FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

PODCAST 97: Revealing the Image of God

Although God is Spirit, He has created us with physical bodies to reveal His nature and image. Are we being faithful to reveal His image?

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Last week we talked about how taste is a food discerner, in the natural, and in the spiritual. The Bible also says: “First that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.” We have natural bodies, but we're not only physical, we are spiritual too. And God, Who is Spirit, has created us with physical bodies that can reveal His nature, even though He is Spirit.

We're going to look at a few more of these today. We'll look at the senses. We think of our  ears. We have physical ears that God gave to us to hear with, but we also have to learn to listen with spiritual ears.

In Job 11:12  it says: “The ear trieth words as the mouth tasteth food.” So just since we eat food, and “Oh, I love it,” or we don't like it, and we want to spit it out, the same with our ears. Ladies, we've got to become discerners with our ears. So when we hear things, we discern that, “Can I taste that? Can I believe it? Can I make it part of my life?? Or do I spit it out?

Now we  really do have to watch that, because to our minds constantly come negative thoughts and self-pity thoughts. Just gloomy thoughts. Somehow, they come to us so easily! But if we're a good discerner, we know that we're not meant to receive those thoughts at all. They don't belong to us. They don't belong to God. And they don't belong to the Kingdom of God. We belong to the Kingdom of God, so why are we going to embrace them?

No. When they come to us, and we can't stop them coming, but when they come, we SPIT THEM OUT! We reject them. So we learn to have sharp ears that discern. Our ears are like the gatekeepers. They discern before we take it into us. So we're either going to spit it out, or we're going to take it in, if it's good.

So why did Jesus say over and over again, “He that has ears to hear, let him hear.” Because we've got ears, and yes, we can hear people talking to us but are we discerning what God is saying to us?

Oh, I have to pray about this every day. “Lord Jesus, please reveal Yourself to me as I open Your Word. I want to hear You speaking to me. I want to know Your truth. I know so little. I'm so shallow. Lord God, I want to know the deep things of Your truth. I want to understand all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are in You.”

And so we cry after it, so that our inner ears can begin to hear what God is saying to us. We're going to reject the deception that is all around us. It's amazing how we can be deceived. Even Christians are deceived. The Bible says even the elect will be deceived.

And how can we be deceived? I believe the greatest deterrent to deception is the Word of God, so that the more we get the Word into us, the more we have an ability to discern, because the Word, it's the Word that discerns.

And if we know the Word, the Word will, “Oh, that's not right, that's not Biblical, that doesn't belong. No, I'm spitting that out.” But if we're not familiar with what God is saying, we're going to become gullible. May God save us from being gullible saints! Let's be those who are discerning saints, who have ears to discern.

I love the old hymn, I'll just read one stanza from it. It's one of Charles Wesley's hymns.

Now, Jesus, now the veil remove,
The folly of our darkened heart;
Unfold the wonders of Thy love,
The knowledge of Thyself impart;
Our ear, our inmost soul we bow;
Speak, Lord, Thy servants hearken now.

When we come to the Word, we have to have hearkening, listening ears, don't we? It's quite something to have listening ears. We do have to teach our children how to have listening ears. Many children grow up and they don't have listening ears. Oh yes, they can hear all right. But they don't hear with true hearing, because in the Bible, there's quite a few different words for “hearing.”

One of the most common is shama. It means “to hear with sharp ears, ready to obey.” And so when we begin teaching our children, right from when they're little, when we say something to them, we get down to their level. We make sure their ears are hearing. And then we tell them, “Okay, what did Mommy say?”

You get them to repeat it. Okay, now you do it. And we teach them that what they hear is not something they just listen to and carry on doing what they were doing. But no, they listen to obey. That's what true hearing is all about. As I used to say to my children as I was raising them”

TRUE HEARING RESULTS IN ACTION!

Another statement is:

DELAYED OBEDIENCE IS DISOBEDIENCE!

“I'll do it when I feel like it.” No, we listen, and we obey!

Now what about sight? We've all got eyes, we can see, but do we see with our spiritual eyes? Psalm 119:18 is a prayer: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.”

Do you love to pray that when you come to the Word? Because we can see the words, oh yes, easy. You can read the words, and not really get anything from them. You see them right in front of you. But are we actually beholding wondrous things? That word “wondrous” is the Hebrew word pala, which means “extraordinary, miraculous, amazing.”

Oh, incredible things, and they are there in the Word, but we can't see them with our natural sight. We can only see them with our spiritual eyes that become sharpened and heightened to be able to see. And so we cry for that, so that we don't only operate in the physical, but we're becoming sharper in the spiritual.

And then what about touch? You see, all these things, God who is Spirit, He has them. He talks about hearing. He that created the ear, doth he not hear? And He has eyes to see. He beholds what we are doing. He beholds the nations of the world.

And touch, oh yes, God has given us hands to touch.

But He also loves to touch. Isaiah 41:13: “I will hold thy right hand, saying, fear thou not.” God comes. He's so tangible. He's so real. And when you're going through something, and you feel so vulnerable, you feel so alone, He comes to you and He says, “I will hold you.”

Let's just read it. I want to read verse 10 to you also. Isaiah 41:10 and He says to us here: “Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness.” Do you notice in that Scripture there are seven promises? I love that. You can take one for every day of the week for seven days. Isn't that wonderful?

And then down in verse 13: “For I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee.” Isn't that great? Oh, are you feeling something at the moment? Are you concerned? Are you full of worry? Take that Scripture. This is God speaking.

When you read His Word, it's God speaking to you. He says: “Fear not. I will help you. Just put your hand in Mine, and I will hold it.” Yes, God is Spirit, but He reveals that it's like His right hand is holding us. His right hand is His arm of power and authority.

He's given us hands. He gives us hands as mothers. And He wants to touch our children through our hands, but it's His hands, because our children need loving touch. They need caressing, holding, cuddling, loving, touching. Touching. Touching.

How do we touch? With our hands. Touch is one of the senses. But we feel it all over our body, of course. Our whole body feels touch. But we give touch with our hands. And so God, who loves to touch us, He's given us a physical body how we can touch others.

Our children, our husband, obviously need encouragement with our hands. How often do you touch your husband? Oh you can love your husband, you know you love him, but sometimes marriage can just get very boring. And really, you're not remembering to touch one another. You need to do it often.

Touching is showing God's care and compassion and love. As we show it to others, it's like they are feeling the hand of God.

We go over to 1 Timothy 5:10 and we read a description of a mother, of a woman who is living the way God intends for her. And we see here: “Well reported of for good works, if she has brought up children.”

The very first thing, number one, God always puts things in perspective. In the Word of God, nothing's here, there, or everywhere. It's in perfect order, and when He lists something, the most important is on the top of the list.

And here, the very most important thing about women is, have they brought up children? Raised children? Nourished children? For that is the word, “nourish.” “Brought up” is the word “nourish.” To feed, to nurture. It talks about feeding children, cooking meals. It starts off, of course, at nursing a child at the breast.

But then it goes on to feed. You're cooking meals every day, every week, every month, every year. You think, “How long am I going to do this? Forever and ever and ever?” Oh yes, you'll do it. You keep on doing it.

I've been married for 57 years, and I'm still doing it every day. And I'm using my hands. But as I use my hands to cook and to prepare meals, I am really, it's the hands of God through me. Because I'm ministering to my husband, to my children, and to those we bring into our home. And it's God doing it through me. He wants to touch people through our hands. He wants us to use our hands to bless our family and bless others.

And so she not only nourishes and nurtures and cooks, and raises and trains her children, but it says: “If she has lodged strangers?” Has she opened her doors in hospitality to those who need a place to come, and sit around a table where they feel loved and welcomed? A place to stay.

“If she has washed the saints' feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work” That's all about touching and working with our hands. Yes, and so we are doing this physically, but God is wanting to do it through us. Because that's what He wants to do, He wants to reveal Who He is through us.

And then another one of the senses is our smell. We can all smell, but did you know God smells too? Did you know that all of our senses God feels and experiences? There are so many Scriptures about God smelling. I'll only read a couple to you, or we'll be here all day! And I know you've got lots to do.

Genesis chapter 8: 21. This is after Noah, after he'd come out of the ark, and how he offered burnt offerings on the altar. He made an altar and offered burnt offerings. “And the Lord smelled a sweet savor. And the Lord said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake.” 

Yes, so back in the Old Testament, there are hundreds of Scriptures about how they did the burnt offerings upon the altar. And every time they did, it was a sweet savor unto God. He smells the sweet savor. Not only was He smelling the sweet savor of the sacrifices.

Maybe I'll give you one more, let's see . . . Leviticus 3:5: Yes, and here is Aaron burning sacrifices upon the altar, and it says here: “It is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord God.”

Let's go over . . . Then we see a counterpart of this in the New Testament. So we go over to Ephesians 5:2 and now it's talking about Christ, because every sacrifice upon the altar pointed to Jesus, pointed to Yeshua, pointed to the Messiah, the Lamb of God, who would be THE sacrifice.

It says here: “Be followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.” Isn't that incredible? That even though God had to give up His own beloved Son, Who was actually One with Him, part of Him. He had to give Him up to be the Savior of the world, because He wanted to get a Bride. And that sacrifice, the sweet-smelling savor unto God.

But not only back there in the Tabernacle where they did the offerings, was there the beautiful, wonderful sort of smelling savor going up toward God, but also in the Holy Place.

They had to make the anointing oil. They had to light the lamps, they had to light the menorah every morning and every evening. That anointing oil, oh my, it was sweet, too. It was made with beautiful spices. You can read about it in Exodus 13. It was made of pure myrrh, and sweet cinnamon, and sweet calamus, and cassia. It was just so beautiful, and full of aroma and sweetness. When they lit the candles, the menorah, the seven-branched candlestick every morning and every evening it filled the Holy Place with that beautiful aroma.

Now people love to get sweet candles with aromas and fill their home. I love to do that too, but I don't like to buy the usual candles in the shop. They're all very artificial, and I don't think that they're very healthy, the aromas that they give off. But you can buy natural ones, and I love to use them, what do you call them? The aromas, oh goodness me, I'm just trying to think . . .

Oh, the essential oils! Ha ha. Nearly went from my mind. The essential oils that give off such a beautiful, beautiful aroma. They're so healthy, and such a blessing to your physical body. It's beautiful to fill our homes with these aromas, isn't it?

But that anointing oil, that was all just so glorious, natural glorious spices. Now, not only was the Holy Place, and the whole of the Temple was filled with this glorious aroma, but they had to light the altar of incense, and the incense was also made of sweet spices. Sweet, it was sweet incense. Everything was sweet, because God loves to smell.

So we just see how amazing it is that we have the physical, and we have the spiritual. Then we begin to think more about our physical bodies, and how, yes, they are natural, but there is more to it. Let's think of who we are as women.

Okay, who are we? We are distinguished as female by our breasts and our wombs. Let's talk about our breasts. They are physical. Our breasts, they are nurturing. God created them to be something that nurtures life when God gives us a little baby. We put the baby to the breast, and they nourish, and they nurture life. They're life-giving, they are nurturing.

But that's physical. Did you know, dear ladies, we also have the same anointing, not just physically, but innately, transcendentally? God has given it to us, and He has put within every female a nurturing anointing. It is divinely within us. It's divinely in every woman.

And even a precious woman who maybe hasn't been able to conceive, to give birth to her own babies, and maybe she hasn't married. She may not be able to nurture from her breast, but she still has this nurturing anointing within her. Isn't that amazing? She does not miss out. She is still divinely a nurturer.

And this is who God has created us to be, dear women. We are nurturers. God, who is Spirit, has created our physical bodies to reveal His image, to reveal His nature. It comes right back to God, because where do we get nurture from? Nurture comes from God. God is the ultimate Nurturer.

Oh He is the One who wants to gather us in His arms and hold us to Him, to love us, to nurture us, to caress us. This is who our God is. And we see this in one of the Names of God. God has many names. Each one describes another aspect of His character.

To have only one Name of God could not describe who He is. Every name is another aspect of who God is. And there are not yet, even in the Word of God, enough names to reveal who He is. But God has chosen to reveal what He wants to reveal. Because He is God, we will never know Him fully. Even in eternity there will be things that we will still never know, because He is God!

But in His wondrous love, He has chosen to reveal what He wants to reveal of Himself to us. There are certain things that He wants to reveal through us. And he has created our physical bodies for the purpose of it.

So when we read “Almighty,” what does that mean in the Hebrew? It's the Hebrew word El Shaddai. Of course, you all know that word. What does it mean?

El means “might, power, strength”.

Shaddai. The literal word in the Hebrew for “breast” is shad. Shad. Every time you see the word shad, it means “breast.” And dai, it means “that which is enough.”

Now the literal breast, the literal breast is “that which is enough.” When the baby comes to the breast, the breast is enough, especially if the mother allows the baby to nurse as much as the baby wants. She doesn't give a pacifier. She doesn't give little bottles of water, or bottles of juice. No. The breast is total, and as she just gives the baby the breast all day, all night, as the baby wants, the baby grows and thrives.

Not only does the baby grow physically, but the baby grows emotionally, because the breast is more than food. The breast ministers physically, but the breast ministers emotionally. In every way, it is “that which is enough.”

But when it's speaking of God, who is the originator of nurture, it is “He Who is Enough.” You see, that's who our God is. The Nurturer. The All Sufficient One. The God Who is Enough.

He is enough, no matter what we are going through. No matter what sorrows, what heartache. If we will push into God, we will find that He is Almighty. He is El Shaddai. He is the One who will comfort us, and nurture us, and nourish us, and gather us in His arms.

Part of nurturing is gathering. You want to gather. That's what a mother wants to do. She wants to gather. She wants to gather her children around her. .She wants them around her. That's instinctive.

The sad thing is, we're being so brainwashed in our modern feministic, humanistic society that mothers today often don't want their children around. They're quite happy to leave them. That's not instinctive to nature, not even the animals do that. If you go out, walk amongst the sheep, you will find that when it's lambing time, those little lambs are right around the mother. The mother won't leave her lambs. No, she stays close by them. That's instinctive to a mother.

So we want to gather, we want to gather our children and our families around the table as we prepare meals for them. We want them around. This is all part of El Shaddai, the nurturing anointed. And ladies, we have it physically. We reveal it tangibly in our experience.

That's why a nursing mother is a beautiful picture of God to the world. When painters want to paint mothers, they love... there's many beautiful paintings, not exposed paintings, just beautiful discrete paintings of mothers nursing babies because it's the ultimate picture of nurture. That's who our God is.

Now I hope you have received the latest edition of Above Rubies. In this edition, there is an article called “Nurturing the Nations.” No, it's called, something about that anyway. You'll see it there. It's by Daryl Miller. It's a wonderful article. Yes, it's called “Home is the Nursery of the Nation.” That's it. If you haven't read it, read it again.

And it's talking about nurture. This man has also written a book called Nurturing the Nations. I did a big sale on it before Christmas and sold out every single copy that they had left. They didn't have too many left. We sold them out.

Praise the Lord! They have reprinted it, and it's now available. You can go to my website. You can get it. And I would encourage you to get it because I had this book years ago. It sat by my bedside, like many, many books sit by my bedside. I don't get time to read them.

And this book, it, oh well, I didn't get round to reading it until one day, I felt I must read it. Then I couldn't believe why I hadn't read it before. It was filled with the revelation of truth about women and what God had already showed to me. I couldn't believe it, here was someone else who was speaking about it, writing about it. So I really want to make this book available. It's filled with truth. Do get it!

Here is a quote from his article in the magazine:

“Motherhood is beautiful, wonderful, and vital to the health of families, children, and the future of a stable and flourishing nation. No amount of cold, hard plastic toys will replace the warm human touch of a mother. No amount of staring into a screen will replace the loving gaze of a mother's eyes. No amount of material things will replace the art of being there.”

The art. Did you know, there's so much about mothering that is an art? It's an art we have to learn. We've not always “just got it” with our first baby. We learn it more and more.

Breastfeeding is an art. There's a wonderful book called the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, by La Leche League. It's a good book to read.

There is the art of birthing. The art of homemaking. The art of being there. There's the art of wifing. It all takes time to learn to be a wife, doesn't it? I'm still learning, nearly 57 years later! And so there is an art. Don't give up, ladies. Press into the art of all that's contained in our glorious and beautiful role of mothering and nurturing and homemaking.

And so he says: “Nothing will replace the art of being there. Our children, communities and nation are starving for the presence of the maternal nurturing heart.” God wants His nurturing heart . . . By the way, I've finished the quote. I'm speaking now. God wants His nurturing heart revealed in the earth. This is how He's revealing Who He is.

When we embrace motherhood, when we embrace who God transcendentally created us to be, not only physically with breasts, but innately to be a nurturer, and we reveal it to our families, and out into society, we show what God is like.

When we don't embrace it, when we resist it, and we say, “No thanks, I've got other things to do,” we no longer reveal the image of God. We blaspheme His image, because we're not showing who He is.

Another quote says:

“Our generation is becoming so busy trying to prove that women can do what men can do, that women are losing their uniqueness. Women weren't created to do everything a man can do. Women were created to do everything a man cannot do.” Amen!

Well, we not only have breasts. We have a womb. Our womb is our most distinguishing characteristic as a woman. We are a womb-man. But precious ladies, we not only have a womb, physically, where we can conceive and grow a precious eternal soul in our wombs, but our womb is the very seat of our emotions.

Our womb is a very powerful place. It's from where the anointing of pity and compassion and mercy flows. And God has also put that in us as a woman, innately, transcendentally. And once again, a woman who may be, is not able to conceive, she is still able to release that anointing of compassion from the very depths of her being. But there is a powerful thing when we can do it physically. God gave the physical to reveal this anointing.

Now here's something interesting, ladies. The word, well, there are four different Hebrew words for “womb” in the Bible. And I don't have the time to talk about them all today. I'd love you to get the book The Power of Motherhood, if you don't already have it. If you don't already have it, please get it. Go to the website and get The Power of Motherhood. I have a chapter called “The Womb,“ and I have about 18 different points about the womb.

Oh there is so much revelation about the womb. But did you know that the womb, there's four different Hebrew words, and they are interchanged. Sometimes it is speaking of the physical womb. Other times it's speaking about God's mercy and compassion. It is the same word! It's unbelievable.

Let me just give you a couple of examples. Olay, here we are, Deuteronomy 7. Just as we're winding down, ladies. Okay, Deuteronomy 7: 2-13. And God is talking here. “The Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy.” That word is racham. It means “compassion” and “mercy.”  It's God revealing His mercy.

But it's also a word that is used for the physical womb. And He's going to keep that mercy that He has promised: “And He will love thee and bless thee and multiply thee. And He will bless the fruit of thy womb.” And it's exactly the same word!

Yes. And so, and we see that when He shows His mercy, His racham, it's His wombness. When He reveals that, He says: “I'll love thee and bless thee. And then I'll multiply and bless the fruit of your womb.” That's how God wants to bless us.

We go over to chapter 13 in a rather negative story here, where there are some, God says, that there's some people who are going out to other gods. And if you find out it's really true, after you've searched diligently, you've got to smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, and totally annihilate them because, the reason was, if you don't do that, well, the little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and soon the whole nation will be going out to other gods. But God said if you will do that, verse 17: “There shall nothing cleave to you of the cursed thing. Then the Lord will turn from His fierce anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you.”

Now both those words are racham, the word “womb.” Have mercy, have compassion, like it's a double whammy there. He repeats Himself. “Oh, I'll show you my compassion, and then I'll multiply you.” How will I multiply you? Through the physical womb.

And so the womb, once again, is a revelation of God. Another word for womb is meah, which means to be soft. It's talking about the internal intestines, including the womb. It's interesting how God uses every part of our body to reveal something of Himself. Here it's talking about a softening. It's the opposite of hardness.

Have you noticed when women turn away from family, and away from embracing their children, out into the career world, and into a real adamant feminism, that they become hard? You see, when you embrace your nurturing anointing, and your womb anointing, there comes a softening, there comes a compassion, there comes a wombness.

Yes, there's such a word, the wombness of God which He reveals through the physical womb. Oh, ladies, can we embrace who we are? In every way, in every physical aspect, God wants to reveal who He is through us. Isn't that beautiful?

Let's pray:

“Oh, Father, we thank You so much for the revelation of Your truth. Oh, God, help us to get it, to get it into our very being, to understand that we're not only a physical being walking around, but we are a physical being whom You created to reveal Your image, to reveal Your nature, to show what You are like.

Oh Lord God, help us to embrace our nurturing anointing, both physically and innately. Help us to embrace our womb anointing, physically and innately, Lord. Being nurturers to our own babies and children, but out to those who need Your love.

Oh God, that we will have open wombs, to reveal, Lord God, who You are. You are so amazing. You did not do one thing by mistake. Lord, every part of our body is for Your purpose and for Your revelation. Help us to be the revealing of You to our families and to the world. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

NURTURING THE NATIONS

Reclaiming the Dignity of Women in Building Healthy Cultures

By Darrow Miller

This book is one of the greatest books I have read about women. It deals with the abuse and poverty of women in the nations of world but gives God’s answer. It exposes how the wrong concepts of women have led to prostitution, abuse, and suffering for women in the nations of the world. But it does not leave us in despair. Darrow Miller reveals God’s heart for women and the truth that sets them free into the glory God designed for them. It is a must read for all women, revealing God’s value and dignity of women and their highest purpose on earth.

Some of the chapter headings:

A World of Abuse of Women

The Crushing of Women

The Transcendence of Sexuality

God’s Motherly Love

The Dark Years and the Coming Dawn

The Wedding of the Lamb

God’s Design for Women: Nurturers of Nations

To order go to: https://tinyurl.com/NurtureNations

THE POWER OF MOTHERHOOD

What the Bible Says About You as Mother

By Nancy Campbell

This book is for every mother--young, middling, or older. It shares the revelation of God’s heart to mothers. Young mothers desperately need this encouragement. Older mothers need a refresher course in God’s plan for mothering, so they can take their place as the older mothers who teach the next generation.

This is the classic manual for mothers. Mothers need it by their side continually.

To order go to: http://bit.ly/PowerOfMotherhoodUS

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 96- TASTE IS A FOOD DISCERNER

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder, and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies it is lovely to be with you again.

Now, as I’m sharing with you today, all of the new Above Rubies magazines, issue 97, should have arrived throughout the USA. If you live in America, you should have received your Above Rubies magazine by now. If you haven’t you can contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in case it may have gone astray.

If you live in the UK, I think you should have received it by now, too. Above Rubies goes out to over a hundred countries of the world so for some of you it will take longer to get to you. Just have a little patience as you wait for it.

I know those of you who have received it will have been so blessed. Don’t hesitate if you would like extra copies to share with friends (and enemies!) and anybody that you meet. Write in and email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and ask for more.

Our vision is to get this message out of wooing mothers back to the home and bringing marriages together and making them stronger and making families stronger. This is our vision and we don’t want to keep it in a small corner. This message needs to get out to every home in the nation.

I can’t do that. I don’t know every home in the nation. But we all have a circle of friends and we all meet people from day to day.

When I am going out to the supermarket, I love to pop a few Above Rubies magazines into my bag, so I have them ready just in case I meet someone. I meet a young mother, or I get talking to another lady and I can give them a copy of Above Rubies.

Always have them ready to give out to someone. Don’t keep the message to yourself.

A lovely idea is to put one in baby changing tables. Every restaurant and every supermarket have a baby-changing table in their bathrooms. That’s a lovely place to put a magazine. You can just open it up, pop in a magazine, and then the next mother who comes can find a magazine.

I like to put them in a plastic bag with a little message:

“For you to take with you, Mother”

“Be encouraged, Mother” Or

“Take this magazine home with you.”

And so we can keep on getting the message out. We’re all in this vision TOGETHER!

I have something new to share with you today. The other week I was reading Psalm 119, that beautiful Psalm, which is all about God’s Word, 176 verses all about the blessing and wonder and glory of God’s eternal Word.

I was reading verse 103. In the Knox Translation it says: “Meat, most appetizing are Thy promises. Never was honey so sweet to my taste.”

As I read that, I began to think about taste because here it is talking about tasting the words of God.

It’s interesting that God has given to us, His people, whom He created and to whom He gave a body, He has also given us the five senses of: taste, touch, hearing, smell and sight. He has given us these senses which we can actually experience through this body that He has given us.

In fact, although God is a Spirit, He created us with bodies that are able to reveal the image of Who God is, even though He is Spirit.

The Bible talks about how God hears, and God smells, and He tastes, and He touches. God has all the five senses. Even our physical bodies have hands and legs and other parts of our body. We read about God having those too, and yet He doesn’t in the physical because He is Spirit.

He has given them to us in the physical so that we can experience them and also reveal them.

I would love to talk to you a little more about this word “taste” because we can taste God’s Word. Isn’t that lovely? His Word is like honey to our taste. It’s so sweet to us.

God has given us the ability to taste foods and that’s how we usually think of it, isn’t it?

We love to taste food. I love to taste food, don’t you? I love food!

I think we all love food and why do we love food? It’s because of the taste. If it didn’t taste nice, we would never want to eat it! God has created foods with the most beautiful tastes and the most beautiful flavors. God is so amazing in every way, isn’t He?

Every country has different foods that are special. My husband and I have traveled to many different countries and we have ministered in many Asian countries. We love to go to the countries of Malaysia and Singapore and countries like that. You get these beautiful, exotic fruits.

When we were first married, we went out to the Philippine Islands as missionaries and oh the beautiful tropical fruits that we enjoyed in those countries!

One of my favorites is mangosteen. Maybe you’ve never tasted that in your life but it’s like tasting a little bit of Heaven. Mangosteens come in this little purple, hard, outer shell. Inside are these white and creamy segments that are so delicious to the taste. Only God could think of such a beautiful taste to our pallet.

Then of course you may have heard about durian, which you can get in Asian countries. Even over in Asian countries, where they absolutely love durian, the saying is: “It smells like hell and tastes like Heaven.”

If you can get past the smell, oh my, it has a terrible smell, but it does taste amazing! When I first tasted it, I didn’t really like it, but I grew to love the taste. The only thing with durian is it is so rich. It is the richest food you could ever eat. You can’t really enjoy it unless you eat it just on its own with nothing else.

When you do eat it on its own, it tastes like Heaven. Oh God is so wonderful, the way He gives us all these beautiful foods to taste.

But some foods taste horrible! Oh! And we want to spit them out! We have our taste buds and they show us whether we’re going to like the food, so we’ll eat it or whether we’re going to hate the food, so we spit it out.

Now the amazing thing is, ladies, that God has also given us an anointing of taste, not only for food, but to DISCERN.

This is the wonderful thing: We not only have the ability to taste food (and we’re going to talk about other areas of our body later on, too) but also the word “taste” also means: “to discern.”

When we hear things, we discern whether they are worth receiving and whether we are going to embrace them into our soul or whether we are going to spit them out. This is something we have to learn to do, lovely ladies.

We don’t embrace everything we hear or see. We have stuff all around us that’s not good. We have got to develop our spiritual taste so we can learn what to spit out and what we will embrace.

As I was studying this, I found three different words in the Hebrew that talk about taste.

The first one is ta’am and it means: “Taste, perception, intelligence, advice, behavior, discretion, judgment, reason, understanding.” Once again, we see that when we take a Hebrew word it has an unfolding of meanings in the English. It needs more than one English word to describe it. As we read here, it’s more than just a tasting of food. It’s a tasting to discern, to judge, to perceive, and to understand.

We read Scriptures with that Hebrew word where it talks about taste. It talks about the tasting of the manna back in Exodus 16:31. It tells us that the taste of it was like “ . . . wafers made with honey.” It must have tasted beautifully sweet.

In Numbers 11:8 it says: “ . . .And the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.”

This word is used for tasting food, it’s also used in other places. Here are some examples:

Proverbs 11:22: “ As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.”

Wow. In other words, a beautiful woman who doesn’t have discretion, it doesn’t give a very good description of her. It talks about her like having a pig’s mouth. That’s not very nice, is it?

Let’s read some other translations.

The New Living Translation says: “A beautiful woman who lacks discretion [in other words she lacks spiritual taste, or she doesn’t know how to discern] is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.”

I would like to read  you the commentary that The New English Translation gives of that Scripture. It says: “A beautiful ornament and a pig are as incongruous as a beautiful woman who has no taste or ethical judgment The term “taste” can refer to a physical taste, intellectual discretion, or ethical judgment. Here it probably means she has no moral sensibility, no propriety, no good taste. She is unchaste. Her beauty will be put to wrong uses.”

There it is. That’s a woman who doesn’t have that ability to taste in the spiritual sense.

The Amplified of that Scripture says: “As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a beautiful woman who is without discretion [her lack of character mocks her beauty].”

Here is another Scripture. This time it is a prayer in Psalm 119:66: “Teach me good judgment and knowledge . . ..” The word for “judgment” there is the word “taste” in the Hebrew. It is the same word that is used for tasting food or tasting what is right or wrong.

I believe, lovely ladies,  that we need to heighten and sharpen our taste for knowing what is right and what is wrong. Even more than that, I believe we need to have a taste for knowing what the best is compared to that which is good.

I don’t really know you, but I am sure that you are one of those precious wives and mothers who only want to do that which is good. You wouldn’t think of doing that which is evil. And so you’re doing good things. Your life is filled with good things.

But many times, ladies, even the good things we do are not the ultimate. They’re not the best. Even good things can be time wasters because they’re not the best thing that we could be doing.

I want my tastes to get so sharpened that I can discern between that which is the best and that which is good. Don’t you want that?

I’m thinking about my daughter, Serene. If you listen to their podcast, “The Poddy” with Serene and Pearl or you have got their Trim Healthy Mama books, you will have got to know Serene. Now Serene has very, very heightened taste buds. She is amazing!

I taste foods and know whether I like that or not and if I want to eat it. That’s what we do. We eat if we like something.

I love to eat spicy foods. That’s my favorite. I don’t like bland foods although I was brought up on bland foods. I come from New Zealand and back when I was growing up, we hadn’t introduced into our nation all the different foods from the different countries.

In fact, back then, I think it was the same in every country, you just ate what you had around you. We didn’t have the refrigeration or deep freezes we have today so we couldn’t go like we can today to the supermarket and buy any product we want.

We can buy any fruit or vegetable from any country of the world during any season of the year. That is amazing. We never used to be able to do that. We eat in season. What we grew in our garden, that’s what we ate. If we didn’t preserve for the winter, we didn’t eat. That’s what it was. You can get away with all that today. You don’t have to preserve because you can just go to the supermarket. Back then we couldn’t do that.

We grew up in New Zealand and because it’s a sheep country we would mostly have lamb. We would have lamb, which was our meat, potatoes, and peas. That was about a basic diet in New Zealand. It was so bland.

Of course I still love lamb. That is my favorite meat. Here we don’t get to eat it as often, but we always purchase it for special occasions, for Thanksgiving and Christmas. For special times we always get lamb.

Anyway, since I have traveled and have gotten to experience all the different foods in the different countries, I just love it.

Then we adopted our children from Liberia. Oh my, then we went to a higher level of spicy, hot foods! By that I time I already loved hot food, but I wasn’t ready for their likings. They just loved it so hot!

I began to grow not only my jalapeños but also my habaneros. I would grow them every year and then dry them and ground them up so we would have our own ground habanero peppers. They were so hot.

The children loved to cook everything and throw in the habaneros. Of course I could eat the food, but I couldn’t eat the habanero. They would just pick them out and eat them. We would have the hot and spicy food on the table and our son John would put on his food another tablespoon of ground habanero pepper. He would never turn an eyeball! It was as though he was eating ice cream!

Anyway, I was talking about how I love spicy food, but Serene—when she tastes food, she knows exactly what’s in it.

She says, “Oh yes it’s got this in it and that in it.” I wouldn’t have a clue what it had in it! I just know it tastes nice or spicy or how I like it.

But she knows what’s in it.

I remember when she wrote her first cookbook (it wasn’t the Trim Healthy Mama one), she was talking about creating foods and how it’s like music. You have to put in the highs, and you have to put in the lows to make it just right. She has that anointing to do that, to put in the high parts and put in the low parts and make it to taste right.

I love to go to her place. There are always different foods she’s trying out or making. It’s so wonderful to taste the things! It’s so exciting. I love it.

Although I will tell you a little secret from behind the scenes. Do  you want a little secret? I hope she doesn’t mind me telling you because this is behind the scenes.

Oh goodness me, I hope you don’t mind, Serenie-Beanie! That is what I call her.

Although Serene just imagines and creates the most beautiful foods for you and she knows how to make the perfect taste, you wouldn’t even want to eat the foods she makes for herself. Just for herself. Not for her family, just for herself because they are superfoods.

From the time she was a little girl, she has always wanted to just eat super foods. I mean from the time she was a little girl she researched foods.

She would say to me, “Oh Mummy, can you drop me off at the health food shop and I’ll just read the books?”

That was the most wonderful thing she could do. She would just sit and read the health books. That was her favorite thing to do.

Behind the scenes, not even anyone else in her family could try them, she will make smoothies. They look like some brown, horrible mixture or sometimes green or sometimes some other color. They are filled with all these superfoods. Half the time I don’t even know what they are. They are foods that maybe she hasn’t even introduced to you yet because she’s always researching and finding the best things.

It doesn’t matter how it tastes. She loves it. If it’s good for you she will put it down her throat! She loves the earthy feel.

There’s one other thing, too.  Serene and I love to make what we call “Ugly Chocolate.” Now you have in the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook the Skinny Chocolate, which you just make with the cocoa powder, coconut oil and the sweetening and so on. Serene wouldn’t even eat that. It’s just too ordinary for her.

She makes what we have gotten to call, “Ugly Chocolate.” She would never make this recipe for you of course.

She puts in it loads of cayenne and loads of ginger and loads of tumeric and loads of maca and matcha and other things that you couldn’t believe. She loads it with that and puts in the stevia and so on. Somehow with just some of that healthy sweetening, this “Ugly Chocolate” still tastes nice.

I love it and Serene really loves it, not that she would make it for you, of course.

It’s amazing how you can put in, even into the basic THM chocolate, a few other things. Maybe you could try adding a few other things into it. You wouldn’t try it like Serene does, packed full of all these super foods!

Anyway, that’s just a little behind the scenes.

However, we need to be praying. I think we’ve all got it naturally, our taste buds heightened in food. But we have got to get our taste buds heightened up in discerning, don’t we?

Let me give you one more Scripture on that Hebrew word. I’m going to give you, first, the Passion Translation of that verse, Psalm 119:66: “Teach me how to make good decisions, and give me revelation-light, for I believe in your commands.”

Isn’t that a lovely prayer? Pray it right now: “Dear Father, Please give to us that anointing, that anointing to taste and to discern what is good and what is not good and to make good decisions. Amen.”

All right, here is another Hebrew word and do you know that it is spelled exactly the same and yet it is a different number in the Strong’s Concordance. It is the same spelling, but it means: “To taste and to perceive.”

Once again, this word is also used of the physical taste. There are quite a few Scriptures there, and of the spiritual taste. Let’s look at one of those Scriptures.

Job 6:30: “ . . . cannot my taste discern perverse things?” asked Job. You see we have to be able to perceive and taste whether things are perverse or not.

The New Living Translation says: “ . . . Don’t I know the difference between right and wrong?”

The Amplified says: “ . . . Can my palate not discern what is destructive?”

There we go.

The last Hebrew word is chek, pronounced, “cake” and it literally means: “The pallet, the inside of the mouth as the organ of speech; taste and kissing; the roof of the mouth.”

It is used in the context of lovemaking but it’s also used with the Scripture that I started with, Psalm 119:103: “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

We see that also in that beautiful passage in Psalm 19:7-11 about the Word of the Lord:

“The law of the  Lord  is perfect, converting the soul:

the testimony of the  Lord  is sure, making wise the simple.

The statutes of the  Lord  are right, rejoicing the heart:

the commandment of the  Lord  is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the  Lord  is clean, enduring for ever:

the judgments of the  Lord  are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:

sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.”

Can I ask you a question, lovely ladies? What is your taste for the Word of God?

When you read it, is it like honey to you? It’s so sweet that oh, you just love it and you can’t get enough of it!

Or is it kind of just a little bit boring?

I think we once again need to just ask the Lord to help us to get a real taste for His Word, don’t you? Often, we have a taste for so many things about us in the world. The taste for them is greater than it is for the Word.

I think I talked to you about this in another podcast but maybe I’ll bring it up again. What do you do when you first wake in the morning? Do you go to the Word or do you go to your iPhone?

Well, maybe you go to the Word on your iPhone.

I do think this is something that we have to really work on and have a determination about and make happen in our lives: that we don’t go to that first little “ding” and notification when we wake because that is so easy to do.

MY FIRST PRIORITY

No! I am going to the Word FIRST because that is my priority.

I have the You Version app on my iPhone so usually that’s the first thing I go to before I even get up to open my literal Bible that I love to read. I’ll go to that and it has the verse for the day, and I will read that, so I know I’m getting the Word first.

If our love for the Word is not stronger than our love for our iPhones and our notifications and our social media and all this stuff that is around us, well, we’re out of balance. Our taste is not right, and we have got to kind of hone our taste for the Word of God. We have got to hone our taste.

Let me give you one or two other Scriptures here.

First Peter 2:2 where it says: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”

When a baby is born it comes to the mother for sustenance, nurturing, and nutrition. As the little baby nurses at the breast it grows and it is the same for us in our Christian life: When we are a newborn Christian, we come, and we feed from the Word of God. We suck from it and get the milk from it because if we don’t, we won’t grow.

Then as a little baby grows it gets on to solid food and then it gets on to meat. That happens in our Christian life, too.

Where are you, darling ladies? Are you still on the milk or are you getting up to chewing the meat? Oh my, we’ve got to get on to that! We can’t stay babies, can we?

I’m just turning to that passage in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter five.

Hebrews 5:12-14: “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age [who are mature], even those who by reason of use [reason of use— it’s your habit day by day] have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

Here we see that word “discern” again, that tasting of the spiritual. I believe that anointing to taste and discern in the spiritual realm comes through the reading and the imbibing of the Word of God into our lives.

Let’s love it, ladies. Let it be like honey to us. Let’s get from the milk into the meat.

What does it say in Matthew 4:4? Jesus repeated these words that come from the Old Testament: “ . . . Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word [EVERY WORD] that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Every word. When I come to God’s Word, I’m looking for God to speak to me from every word. Every word. Every word is powerful.

Yes, we are going to die if we don’t eat food every day but we’re going to die spiritually if we don’t eat spiritual food.

I love some of the old hymns. I love also some of the glorious anointed worship songs that we sing today that are so powerful. They are so anointed. But in enjoying and embracing and worshiping with those, I also don’t like to forget the old.

I love the Scripture in Matthew 13:52 where Jesus was telling this: “Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things NEW AND OLD.”

We’ve got to embrace the new, but we don’t discard the old.

That’s why at our family devotion times we love to sing some of the old hymns. Then we keep the balance: we have the old and then we have the new.

Don’t you love that old hymn, “Break Thou the Bread of Life”?

“Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord, to me,
As Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;
Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord;
My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word!”

But it is now time for this session to end. It always goes too quickly, doesn’t it?

I usually pray for you, but today can you pray with me? I want to pray this prayer again and perhaps you could pray it along with me?

“Dear Father, Please come, come, come and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Please sharpen and heighten my taste buds for the spiritual realm. I long for sharp discernment. I want to know what is deception. I want to know the difference between what is the best and what is just good.

“Please, Lord, give me discerning taste buds. I ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Morgan Roth.

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

PODCAST 95: BUILDING A HOME FOR GOD, PART 2

We find six adjectives regarding the kind of home God wants us to build for Him. Are you ready for them? EXCEEDING, MAGNIFICENT, FAMOUS, GLORIOUS, GREAT, AND WONDERFUL! Does that sound too much over the top? Sorry! They are all Biblical words. Join with me.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder, and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Today I'm going to be giving you a podcast that I had already shared with you, but you didn't get. Because Number 94 was Building a Home for God. Number 95 was also building a home for God, Part 2. Now somehow Part 2 disappeared into thin air! When you got sent out Part 2, it was the same as Number 94, Part 1.

So I'm so sorry about that. Some have called in, and said, “Oh, we want to hear Part 2.” So I'm doing it again for you today. Trust that you will be blessed.

Let me start by sharing a poem with you, an old, famous poem called “The Builder.”

I saw them tearing a building down,

A team of men in my hometown,

With a heave and a ho and yes, yes, yell!

They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.

And I said to the foreman, “Are these men skilled

Like the ones you’d use if you had to build?”

And he laughed and said, “Oh no, indeed,

The most common labor is all I need,

For I can destroy in a day or two

What it takes a builder ten years to do.”

So I thought to myself as I went my way,

Which one of these roles am I willing to play?

Am I one who is tearing down,

As I carelessly make my way around?

Or am I one who builds with care

To make the world better because I was there?

Of course, this applies to us as mothers, doesn't it? Proverbs 14:1 says: “Every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”

A true builder is a professional. He knows what he is doing. If the builder is hiring people to pull down something, he doesn't have to hire professionals. He can just get any old laborer because any old laborer can just pull something down.

So we must be those, dear mothers, who are the professional builders of our homes, not the foolish ones who can tear it down. Anybody can tear down. It's easy to pull down, especially by the words that we say. But it takes training to be a real professional builder.

Anyway, as we go into Part 2 of Building A Home for God, we are looking at the example of David and Solomon. Remember how David got the vision to build a house for God? David talked about the kind of house that he wanted to build. We read about it in 1 Chronicles 22, verse five: “The house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnificent, a fame and glory throughout all countries.”

This is the vision that David had. He used four adjectives here. Did you pick them up? Exceeding. Magnificent. Famous. Glorious. David didn't want a house like any other house for his God. He wanted a house that was greater than any other house.

Dear precious mothers, we are building not just a house, we are building a house FOR GOD! Yes! Just as David wanted to do that. This should be our passion and vision too, to build a house for God. Now if we're building a house for God, we're not going to just want it to be like any other house. We want it to be GREATER than any other house.

So shall we look at these adjectives and see what they are? We'll talk about “magnificent” first. Now this word “magnificent” in the Hebrew is gadal. It means “to make large, advance, exceeding, excellent, grow up, increase, magnify, and promote.”

My, that's a lot of words for one word. We find this so many times, don't we, that when we look up a Hebrew word for the word we read in our Bibles, that it gives us so many adjectives, because there's not, not one word is enough to describe that word.

So this word “magnificent” means “to be increasing, getting larger, growing.” It's never the same. Our building a house should never be stagnant. It's always increasing, always something more. We're always seeking to strengthen our family that little bit more.

So, in fact, I may have shared this with you before, that this is a great principle to keep in your lives as you're building your families. When you're facing a situation, or you're facing a decision that you have to make for your family life, this is the great thing to do. Think about it. If it's going to weaken your family, or fragment your family in any way, don't do it!

But if what you're planning to do will strengthen your family, and make it stronger, and keep it together, do it! Because that's what you're wanting to do, you're wanting to make your family stronger and stronger all the time.

So, do you think we could build a magnificent home for God, dear ladies? That means your home will never be stagnant. It will always be growing. You will always be thinking of new things to do to make it better, make it more wonderful for your husband and your children. It'll always be growing.

I think of some ways that we can make our homes more magnificent. Of course, the word before “magnificent” was “exceeding.” We'll talk about that word later.

# But we should make it exceedingly magnificent in godliness, don't you think?

I love that old quote, do you know it? It says:

“The beauty of the home is order.

The blessing of the home is contentment.

The glory of the home is hospitality.

The crown of the home is godliness.”

And so we should always be seeking to increase in godliness. Sadly, there are some homes that start out well, and then down the years they become less godly, more worldliness comes in. They end up going to church less and less. They're not growing at all in godliness. But let's continue growing.

# We should be exceedingly magnificent in the beauty of order and simplicity, as is shared in that quote I have just given you.

# Exceedingly magnificent in family togetherness. We're always seeking to bring the family together, do things together as a family. It seems in our society today, that most of the things we do tend to fragment the family. Many things that we get involved in, maybe they just involve one member of the family. So not everybody is involved in that. We've got to try and think, where possible, to do things that we can do as a family.

I know some families who, they don't get involved in individual sports because they find that it just takes their children all away in different directions. Instead, they choose to do the things that will keep their family together.

# Exceedingly magnificent in the disciplines of prayer and love for God's Word. That means you're seeking to have a time with your family every day where you read the Word together and you pray together.

The ultimate, of course, is two times a day, because that's the principle we read about in the Word of God. If you want to know more about that, you can go to my website and look up “The Morning and Evening Principle.”

Here is the link: http://aboverubies.org/index.php/2013-11-12-17-55-51/english-language/bible-in-the-home/901-bible-in-the-home-the-morning-and-evening-principle

So that's what we do in our family. We meet every morning and every evening to pray and read the Word.

Of course, there is more than that, too, because we read about David, who came before the Lord three times a day. He came morning, noon, and night. Daniel did that too, remember? Three times a day he bowed before the Lord.

# Exceedingly magnificent in peace and harmony. Exceedingly magnificent in joy, gladness, happiness, laughter. Oh, we want to make our homes places of joy, places of laughter, places of happiness, don't we? 

I love the Scripture, Romans 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” So if we're building a home for God's kingdom, it should be a home of joy and happiness, and where we laugh, and we work, and we play. I believe in playing and working. So we do both, don't we?

# Also, exceedingly magnificent in the manifestation of the Presence of God. That's the most beautiful thing we can have in our homes, isn't it?

And so, dear ladies, take that word “magnificent.” Let's build a magnificent home for God, always growing, strengthening, increasing. Amen?

Well, let's look at the word “exceedingly,” shall we? Because David didn't only want to build a magnificent home, but an exceedingly magnificent home. Now the word “exceedingly” is maal. This word means “above, very high, the upper part.”

This word is translated in the Bible as “above” 53 times, and “upwards” 59 times. So it actually means “above the normal.” It is not status quo, it's not mediocre, it's not normal. It's above, it's higher.

So, ladies, now we've got to think about building our homes above the normal. It's easy to look around at your neighbors, and maybe other Christian families in your church, and think, “Oh well, I'm pretty much like all of them.”

But that's not our standard. We, our vision should be, to build a home (because it's not for us. OK, if we're just building it for us, we can have it normal if we want to), but if we are building it for God, I think we want to make it above the normal, don't you?

Let's get a vision for going beyond the normal, status quo, mediocre, apathetic, boringness of most people's lives. No! We want to go beyond that. Let's have a look, shall we, maybe at some of the average homes in the nation.

# Well, in the average home today, most people like to do their own thing, each one going here and there. Most are glued to their iPhones. Consequently they're shut out from each other . Or they're listening to other things on their earphones. 

Now ladies, I guess we have to acknowledge that this is becoming the norm in our homes today, because we're living in a different society. Never have we lived in a society like this before, when everybody's on their iPhones, they're glued to them. And in fact, in some homes, they even bring them to the table!

I beg your pardon. I trust you don't allow that in your home. That's one thing that I will not allow. I will not allow iPhones at the table. Or people having them down under the table, and their eyes are looking down. They're so glued to them, they're so addicted, that they find it hard to leave them. It is good discipline for us to leave our iPhones for certain times, especially at the time at the table.

Maybe there's other times where you're doing some special family things together—get your children to put their iPhones away. Of course, I'm talking about older children. I don't think you'll allow younger ones to them, for sure. But you know, when you're doing things together, put iPhones away. Don't let other things and other people intrude on your family time.

When you go to restaurants, or have a family meal, put your iPhones away. Isn't it sad when you go to a restaurant, and you see a family, and they're all sitting looking at their iPhones? Why do they waste their money going to the restaurant if they're all just going to look at iPhones and be texting other people when they're there to have a family meal?

So that's the normal home today. But you're not building a normal home, dear mother. You're building an above average home, above the normal. That word “exceedingly,” have you got it? It means “above, more than, above, higher, upwards.” OK? You're getting it.

# In the average home, there are more TVs in the home than children. In the above normal home, this home has more children than TVs. So we can kind of get which home we are. Do we have more TVs than children? Oooooh. Or are there more children in our home than TVs?

When you've got more children than TVs, you don't hardly need a TV, because you've got so much entertainment and so much life going on in your home. You don't need all that other entertainment, do you?

# In the average home today, most families don't even sit at the family meal table together. Maybe, perhaps once a week. But in the above average home, the home where they are building an exceedingly magnificent home for God, they're trying to meet together and sit at the table every night of the week.

Of course, there's times where maybe you're all going out somewhere else, or something has happened. But on the average, you'll be sitting together every evening at the family meal table. You'll be sitting there to, you're not just going to eat a meal. No!

The family table is so much more than just eating some food, dear precious mothers. Maybe that's why a lot of people don't sit around the table together. They think oh, well, mealtime is just eating some food. No! Mealtime is far more than eating food. Mealtime is interaction, discussion, dialog. It's gathering together to talk to one another, to communicate with one another. That's why we gather.

We gather around the table where we can look at each other eye to eye, not looking at iPhones. We're looking at one another. We're sharing together. So when we come to the table, (and, of course, I don't always do this now as my family has grown although I often do, when I have extra people around my table), I would always bring to the table a subject for discussion or a question.

“All right, children, what do you think about this?” We'd give them a subject that they can discuss together. Or a question, “What do you think about this?” It's a good thought-provoking question.

If you have little ones, you can keep the questions simple. “All right, children, we want each one of you to tell us what was the best thing you did today?” Or maybe if they're getting a little older, “Tell us something new that you learned today.”

So there are loads of ideas and questions. I have a list on my website if you go to, I guess it's the Family Mealtime Table. You can find “Table Conversations.” Maybe something like that and look it up. It's handy to have.

Here’s the link: http://aboverubies.org/index.php/2013-11-12-17-55-51/english-language/family-meal-table/797-family-meal-table-dinner-time-conversations

Let me read you another poem. This is a poem I wrote years and years ago about the table. The table is such a wonderful place. This poem says:

AT THE TABLE

Where can you communicate while you eat?

Where can you enjoy real fellowship sweet?

Where can you laugh with friends who are neat?

At the table.

Where can you pour out your heart and soul?

Where can you explain what is taking its toll?

Where can you share your vision and goal?

At the table.

Where can you dialogue and sift through ideas?

Verbalize thoughts and yet still be at ease?

Discover new subjects to debate if you please?

       At the table.

Where can your hearts be knitted as one?

Where can you yarn and old stories be spun?

And feel accepted so you don’t have to run?

       At the table.

Where can your children learn to sit still?

Acquire eating habits that won’t make them ill?

Be taught good manners of which some have nil?

       At the table.

Where to imbibe values and ethics for life?

Learn to eat correctly with fork and knife?

Observe how “to father” and be a good wife?

       At the table. 

Where can you reveal God’s ways to your kin?

Teach them His Word will keep them from sin?

And to follow God’s laws is the way to win?

       At the table.

Where can you encourage your children each day?

And boost the confidence of these “jars of clay”?

Give counsel that will keep them from going astray?

       At the table.

Where can you make your house feel a “home”?

With a lovely warm ambience and happy tone?

From where your children will not want to roam?

       At the table.

Where can you show love to God’s special “flock”?

Feed those who come to your door and knock?

Even those who don’t know God can be their Rock?

       At the table.

Where does God love His presence to fill?

Where does He want His blessings to spill?

Where does He want restless hearts to be still?

       At the table.

Dear father and mother, look again at your table,

Family meals together will make your home stable!

Make it a priority--your God will enable!

       Sit at your table!

So I believe this is what we'll do when we are seeking to make an above average home.

# In the average home, most families are so busy that they don't have time to have family Bible reading and worship. But in the above normal home, they make everything else fit around their morning and evening times to pray and read the Word.

I've found that, ladies, do you find the same thing? That you have to MAKE IT HAPPEN?  You'll find, I know, that if you just hope it will happen, or think it's a good idea, which we all know it's a good idea, but it never happens unless we MAKE IT HAPPEN. Over the years, for years and years, I sought to make it a habit in our home. I made it happen.

Everything in our home revolves around our morning and evening gathering together to hear from God and to cry out to Him. I don't think there is anything more important in the whole of the day. So I have to make it happen. See what you can do about making it happen in your home too.

# In the average home, there is often bickering and fighting. In the above average home, the siblings are friends, rather than fighting with one another.

# In the average home, most families live to themselves. But in the above average home, they love to open their homes in hospitality. They love to invite others to their table to share their meals. They enjoy food and dialog and fellowship with others. I believe this should be just . . . well, I was going to say the normal home, but the normal home is not the normal home today. We are seeking to have to build an above average home.

The above average home will be a home of hospitality. I was so blessed to be brought up in a home of hospitality, where our back door and front door was always open. People coming in, people sitting around our table. Oh, it was the spice of life.

So it was something that we carried on in our home. It has been the spice of life in all the years of our marriage together, having people in our home, coming to stay, coming to our table for a meal. In fact, as time goes, and I haven't had someone, I'm in withdrawal. I've just got to get someone to come and sit around our table.

Because we love  it. We love sharing our meal. We love the wonderful fellowship of kindred spirits. Of course, we don't always invite kindred spirits. We love to reach out to others too, who may not be kindred spirits, and who need encouragement, who need to get a glimpse of the different way of living. So hospitality is part of the above normal home.

# In the average home, families spend a lot of their time running here and running there to sports, extracurricular activities, and this and that, and everything. But in the above average home, they realize it's more important to spend time together.

Of course, they will be doing certain things that they know are very important, but they're not going to be pulled away by everything. They're going to discern what is the best. They will discern what is important, and what they can let go. So they can keep their family intact, keep their family together.

Well, there's many other things. Those were just a few. I trust, dear lovely ladies, that you will seek to build a home that is beyond the homes of everyone you know. And build a home that goes higher, that's above the normal. Amen?

All right. So David said he wanted to build this exceedingly magnificent home for “fame” and for “glory.” He wanted it to be famous for God because he was building it to the Name of the Lord. That's why he didn't want it to be famous for his name. No, he built a home for himself but this was the home for God.

When we're building a home for God, we are not wanting to make it famous for ourselves, but for God's Name. We don't want to do anything that will bring shame to the Name of the Lord. We're building a home that will bring glory to the Name of our God.

That's why David said “for fame, and for glory.” He wanted this home that he was building for God to bring glory to God. Not only the people there in Jerusalem, but the whole then-known world would know that this was God's home. It was a home that was going to be a place of prayer for all nations. It became famous.

I mean, this home became such a glorious home. When Solomon began to build it, there was no other building like it. It was completely covered inside and outside with gold. Oh, I mean, it was just filled with silver and gold and precious stones. It was just unbelievable.

I'd better talk about the glory. The word “glory,” tipharah, means “beauty, bravery, honor, majesty, glory.” Once again, lots of adjectives for one word.

So now we're going to get on to the words that Solomon used, because David, although he had this great vision to build this exceeding magnificent, famous, glorious house, God said, “Sorry, David, I don't want you to build it. I want your son to be the builder.”

So Solomon took on the same vision. He used different adjectives. He said, “The house which I'm going to build for God will be great and wonderful.” So now we've got two more adjectives. SIX ADJECTIVES in all to describe this house for God.

OK. The word “great,” well, of course, it just means “great, exceeding (again) mighty.” And then the word pala, oh, well that's the word “wonderful.” The Hebrew word for “wonderful” here is pala. Oh, it is an amazing word.

Oh, now have I written down here what it means? Oh yes! Look at all these adjectives to describe the word wonderful, which is pala in the Hebrew: Distinguished. Extraordinary. Miraculous. Astonishing. Marvelous. Yes, it goes beyond, it means that it goes beyond the bounds of human power or expectation. This was the description that Solomon used for building this house for God.

Precious ladies, all these adjectives I'm talking about, do they seem a little bit over the top? Do you think, “Oh goodness me, here I am, just in the throes of diapers and little babies and children screaming and other children fighting . . . and oh, this is happening, and that is happening, and you expect me to be building a house that's glorious and magnificent and wonderful?”

Well, darling ladies, I'm not making it up. These are Biblical words, and this was the vision that they had. I believe God doesn't put anything in His Word for a joke. I believe that He wants us to take on this vision. Let's begin to think like this, and to believe for this, and have a vision for this. So we're now going to make a GREAT and WONDERFUL house.

Now let’s look at some other Scriptures where this word pala is used. It was not only used for building this house for God. It was used for a baby being conceived. It was used when Sarah was not able to conceive, and she had waited years and years and years and years and could never have a baby. Then God came to her and said that He would give her a baby in the time of life.

At the next season she would have this baby. And she laughed, we know. But then God said to her, in Genesis 18:14: “Is [the word is pala] anything too hard [pala again] for the Lord?” In other words, “Oh, nothing's too hard for Me,” God says. “I am the God Who is the God of the miraculous and the astonishing and the marvelous, and that which goes beyond human bounds or human expectations.” So this is the word He gave to Sarah, and we know how God blessed her. She conceived and gave birth to a baby.

This word is also used in Psalm 139:14, talking again about a baby, about how the baby grows in the womb. “I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Thy works [that's the word pala]. Marvelous are Thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well.” A little baby growing in the womb is wonderful, miraculous, astonishing, marvelous!

Yes, Psalm 111:4: “He has made His wonderful works to be remembered.”

Psalm 96:3: “Declare His glory among the heathen, His wonders, [His pala] among all people.”

And so, lovely ladies, that's an amazing word to take on. But let's build a marriage and a family and a home that is wonderful. To build a wonderful marriage takes work, doesn't it? Oh yes because it's not always perfect. And your husband's not always perfect, but you're not always perfect either.

So here we've got us two imperfect people, and how on earth are we going to make it? We're going to make it by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and by having a vision. Keep the vision before you that you're going to make, and you're going to build, a wonderful marriage.

You see, lovely ladies, you can have the marriage you want. It's true . . . now don't blame it all on your husband and all his faults, oh goodness me, because it's so easy to see all the faults in them. Oh yes, I have seen faults in my husband. I can remember seeing all those faults. I had to learn not to see them, and instead look at the good things, and love him anyway.

Build a marriage of love. It's your choice. It's not the faults they have. No, it's your choice. You choose. You choose the marriage you want. And it is possible to have a glorious, wonderful, astonishing, amazing marriage, if you're prepared to build it.

Yes, you'll have to sacrifice your own feelings, and your own self, and your own ways. Put them aside. Instead, pour out love. See what you want and go for it! And you can have it.

So you're going to build a wonderful marriage and a wonderful family. You're not going to settle for the ordinary. You're going to make marvelous things happening every day, because remember, lovely ladies, that marvelous things are little things. Just hugging your little children, smiling at them, having a forgiving spirit even when you've been hurt. Making family togetherness happen. Making little things, just the little things, that add up to the big things that become marvelous. And you will build a wonderful home. I know you're going to do it.

Let me end with another poem. This is a poem podcast, isn't it? It's another poem about building, also called “The Builder,” an old famous poem.

A builder builded a temple

He wrought it with grace and skill.

Pillars and groins and arches,

All fashioned to meet His will.

Men said, as they saw its beauty,

“It shall never know decay,

Great is thy skill, O builder!

They fame shall endure for aye.”

A mother builded a temple

With loving and infinite care,

Planning each arch with patience,

Laying each stone with prayer.

None praised her ceaseless efforts,

None knew the hidden plan,

For the temple the Mother builded

Was unseen by the eyes of man.

Gone is the builder’s temple,

Crumpled into the dust;

Low lays each stately pillar,

Food for consuming rust.

But the temple the mother builded,

Will last while the ages roll,

For the beautiful unseen temple

Is a child’s immortal soul!

Shall we pray?

“Dearest Father, we thank You that You give us a vision, a vision beyond the normal. You don't want us to live the average, normal, mediocre life. You don't want us to build average, status quo homes.

“Oh God, You have a greater vision for us. Help us to take hold of it. Help us to build a wonderful marriage. Help us to build a wonderful family life. Help us to build a wonderful strong home for God.

“Lord, we thank You that we, as mothers, have power to impact the nation, because as we build strong homes, the nation becomes strong. Help us to see our worth as we build these exceeding, magnificent, famous, glorious, great, and wonderful homes! In the precious Name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

PODCAST 94: BUILDING A HOME FOR GOD, PART 1

Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies, it is so lovely to be with you again today.

Can we pray? “Dear Father, We ask that as we open Your Word today that You will open it to our minds, that You will show us wondrous things from Your Word, that You will open up new vistas that we have never seen before. “We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

How wonderful that we can come to the Word of God and find wonderful truths for us as mothers as we’re building our families. Dear wives and mothers, you are in the greatest vocation in the nation: building godly families. There’s no greater thing that you could be doing. It is so powerful.

MOTHERS DETERMINE THE DESTINY OF THE NATION!

As you build into your marriage to make it a beautiful and godly marriage and as you build into your family, to each child that God has given you, you are building a strong family that helps to build a strong nation.

If we have weak marriages and weak families, we end up with a weak nation. But when we build strong families, we become a strong nation because the nation is what its families are.

We as mothers in the home are doing a powerful work and the devil knows the power of motherhood. He knows the power and influence of motherhood and so he seeks to woo mothers out of the home. When mothers are wooed out of the home the home weakens because it’s a fulltime job of building your home.

It’s so wonderful that we can come into the Word of God and we can see from examples, even way back in the Old Testament, of how God wants to build our marriages and build our families.

I love the story of when David got a vision to build a temple for the Lord his God. He didn’t build it because God said to him, “It is good, David, that it is in your heart, but I don’t want you to be the one to build it.”

Isn’t it beautiful? David had a vision. It was a consuming passion of his to build a house for the Lord God of Israel. Although God was happy with David because he wanted to do it and He said to David, “David it is good that it is in your heart but you’re not going to be the one to do it.”

I love that because sometimes, ladies, we have things that are in our hearts. We have a vision. We have a passion about something and yet somehow it never comes to fulfillment. We wonder why we have got that passion or that vision? Maybe it’s to pass it on to someone else.

As God said, “Oh David, it’s good. It’s good that it’s in your heart but I want your son to build this house. You’ve been a man of war. You’ve shed so much blood. You are the one who has brought peace to the land so now your son, who will be a man of peace, he can build the temple.”

God wanted His temple built in a time of peace and rest.

So we go back to this story and we can read and get the feeling, vision, and passion that David and Solomon had for building this house of God.

David passed on his passion to Solomon. We read in 1 Kings 5 and Solomon is now speaking because David has passed on this vision to his son. In verse five he says: “And, behold, I PURPOSE to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God . . ..”

He didn’t just think it was a good idea or, “I might like to do that sometime.”

No, he said, “I PURPOSE to build a house.” He had a purpose, he had a vision and I believe, dear mothers, we need to have that, too.

Sometimes we can be mothering and going about our daily routine in our family and we just go from day to day, but we don’t have a vision.

I believe we need a vision. We need to know what we are doing. We need to have a passion and have a vision. To get that, ask God to put that passion and vision in your heart.

I remember as I was raising our children, there was a Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:23. It says: “ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I took those words. I took that prayer as my purpose and my vision as I was raising our children. I wasn’t satisfied to only care for them physically. I wanted to build into their lives and not just physically but spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

My longing was that I would be able to present my children before the Father on that day when we will all stand before Him, that they would be whole in body, soul, and spirit. Sometimes we have a vision and we may not totally fulfill it but if we have a vision, we’re going to be working toward it.

You may have a different vision and God will give you a vision as you ask Him. If you can’t think of anything else you can take that Scripture, too, 1 Thessalonians 5:23!

Anyway we are going to 2 Chronicles chapter 2. Here the same story is repeated because the story is repeated in Kings and Chronicles.

This time it says in verse 1: “And Solomon DETERMINED to build an house for the name of the Lord . . ..”

Here we see the word purpose and the word determine. They are strong words, aren’t they?

If we go back to the Hebrew, the word is actually ‘amar and it literally means: “To say, to declare, to boast, to publish, to report, speak, answer, command.” It is mostly used of speaking something out. This word is used nearly 6,000 times in the Bible. Only 18 times does it use a different word other than “speak” or “say” or “publish” as it does in these two Scriptures.

Let me give you some examples of where it uses the word “speak” or “say”.

Leviticus 20:1-2: “And the  Lord  spake {‘amar) unto Moses, saying (‘amar), Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel . . ..”

Jeremiah 34:2: “Thus saith (‘amar) the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak (‘amar) to Zedekiah king of Judah . . ..”

So usually it’s translated “speak,” “boast” or “command.”

When it’s talking about Solomon “purposed,” Solomon “determined” to build a house, you notice that he also SPEAKS about it. He spoke out his vision.

If you really have a vision, you’re passionate about you will speak about it so don’t be afraid, ladies, to speak about your vision of building a family for God.

When someone asks you, “Well what do you do?”

You can respond, “I am building a godly dynasty!”

That would really let them know what you’re doing, wouldn’t it? Have a good statement ready of your purpose and your vision.

“What am I doing? Oh I’m doing a great work! I’m building a godly family in this deceived world.”

Speak out your vision! As you speak it out it becomes more real to you.

You can even speak it to your children: “Children, this is my vision. I’m building a godly family. Children, we’re all in this together. You are building it with Daddy and Mummy. Together we’re building a family for God. Let’s all put our hearts into it.”

It’s good to confess out what you are doing. It is so important.

As we were reading in this passage here, 2 Chronicles chapter two, Solomon goes on to speak out what his vision is.

I mentioned this last week in our podcast when I was talking with Nadia. Let me read it again, verse four: “Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him . . ..” See, he is speaking it out, his purpose and his determination.

What is he doing? He wants to DEDICATE this house to the Lord.

Verses 4-6: “ . . . and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of the  Lord  our God. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel. And the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods. But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him? . . ..”

That was his greatest purpose. He was saying, “Who am I to do this?”

Sometimes, wives and mothers, we feel like that, don’t we? Sometimes we feel like utter failures. Here we are, we’re trying to build this house and this godly family and, oh my, it doesn’t seem very perfect at all. Sometimes it doesn’t seem very godly. I know. There were times where I used to feel like a failure when I was raising our children.

It’s a huge task. It’s a bigger task than we are capable of in our own strength of course. But God is with us and we have to come to Him and seek His wisdom and strength because He’s promised to be with us and help us in this great task.

Although Solomon said, “Who am I to do this?” he also said, “But I am doing it for just one thing, the main thing! I’ve mentioned other things, but this is the main thing: to sacrifice before Him.”

He was talking about the morning and the evening sacrifices, which were to take place in the temple. They had taken place in the tabernacle but now the tabernacle had been destroyed. It had been in Shiloh for about 360 years but then their enemies took it and so they now want to build this temple.

I think this is something we should get into our hearts, precious mothers, because this is here in the Word of God. It’s literally telling us about Solomon’s vision but every word that was written is written for our learning and our admonition. Every single thing is a type for us today (Romans 15:4 and 1 Corinthians 10:11).

So we should have, like Solomon had, this longing, this passion, this understanding that this is the main thing I want to do in my home and that is to meet with God every morning and evening.

That’s what the sacrifices were about. Every sacrifice pointed to Jesus, to the Lamb of God Who would be the ultimate sacrifice. When Jesus came and when He sacrificed His body and His blood for our sins, it was ONE sacrifice. Never did there have to be another sacrifice for sins. All those sacrifices back there in the Old Testament pointed to Calvary.

But they also pointed to meeting with God because He says in the Scriptures, “There will I meet with you.” God was always there because it pointed to His Son coming to be the sacrifice for our sins.

God wanted them to do it every morning and every evening. They sacrificed upon the Brazen Altar. In Leviticus 6:8-13 it tells us how God told Moses to pass this on to the priests.  He said, “You are to keep this fire on the altar burning continually. This altar where you are going to sacrifice, it must never go out.” (Leviticus 6:13).

The amazing thing is, is that when he dedicated this altar when they had built it, the fire of God came down. It was a supernatural fire from God, but God said, “You have got to keep it going. The way you will keep it going is to attend to it every morning.

“You come and take out the ashes and put on the wood but that’s not enough. If you leave it till next morning it will go out.” So they had to come and attend to it in the evening as well because God said, “This fire must never go out.” God repeats those words two times (verses 12, and 13).

He says the same thing to us. When we come to know Him and He lights that fire in our spirits He says, “I don’t want this fire to ever go out. I have lit this fire in your heart by My precious Holy Spirit, but I want you to keep it burning. You don’t keep it burning in your own strength. It will keep burning by the power of My Holy Spirit, but I want you to attend to it every morning and every evening.”

It’s a Biblical principle. So every morning we come personally to the Lord and then we come as a family. We gather our family around and we come into the presence of the Lord. If there’s anything in our hearts that is evil or it’s not pleasing to the Lord, it’s like the ashes. We’ve got to take it out and get rid of it.

Then we put on the wood. The Word of God is like the wood. It’s like fuel to keep our fire burning. So we read the Word personally and then we gather our family to read the Word to them because we want to keep this fire for God burning in the hearts of every one of our children and in our families. We want to be a home that is set on fire for God.

The only way we can keep the fire burning is to come morning and evening.

Did you notice about burning sweet incense? That was talking about the Golden Altar of Incense.  That altar was in the Holy Place just by the curtain before you went into the Holy of Holies. The Altar of Incense, which they also had to burn . . .  when? You can guess . . .  every morning and every evening. They had to burn this beautiful sweet incense. It was called sweet incense. It filled the Holy Place. It was so beautiful. As the day wore on it would be fading and God said, “No, you’ve got to come back again. You’ve got to come back in the evening because I want My Home filled continually with My sweet presence.”

The Altar of Incense speaks of prayer and intercession and praise and worship. We see that in Revelation chapter five. Here it is in verse 8. This is John looking into the heavenly realm. It’s amazing, when John looked into the heavenly realm and he saw what was there, he saw an Altar of Incense. You see, the Altar of Incense back in the Tabernacle was only a type of the heavenly one. The Bible tells us that and so now John is looking at the heavenly one.

“And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors [incense], which are the prayers of saints.”

There the Bible specifically declares what the incense is. It’s the prayers of the saints.

We go over to chapter eight of Revelation. John is still seeing things in the heavenly realm. Verse 3: “And another angel came and stood at the altar [this is the golden altar because it was covered with gold, The Golden Altar of Incense.], having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.”

Of course Solomon was building this Temple to put the golden altar of incense in it, in the tabernacle and Temple. It was right before the Holy of Holies, which contained the Shekinah Glory of God. Now as John looks into the heavenly realm he looks and sees this Golden Altar right before the throne of God and the prayers of the saints are coming up.

Oh precious, lovely ladies—this is not just some story we’re reading about in the Old Testament. We are reading about something that is now and is to come. John saw it in the heavenly realm and the prayers going up.

As we meet together as a family morning and evening our prayers are going up as incense before the Lord. How much incense is going up in your home, darling ladies? Is it just a little bit of incense?

Do you think: “Oh goodness me, life is so busy. How could I fit this in?”

Sometimes you have Bible reading or prayer together, so you have a little bit of incense. But that’s not the picture. God wants MUCH incense going up from our families. MUCH incense every morning and every evening.

Let’s get a passion like Solomon had.

Of course, we are no longer building a real literal altar or a brazen altar. We’re not doing sacrifices or lighting the candlestick in the Holy Place. That had to be lit every morning and every evening, too.

The morning and evening principle was so powerful back there, but it’s so powerful for us today. We’re not doing it literally with altars and sacrifices, but we are doing it literally by doing it and by coming into God’s presence and gathering our families around.

Precious mothers, can I ask you a big question? Do you have that passion and vision that David and Solomon had, to build a house for the name of the Lord?

The most important thing he wanted to do was to sacrifice before Him, to come into His presence, to pray to Him, to send up MUCH incense, to get fueled every morning with His precious Word.

His Word is our fuel, our sustenance, and our life.

If that is not your consuming passion for your home, what is? What is your passion?

Sometimes we get overtaken and overwhelmed with all we have to do and it’s just getting through each day. There’s so much to do. I know, darling ladies, I know. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed. There IS so much to do.

But we can’t do everything. I realize that. I can’t do everything. You can’t do everything. We have to work out what is the most important to do.

Do you know that we have to get rid of a lot of other things we do? There are so many superfluous things we do, so many things we don’t need to do. We have got to work out the most important things that we have to do.

Of course, when you are a new mother with little ones around you, you won’t get much else done in the day except to care for them, your nursing baby, and your little toddlers. You’re not wasting time. No, it’s powerful. It’s beautiful. God sees it as just beautiful unto Him. Do it unto Him.

As your children get older, then you get busier in different ways. You do not just have to do everything for these little toddlers. Now your children can do things for themselves. But now you end up running them around everywhere. You’re going here and there, and life today is just like a rat race.

Darling ladies, it’s not meant to be a rat race. Can you take a moment to get before the Lord? Ask Him what’s the most important.

Can we come back to this passage of Solomon and see what was the most important to him? He was a king and he made that kingdom of Israel the greatest kingdom of the world at that time. It was the richest kingdom of the world at that time. There was hardly a thing that Solomon didn’t do or think of! It was so unbelievable if you just read about it!

And yet still his greatest passion was to make that Temple a place where he would come as the king of a huge, incredible, rich and busy kingdom. He made time every morning and every evening to sacrifice before the Lord and to come into His presence.

Yes, we do have to sacrifice other things, but really, this word sacrifice, I’m not sure we use it in the right way.

Sometimes I hear mothers say, “Well, I sacrificed my career to come home to my children.”

Well praise the Lord they came home to their children, but I don’t really think it’s quite the right word. Maybe you have also done that, dear mother. But you really didn’t sacrifice your career to come home to your children because THIS IS YOUR GREATEST CAREER.

Now we are thinking of how do we fit into our family lives a gathering together of our family every morning and every evening? How can we possibly do that? Help! We are just too busy! We’ve got too many things we have to do.

No, you’ve got to put some of those things aside. It’s not sacrifice, because they’re not as important as the most important thing.

I have realized that the most important thing in our lives is to meet with our Maker, with our Savior, with our great God morning and evening. So in our home I arrange my whole life around these two times of the day. Everything else fits into them.

I don’t ever put them aside because they are the most important. If something else doesn’t get done, who cares? This is the most important.

Even back in the days when all our children were home, many years ago now, and our children were getting older and our sons were out at work, but still living at home, I still expected them as older children in their late teens and early twenties to be back home for the evening meal.

There we would enjoy fellowship together around the table. We would sit and talk and discuss and debate and really get into things together, heart to heart. It was really exciting! It was such a wonderful time. We would never leave the table until we opened the Word of God and prayed.

I would say to them, “You have got to be home unless there’s something specific on and there is a good excuse and you let me know. Otherwise you have to be home for this evening meal.”

It’s not, “Oh well we come if we want and if not, we just go where we like.”

No, it’s: “While you live in our home, this is the vision of our home, so you fit in with it. When you leave home and you begin your own family then you start what you want to do. But in our home, while you’re under our roof, you do the vision that God has given to us.”

This is what we are meant to do as parents. Dear precious mothers, there is something happening in our society today where parents are losing their authority.  They are losing their grip on their children. Their children are just doing what they want, going here and there. They seem to rule the house.

No, you are in charge, you have the authority, God has given it to you, and He holds you responsible. Every child under your roof is still responsible to you and to your vision and your plan of the day until they leave home.

Sometimes we’ve just got to pull things back in again.

We’re reading about this passion in 2 Chronicles chapter two. Go back when you have some time and you can read this chapter over yourself. We keep reading down 2 Chronicles chapter two. Let’s go down to verse 9: “Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great.”

Wow, he uses two amazing adjectives there: WONDERFUL and GREAT. In verse 5 he also uses the word great.

We have to lift our vision, dear precious ladies, to not just build: “Okay, we’re just building a family like everybody else down the street.”

Instead lift your vision: “No, we’re going to have a BIGGER vision! Our vision is great! It’s wonderful! We’re building a family that’s actually WONDERFUL and GREAT.”

Before I even get on to talking to you about what those words really mean, we better look at the word “build” because that comes first, doesn’t it?

“ . . .For the house, which I am about to build . . ..” That’s what we are talking about, isn’t it, building?

Proverbs 14:1 says: “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”

The word “build” in the Hebrew is banah. It has more than one meaning like so many Hebrew words.

It means, of course: “To build.” We understand that, of course, don’t we? With building it’s something that you have to keep at. Building a house doesn’t happen in a day. It’s little by little, day by day; we build and strengthen our marriage and our home, just another little thing every day.

It’s good to think, precious ladies, of just adding a little more to your building project every day; just add a little something more to make it bigger. When you’re building you don’t get less, you get bigger, don’t you?

I’m sure you don’t want to build a little shack; you want to build a BIG home for God just like Solomon wanted to build this big Temple! So we add a little bit each day.

For example: building your marriage. Today, think of some little thing you can add to your marriage. Can you think of something special you could say to your husband when he gets home from work? Can you think of some way you could encourage him or bless him or have some special little thing waiting in the bedroom for him when he comes into change after a hard day’s work?

Just think of some little thing! That’s adding! That’s building up your marriage!

For your children, think of something special to do for them each day. Think of some new encouraging word to say to them. Keep building.

Also contained in the word build is the word “repair.” Oh my, we know, that’s part of building, isn’t it? We know life’s not perfect. Oh goodness me, there’s always hurts and rifts coming in relationships. Maybe it’s amongst the children or maybe it’s between husband and wife. My, these things happen because we’re not perfect. We are fleshly people and so we have to keep repairing.

If there comes a rift, we never let the sun go down upon our wrath, our anger. We always put it right. We say, “Sorry.” Keep short accounts with one another. We keep repairing and repairing.

Even our physical homes, they need repairing. We have things falling down around our ears! My, we have to put up new spouting around the house! We have to do this, and we have to do that, because it kind of wears out and it’s no longer working.

You have to do the same. It’s the same in our relationships. We have to keep working on them and repairing them.

There’s another thing about banah, too. You won’t expect this one and I’ll just finish with this on this session. It also means: “To bring forth children.” Wow. You don’t expect that from building, do you?

But go to The Strong’s Concordance and you will find it right there and right before your eyes it says, “To bring forth children.”

There are a number of Scriptures that use that word.

For example, Ruth 4:11 speaks of Ruth and it says: “ . . . The Lord make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel . . ..”

Now, how did Rachel and Leah build the house of Israel?  Did they do it with hammer and nails? No, they did it by bringing forth children. They brought forth the twelve sons of Jacob and a daughter. There may have been more daughters, we don’t know. This is how they built up the house, by bringing forth children.

Every child you bring into your home builds up the family a little more and it adds so much to the family! I can’t even think of how people want to stop having children, stop at maybe two or three. My, that’s only a little building.

Of course we know that there are some who long for children and they just don’t come. That’s in God’s hands. God sees your heart. He sees your longing. He sees that it is good.

There are some mums who were only able to have two and yet the next generation God gives them many, many, many grandchildren.

It’s what is in our hearts.

It is also true, literally, that every child does build up that family more. They bring more blessing and more joy to the parents and more joy to the siblings.

Then of course, it’s building up the generations because each child we have is not just a child for us. It’s a child that one day will build another dynasty. We are building dynasties and generations for God.

When I started building our family it was just Colin and me. Then we had our first child. Then we had more and now we have many grandchildren and now we have great-grandchildren and the building is getting bigger and bigger.

But let me pray:

“Dear Father, We thank you for how You give us vision in Your Word. You don’t leave us just hanging and not knowing what to do.

“We pray that You will give us a vision like David had and like Solomon had to build a house for You, a family that is strong, a family that walks in truth in the midst of all the deception of this age. Lord God, help us to put into our homes that which is the most important. Help us to, Lord God, to see that the morning and the evening principle is Your plan. It’s the way we keep the fire going. It’s the way we keep the sweet incense burning in our homes. It’s a way we keep the anointing of the Holy Spirit continually burning in our homes.

“Please God, give us a consuming passion, just as David and Solomon had. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.”

Transcribed by Morgan Roth. Thank you, Morgan.