us as mothers.

Of course, these Scriptures were written about a literal land, the land of Israel. Oh, there are so many Scriptures. The Word of God is filled with them. I’d love you to go, if you have time, go to my webpage:

www.aboverubies.org.

Then go to, under “Articles and Stories.”

Then go to “Israel and the Land.”

Then you can click on the article called “Everlasting Possession.”

There I have listed all the promises about the Land of Israel. Even after Israel, even after the people were thrown out of the Land because of their sins, God did not give up on them. He gave so many promises that He would bring them back to the Land. All those promises are listed there. It’s just a marvelous study that you can look up.

But the Word of God is so powerful. And although when we read it, we first of all read it literally. But then there are always layers. There’s the spiritual significance, what speaks to us personally. Because God’s Word is alive! It’s not dead. It’s alive! It’s literally alive. It’s the living Word of God.

So, every word that God wrote is not only written about people back in those days, or promises to them, but it was written for us. Listen to this Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:11: “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”

So, ladies, here we are! We’re getting closer to the end. These words are written for us. That word there, that are written “for examples” is the word tupos. It means they are a type, a prototype. These types are written “for our admonition.” What does that mean? Well, that’s the Greek word nouthesia. It means, “to put into the mind a word of encouragement, but, if necessary, a word of reproof.”

All these Scriptures that I’m going to give you, they are going to relate to us. And I know you’re going to be blessed. But of course, we’ll start off with just a few about Israel so we know, OK, this is where it literally starts.

We’ll go way back to Genesis. Genesis 13:14-17: “And the LORD said unto Abram,” he wasn’t even Abraham yet. “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed,” that means his descendants, “forever.”

That is the literal, living Word of God. That promise was given, and it has never been rescinded. There are people today who despise Israel. They want to get rid of the land of Israel. They want to get the people of Israel out of the land. They want the Palestinians to take it over. No, this promise was given to Abraham and his descendants forever!

We go over to Genesis 17:8. Now here’s the chapter where God changes Abram’s name to Abraham, bringing the revelation that he will now become a father. He says, in Genesis 17:8: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”

You can’t get away from that Word of God. No matter what some countries say, no matter what some people say; there are even some Christians of our generation who say that now they’ve taken over all the promises for Israel. No, this is not true. They are literal, and every word that was given for the land was for an everlasting possession.

Psalm 105:7-12: “He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.”

Jeremiah 7:7: “I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers,” for how long? “Forever and ever.” That is the Word of the Lord.

Now, there’s hundreds of those promises. You can go to that link, “Everlasting Possession,” and check them all out.

But we see such a parallel, ladies. It’s amazing. What God loves, Satan hates. God loves His people, Israel. God chose the land for them. God loves that land because it’s God’s land. It’s even more God’s than it is Israel’s, but He gave it to them. But Satan hates it. He hates it. And he hates God’s people. He wants to eradicate them from the face of the earth.

And then it is the same with motherhood. Motherhood is God’s plan. He chose women to keep the generations going, to bring forth the godly seed, to be the foundation of the nation as they raise godly children in the home.

But because God planned that, it’s His plan, Satan hates it. And he wants to eradicate motherhood, just like he wants to eradicate Israel. You see, if Satan can eradicate Israel, he’s wiped out the Bible, because Israel is in the Bible, right from Genesis, the first book, right up to the last book of the Bible, where the gates of Jerusalem are named after the twelve patriarchs. Then the foundations “and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” It’s from Genesis to Revelation. There’s no Bible if there’s no Israel.

That’s why Satan wants to eradicate them. And the same with motherhood. He tries to eradicate motherhood. Even now, we’re living in an age where we have all this transgenderism. Even our Supreme Court has lawed that we can have homosexual marriages. I cannot even take it in. I hope you don’t get used to these things that are so evil and so antithesis to the Word of God.

But, you see, they cannot bring forth children. Satan has abortion, and birth control, and everything. It’s all masterminded by him, to eradicate the godly seed. He wants to woo mothers out of the home so that he can take control. Because mothers are so powerful.

THE DEVIL IS SCARED OF GODLY MOTHERS

Did you know you are so powerful, mother? You’re so powerful that the devil is scared of you. The devil is scared of mothers who know who they are, who know that God has chosen them and created them to bring forth the godly seed, and raise godly children who can impact a nation and make it a righteous nation. We are the ones who have that power to do that. We are in the home raising the children. Of course, the devil knows that if he can get the mothers out, well, he’s won the victory.

So, here we are, we’re looking at two things today that God love but Satan wants to eradicate. So, as we look at these descriptions of the Land, we’re going to be hearing what God wants to say to us as mothers.

THE BLESSINGS ARE FOR YOU WHEN YOU ARE IN THE LAND

OK. So, dear lovely ladies, I WANT TO WELCOME YOU TO THE LAND OF MOTHERHOOD. It’s a glorious land. Oh, you’re going to find out so many wonderful things about this land. But, you know, all the blessings that God has for Israel, they are all to His people in the Land. All these promises, they’re not for them when they’re out of the Land. No, when they were out of the Land, they were not under God’s blessing.

But even now, we see, as His people are coming back to the Land, because they were vomited out of the Land years and years ago. But God will never break His covenant with Israel. He said, “I’m going to bring you back from the four corners of the earth.” I’ve got one or two Scriptures about this, but you can find, oh, so many more if you look up “Everlasting Possession.”

Deuteronomy 15:4, that’s about being in the land. I’ll give you those ones now. “The Lord shall greatly bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, to possess it.” If you want to get all God’s blessings, you’ve got to be in the Land. Israel has to be in the Land. We, as mothers, we’ve got to be in the land of motherhood, not out of it, if we want God’s blessing.

Isaiah 61:7: “In their land, they shall possess the double: everlasting joy shall be unto them.”

Ezekiel 20:40: “For in My holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me.” Where does God want His people to serve Him? In the Land. Where does He want mothers to serve Him? In their land of motherhood. That’s where the blessings are, ladies. In the land. Say it with me:

IN THE LAND!

Well, most of you listening, you are in the land. You’re in that whole realm of mothering your little ones, and your middling ones, and your bigger ones. You’re in the land.

But, sadly, some of you are in the land grudgingly. You’re stuck there.  I mean, these children came along, so you’re stuck looking after them. You’re there, but you’re there grudgingly.

 Some of you are in the land despairingly. “Help! How can I get through this? Help! What am I doing here?”

Some of you are in the land grumblingly. Yes, lots of grumbles and complaints come from you every day.

Some of you are in the land ignorantly. Well, yes, you had these children, but you really don’t know what you’re doing. You hardly wonder why you’re there.

You’ve never been taught anything about this land of motherhood! But we’re going to start learning about it, because God wants you to be in the land joyfully, happily, embracingly, purposefully! Yes, purposefully.

IT IS A GOOD LAND

OK, well, let’s just start with point number one, shall we? The first point is, it is a good land. Did you know, that 24 times God speaks in His Word, that the Land of Israel is a good land. More than good. Numbers 14:7: “It is an EXCEEDING good land.”

In Judges 18:9: “It is a VERY good land.” Now the word “good” in Hebrew is tov. It’s a little word, tov. But it has a huge meaning. The lexicon in my bible gives all these meanings of the word “good” in the Hebrew. It means, “pleasant, beautiful, excellent, bountiful, lovely, delightful, joyful, fruitful, precious, sound, cheerful, kind, sweet, correct, righteous.” It involves all these meanings.

A little word with such a vast meaning. It’s for the Land of Israel which was a beautiful land. Of course, for 2000 years just about, it languished, and it became like a desert, rugged, and nothing was growing. But now that God’s people are coming back to the Land and they’ve been coming back before 1948 when Israel became a nation.

Do you know that date? You all should know that date. Teach your children that date. You don’t have to know every date of when things happened, but I believe this is an important date that we need to know, the date that Israel became a nation. It was the 14^th of May, 1948.

That was a miraculous thing that happened, when a people who had lost their land, that they became a nation again. It was all promised by God. And as they have continued to come back to the Land, this land has become what the Bible says. It has blossomed like a rose.

I remember years ago when we went to Israel. We saw something of the blossoming, but it was still very arid. But the last time I went to Israel, just a couple of years or so ago, I couldn’t believe it! I just couldn’t believe the lushness, and the growth, and the blossoming, and the fruitfulness. It’s just amazing.

But it’s the same, all those words, lovely ladies, they apply to motherhood. The land of motherhood. Now, we all live in this land. I live, I’m living in the USA, and I live on a parcel of land here in Tennessee. But the real land in which I live is the land of motherhood, the land of my family.

This is my real land. This is your land. It’s the land, it’s a realm, it’s a domain, that God has given to you. He’s given you this domain. He wants you to embrace it because He gave it to you.

Everything about it is good. Good. See, ladies, we have got to get the Word of God into . . .

not only our brains but into our hearts.

Not only into our hearts but into our mouths.

Not only into our mouths but every part of our being!

So, we know! We know motherhood is good! Exceedingly good. Very good, because God planned it for me. God planned it for you. It’s who you are, who He created you to be. He gave you this land for you to fulfill this task.

Now, you see, all around us, we hear the opposite. Those who go to the public schools and on to college, they can hear continual negative and derogatory remarks about motherhood. The whole of society puts down motherhood, to make it sound inferior. It’s not very significant. Oh, it’s so much more important to have this career!

That is false! It’s not Bible. And it’s not true. But we’re being brainwashed. We have to be re-brainwashed. Our minds have to be re-changed and renewed by the Word of God so that we know motherhood is good. It’s good! It’s the best! And it’s all those wonderful descriptions that I read.

Now when we go to Titus 2:3-5: “The older women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers o f. . . " OK, ladies, you know the Scripture. You know what it says. “Teachers of . . .” Can you just say if after me? “Teachers of . . .” What are they to teach?

OK, in case you didn’t remember, here it is. “Teachers of GOOD things.” Did you notice the word “good”? Good. “Good things.” Yes, and it’s all about the home and motherhood. “That they may teach the young women to be sober.” We’ll look at some of these things that Titus 2 tells us, because every one of them are good!

Actually, ladies, that word, “the teachers of good things,” that phrase in the Greek is kalodidaskalos, coming from two Greek words, kalos meaning “virtuous, beautiful, valuable,” and didaskalos, meaning, well, that means “instructor or teacher.” So that word “good” there, “teachers of good things,” we could actually say “teachers of beautiful things.” In fact, some translations of the Bible translate it “beautiful, beautiful things.”

So, the first one on the list is “sober.” We are to be sober, sophronizo. It comes from the word sofron, meaning “to have a sound mind, to be self-controlled.”

Next one: “To love their husbands.” The word there in the Greek is philandros. It comes from two words. The word phileo means “affectionate love, friendship love.” OK, affectionate love to the husband.

It’s interesting, ladies, the word that God chooses here, because there are a number of words for “love” in the Bible. There is agape love which we know is the most ultimate love. That is God’s love. We don’t always have agape love of ourselves. It’s just not in us. We only have it by the power of the Holy Spirit because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto us.

So, we have His agape love, to love even when our husbands aren’t loving, even when they upset us, even when they make us mad, even when we don’t feel like loving them. We can still love them because we have God’s agape love, which loves the unlovely, which loves beyond where there’s even love. So, that’s such a glorious thing to have in our marriage.

Then there’s eros love, which is sexual love. Then there’s phileo love which is friendship love, affectionate love. This is the one that the Bible uses here. It’s interesting. Affectionate love. So, the Bible is telling here that He wants us, as wives, to be affectionate to our husbands. Very practical. The Bible is very, very practical. It’s really down to earth.

So, older women have to be an example. Not only teach by words, but an example. You see some older couples, they’re pretty boring. But an older couple is still meant to be very affectionate to one another, because that is showing to the young couples how they are meant to live, how they’re meant to be best friends and affectionate to one another.

The next one is “to love their children.” The Greek word is philoteknos, from two words, phileo, affectionate love again, and teknon, child. We’re also to be affectionate mothers to our children. We’re to be touchy wives and touchy mothers (not in a way of being touchy by being offended), but touchy by caressing, and touching, and loving, and hugging. This is the way the Bible wants us to be, and God wants us to be, because these are good things.

“Discreet.” That is also the word sofron, meaning “a sound and disciplined mind.” The lexicon in my Bible describes this word, “a person who limits his own freedom and ability with proper thinking. Demonstrating self-governance, with proper restraint on all the passions and desires. One who voluntarily places limitations on her freedom.”

She’s not someone who just does what she likes because she feels like it. No, she does what is right. What is right for her husband, what is right for her family, what is right for her home. There will be freedoms that she has to curtail for the blessing of her husband, and the blessing of her home, and the blessing of her family. She’s not putting herself first.

“Oh, well, I want to go here, and I want to do that!” No, she will curtail those things if it’s not for the blessing of her home, because her heart is for the blessing, and the building up, and the strengthening of her home, and her marriage, and her family. OK?

Next one is “chaste.” Like someone I heard some time ago saying, “It doesn’t mean ‘chased,’ but it means ‘chaste.’” It actually means “clean, pure, modest.” It comes from the word hagios, which means “holy, consecrated, blameless.” Hagios is translated “holy” 167 times in the New Testament. It’s translated “saints” 62 times. So, the meaning is, “a holy life, clean and pure and modest.”

Then we get to “keepers at home.” OK, “keepers at home.” Oh, my. There are so many women who don’t like that phrase! Oh, they don’t even believe it’s in the Bible! And even if they notice it’s there, they don’t believe in taking any notice of it.

In fact, this phrase, “keepers at home” is a GOOD thing. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s God’s plan, but it’s very sad that even the church has been so brainwashed that most Christian women are no longer in the home today. Most of them are out of the home. They’re in their career, or they’re out doing something. “Keepers at home! Help me!” They’re not very happy about that at all.

Well, time is going, so we’ll finish it up here for today. Next time we’re going to go into looking, “What does this phrase really mean?” It actually has a wonderful meaning.

“Father, we do come to You. We want to thank You for Your Word, Your Word, that sets us straight. Your Word, which keeps us on the path that You’ve chosen for us. Your Word, which is alive and active. Your Word, which pours blessings upon us as we walk in Your ways.

“Lord God, I pray that You will help each one of us to be receptive to Your Word, to embrace Your Word, and to live the way You have planned for us, even if it is different from the rest of society.

“Lord, I pray Your blessing upon every mother, and every wife, and every family listening today. In the Name of Jesus, amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell * www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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