FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

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

Nancy: Hello ladies, so wonderful to be with you again today. I'm looking out the window; it's a beautiful spring day here in Tennessee. The leaves are such a rich green. I love the awakening of spring, don't you? I love it when the Bradford pears first appear in all their white glory. Then the daffodils come out, and then the beautiful pink blossoms, and then we have the red buds here in Tennessee. I love them. Then we have the dogwoods. We have lots of dogwoods around our property, and they're so beautiful. Now, all the blossoms have gone and now we have this beautiful fullness of the green trees.

Of course, it’s gardening time as well. I'm a bit behind in my gardening this year. I seem to have so many things going in the spring, and I didn't get my garden in at the right time. I'm working on it this month, the month of May. I hope to have it all in this week. I already planted 107 tomato plants, and I planted my peppers and planted lots of other things, but I still have got some beds I haven't finished yet, so I've got to finish them.

I have 13 raised beds, big long raised beds, so I have a big garden and every season I look out at my garden that's waiting to be done and I think, how am I going to do it? Such a big job. Not just planting, that's easy. It's getting the beds ready and getting all the stuff into the soil we need to get in because, really, your vegetables are only as good as your soil. Gradually, we've got it going, and we are getting it in again, and I am always so glad that I make the effort because then we can go out and harvest every day. It's so wonderful.

Anyway, back to talking about your home and about motherhood because that's what this podcast is all about. It's about encouraging you as a wife and as a mother. This encouragement is so needed in this hour in which we are living. I was talking to the folks who were around our breakfast table this morning because we always have extra people with us, and I was sharing with them what it was like when I was growing up as a child in a little town in New Zealand.

Down the street where I lived, I can remember going off to school each day with my friends. We would all walk to school. A few of the children would bike to school but most of us walked. We walked over a mile. We all walked to school and often we would walk back for lunch (although often we would take a cut lunch) and then we would walk home again.

Most of the folks down our street were secular people; they weren't Christians. I think we were the only real committed Christians in our street, but all the families had the same values. Even though they were secular, they still had these Christian values that were still there in our culture. All the mothers were at home. They were there making their homes a wonderful place. They were there for their children when they got home from school. They were there to have a meal on the table as their husbands came home from all their various careers and jobs that they did in the township.

It was a beautiful, lovely way to live, but I look back and see how different it is now, how quickly our culture has eroded. It would be difficult to go into any town today and go down a street and find every mother in the home, every mother enjoying being in the home, happy with her children, happy to be in the home, happy to cook and home-make, and it was the normal thing.

A woman, a mother, a wife in the home would not even think of anything else but having a meal ready for her husband when he walked in the door. That was the number one thing. You did that, and you never thought anything of it; that was part of life. Now today it's such a different story.

Maybe you live in a street and perhaps you are the only one in your whole street that is home looking after your children. I can remember that when we moved to Australia from New Zealand. I remember the street we lived in, well we lived in two or three different streets, in different homes at that time but in all the streets that I lived in, I don't remember any other Christian homes. I don't remember any other homes where the mother was at home. They would all get up each day, get into their business clothes and off they'd go. The cars would drive out with the mothers and the children, dropping them off here and there and the husbands, and all the homes were empty, except mine which was filled with children and filled with people, and filled with those who we would ask into our home. It was a hub—a hub where everything was happening, and it was such an exciting place.

Most of the ladies must have wondered, “What's that lady doing in her home?” They didn't understand what I was doing. They didn't even know the power of what I was doing. They were dropping off their children at day cares and school. My children were in my home. I was raising them and preparing them for their destiny, and I was fulfilling the greatest career that any woman could have.

I want to encourage you again today. I would like to read you something that I read in a book I was reading recently, and it shows you the agenda of what is happening in our society and what you are facing today as a wife and a mother. This happened 50 years ago. This person writes:

“It was 1969 and she took me to a meeting at her friend’s place.

“At a consciousness raising (an idea imported from Mao’s China), twelve women gathered at a large table. They opened with a type of Litany from the Catholic Church. But this time it was Marxism, the church of the Left.”

In a moment, I'm going to read to you how they started off that meeting. Very interesting that twelve women gathered around that table and from that table, you will see how they have changed the world, how they have made it what it is today.

Then I think back further, I think back to the disciples. Actually, most of the disciples were rather young when Jesus called them. Maybe I'll do a podcast on that one day and tell you all the reasons why I believe that most of them were even teenagers when Jesus called them to be his students and his disciples. After the resurrection, it tells us in Acts that these young men were the people who turned the world upside down, such was their impact.

Here we see twelve women who also impacted the world in a negative way.

“The meeting started. . . .

“Why are we here today?” the chairwoman asked. “To make revolution,” they answered.

“What kind of revolution?” she replied. “The Cultural Revolution,” they chanted.

“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?” she demanded.

“By destroying the American family!” they answered.

“How do we destroy the family?” she came back.

“By destroying the American Patriarch,” they cried exuberantly.

“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?” she probed.

“By taking away his power!” “How do we do that?”

“By destroying monogamy!” they shouted. “How can we destroy monogamy?”

“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion and homosexuality!” they resounded.

The book says: “Such antics might seem insignificant except for the fact that these women achieved all of their goals.”

Now, we are facing a society where the patriarch is demeaned, where they have sought to destroy the American family, starting with the patriarch, starting with the man. It is an interesting thing that whenever I have been asked to do an interview on TV or with some Talk Show, especially secular, there is one of the questions they never fail to ask and that is, “What about patriarchy?” They have this concept of the man who is lording over his family, and they're all little servants who bow to his every word, and this is the concept that they have promoted.

Of course, we still have so many great men, men of courage and strength, but there are so many today who are not. They are wimps. They have been put down by the feminist agenda. There are so many men today who just go along with it. They are scared to stand against it; they go along with it. They go along with these women standing up for their rights and it’s ridiculous. They are no longer men. Goodness me. God didn't create two males or two females. He created a male and a female. He wants men to be men and to stand up and be who they are, the loving protectors and providers of their homes. Patriarchy is a beautiful thing in God. In God, it's a safety to the nation and a protection to society.

Many demean motherhood and take the mother out of the home. Two things that they cannot stand, one is motherhood, the other is virginity. They seek to rob every young person of their beautiful, God-given pure virginity and then they want to rob women of motherhood, which is the greatest career God has given to her because dear precious mother, you were created in the image of God to reveal His nurturing heart. This is who you are as a woman. God created you to love being in your home. Now, if somehow you don't feel really happy, you love your children but you feel pulled in all these different directions and you're not really happy in your home, well, let me tell you something, let me tell you the bottom line. You are deceived. You have been victimized by our feminist, socialist, humanist agenda that wants to woo you out of the home and out of the role that God intends for you.

Because you have all this pressure on you, and all this victimization, and all this propaganda, your mind is filled with that and you think, “I'm just wasting away here in my home.” No, that's not the truth. We have to know the truth, and I'm here to encourage you in the truth because the truth sets you free. When you really get down to bed rocks and get rid of all this agenda and all this stuff that's being poured into you, and you get down to who you really are, you find there's nothing you love more than being in your home, nothing you love more than being a mother with these precious children around you. THIS IS THE TRUE LIFE!

Now, I'd better get on to where we are up to. We are still talking about “How do we change the world?” This is an amazing subject. As I've been talking with you for a few weeks, we have been finding that even at home, even as a mother, we have the power to change the world. The point that we are still talking about, point number 15, is in our homes we are going to SERVE THE LORD WILLINGLY. Not just, “Here I am in my home, as a mother in my home, having to work in my home. I better just do it. It's a duty.”

No, not doing it as a duty but doing it as a delight. Not just doing it because we have to get the job done because no one else will do it for us but doing it willingly. We've been looking at all the different ways that God wants us, how He wants us to work in our homes. The last one WAS No. 10. IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD.  

Today, number 11, it says that when we work, how do we work? Your husband, wherever he's working, has to have the same attitude. We are working in our homes, so these are the attitudes that we are to have. Each one of these attitudes that I'm giving you are all in the Word of God and showing us the attitudes that He wants us to have toward working. How many do we have? 25 different attitudes that are mentioned in the Bible on how God wants us to work. It's so good to see them. The Word of God is so wonderful, ladies. It doesn't leave anything out. It's all there for us. It shows us how God wants us to work. He gives all the adjectives; they are all there. It's good for us to know them, isn't it? We are up to . . .

No. 11. IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS

Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatsoever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” This Scripture relates to every part of our lives. No matter where we are, what we do, or what we are saying. It relates to our husbands. It relates to us in our homes because we've got to relate it to where we are.

When I read the Word of God, I read it as though God is speaking to me personally. He's speaking to me as who I am and who He has called me to be. He has called me, commissioned me, to be a mother, so I read it as a mother. I read it personally. He says to me, “Nancy, whatever you do, whatever words you speak, whatever action you do, I want you to do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

This is for all of us. I have to confess dear ladies, oh goodness me, I'm not always perfect at doing this. I'm sure there are many things I don't do in the name of the Lord Jesus. That's why I need reminding and that's why I need to remind you. We all need reminding, don't we? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get into that habit?” We get up each morning and pray, “Lord Jesus, please help me today to say every word in Your name. That every word I say to my children, every word I say to my husband, I can say in the name of Jesus. I can put the name of Jesus to it.” Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't that bring such a difference to our homes? Every action, everything we do and the way we do it in our homes, even when we are cooking meals and scrubbing floors and cleaning up messes after children and after cats and after this and after that, everybody who doesn't clean up after themselves. We do it in the name of the Lord Jesus, and it changes everything.

No. 12. JOYFULLY

God wants us to work joyfully. He wants us to do everything that we do, whatever it is—great things, little things, mundane things, happy things but to do all of them joyfully. Deuteronomy 28, you can read the passage again in verses 45-47 but this is the passage in the Bible, the Deuteronomy 28 passage which talks about all the blessings that will come upon us if we are obedient to the Lord and His commandments. I love those first few Scriptures in Deuteronomy 28 but then it goes on to all the curses if we are disobedient to God's ways.

Sadly, there are a lot more curses than there are blessings. I don't like reading them so much. It says here: “All these curses shall come upon you because you do not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart.” We are meant to serve the Lord joyfully. We're meant to work joyfully. Ladies, when we can get a hold of this, it not only changes our attitude, but it changes the attitude of our children. Do you find it hard to get your children to work? Do they groan and complain and it's terrible trying to get them to be happy doing their chores? Well, my lovely darling ladies, have they been watching your attitude? Because if they see its joy for you to work,  that you do it with joyfulness, and you're not complaining about it all, they are going to catch on to that too.

Let's have a look at a few more Scriptures here. I love Psalm 113:9 where it says: “He makes the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord.”

It's interesting that the adjective, the most prominent adjective that is related to motherhood is JOY. God says here that He wants to make a mother a joyful mother. This word joyful is an amazing word. It's the Hebrew word, simcha, and it means “to be full of glee, to be merry-hearted.”

It's exactly the same word that is used in Proverbs 16:13: “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.” Isn't that good, ladies? If we are merry and joyful in our hearts, it will be seen on our faces.

We show off who we are, don't we? There's a Scripture in Isaiah 3:9 that says: “The show of their countenance hath witness against them.” Our face shows what we are on the inside. If our eyes are bright and our mouth is smiling, and we have a happy disposition on our face, well, everyone knows that we have merry heart. Yet, I see so many women, so many others, where their faces are, I don't even like looking at them, not because they are not beautiful but because they look so boring and so frowning and so down in the mouth. You get depression looking at them. I don't know how their children survive if they look at this mother all day long, and she's got this sour face on her, and it's all down in the mouth and frowning, I mean, help, did you know our children actually grow into our likeness?”

I love that Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3:18 where it talks about how “We, beholding the Lord, we are changed into that same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord.” As we spend time in the presence of the Lord, as we spend time in His Word, as we look to Him throughout the day instead of sighing and looking at all our problems and what we've got to do, we get into that habit of looking to Jesus, we will grow into His likeness. His glory will be upon us, and we will grow from glory to glory.

It's the same with our little children. They look at us, and if they see that we have a happy face, they see us smiling, they are going to get that same kind of face. If they see us frowning, well, you're going to have frowning, complaining children too.

Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” It's health. “But a broken spirit drieth the bones.” A merry heart with a happy face, with a smile on your face, brings health not only to you but to your children. I believe, mothers, we bring health to our homes, we bring health to our children. Have you noticed that in some families there is such a lot of sickness? I think that if we have a negative attitude and we are always talking about sickness, always talking negative things, and we're down in the mouth, and we've got a frown, and were always sighing, these are negative things and they bring it into the atmosphere in our home. They affect our children. The Bible is true. Let's get it, ladies. We read it and we just gloss over it but what does it say? “A merry heart does good like a medicine.”

The best medicine for your children is for your children to see you with a happy face, joyful, smiling, doing all the things you have to do with joy. They are seeing it. This affects not only their souls and spirits but their bodies. I believe you can have health in your children as you have happiness in your home. You may think I'm a bit weird, but as we raised our children, we never even had a doctor. We never had a family doctor the whole time we raised our children. Now, I do admit we often went to the emergency section at the hospital because children would break a bone or cut their leg, and they would do this and they would do that, and I'd have to go and get them stitches and get them this kind of thing. That's just a part of children growing up and boys especially. For goodness sake, they are always doing something to themselves; they were so adventurous.

Of course, there were times when the children were sick, yes, but we didn't go running often to the doctor. We were always able to minister to them. Another thing, the other day, someone was here, and they said, “Do you have a thermometer? I need one for my child.” I said, “Sorry, I don't have one.” Forgive me, ladies, because I've never owned a thermometer. Can you believe it? How did we survive?

Well, I raised all my six children and then we adopted four more, and I never had a thermometer. Oh yes, I know there were times when our children had temperatures, and I could just about tell. I could tell when they were normal. I could tell when they were about 100. I could tell when there were times that they got up to 103 or more, and wow, we had to look after them. You learn how to bring that temperature down. You can feel it. Sometimes, we get so use to having to use other things that we forget how to actually discern and feel ourselves. Y

ou know, it's like our society today, isn't it? I used to know all my families’ phone numbers. There are so many of them, and I always remembered them, all the numbers of my family and children and grandchildren and friends. Do you know? Now, I don't even know if I know a number? That's about all because I use my iPhone and say, “Call so and so, call so and so.” Isn't it disgusting? So lazy that my brain is no longer remembering numbers.

Now we use GPS, although I have to confess, my husband, he is so old school. He'll be 80 next year, and he never trusts the GPS. I'll have it going, and it says, go here. “I don't believe that.” He thinks he knows best. You know, he would always get out the map and check it all out, but now, we don't even know how to read maps because we just listen to GPS.

I think it's a bit like caring for our children. We've lost the art of being aware and understanding whether this is serious or no, that's fine, that's normal; we can cope with that. I believe we need to be able to do that as mothers. Anyway, I haven't finished about this joyful mother yet, and it's time to stop. We will get onto it next session.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your Word. There's nothing You leave out of Your Word. You show us everything in the way You wants us to live, and we thank You for this. I pray for every lovely mother listening today, grandmothers, teens, children. I pray Your blessing on each one of them. I pray, Father, that You will fill them with Your joy.

I pray, O God, that You will expose all the lies and deceptions that have come to them through our society and the education system and our media, everything that's around us, even in the church. Lord, we get this brainwashing but Lord, we do not want to be brainwashed by society. We want to be brainwashed by Your Word. That Your Word will fill us, Your Word will change us, Your Word will become flesh and blood in us. This is how we will live. I ask this for everyone listening today in the name of Jesus, Amen.”

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 50 - How Can We Change the World- Part 16

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. Can you believe it? This is our podcast number 50, we’re halfway to 100!

We’re still on point number 15, SERVING THE LORD WILLINGLY. Well ladies, willingly is only one of the ways we can serve the Lord. I have found 25 different ways that the Bible tells us to serve the Lord. Twenty-five different descriptions!

I think it would be fun to look at those today, don’t you? Well, I don’t think we’ll get through them all. I love to always find out every little thing I can about a subject in the Word of God. So when it says to serve the Lord, I want to know— how does God want me to serve Him?

We know that we won’t change the world by doing anything passively or ordinarily. We’ve got to go a little bit over the top, we’ve got to go over the ordinary, more than the average.

Let’s start looking at these descriptions, shall we? I’m going to put them in sort of alphabetical order.

The first one is . . .

ABOUNDINGLY

and it’s in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That is such a wonderful promise for you as a mother. It’s a promise, but there’s also a challenge there.

Isn’t it wonderful when we get Scriptures when there’s a challenge to us, but there’s a promise that goes with it? It’s great to look out for those! It’s also important to not take promises on their own without checking out if there is a challenge that comes before it. Because often we won’t get the promise unless we fulfill the first part.

This verse is talking about working for the Lord. How are we to do it? Always abounding. Abounding, what is that word? The Greek word means “to be excessive, over the top, going beyond what is necessary, superabundant.” Now, that sounds like a fun way to live, doesn’t it?

Are you living this way in your home? It’s very easy to live boringly. I think it’s so sad when we live in our homes in a boring manner. This is what many mothers do. They get in the rut of getting up in the morning, “Okay, I’ve got to make breakfast, I’ve got to do this, and I’ve got to do that.” They go through the routine of the day with their “hang down” mouth and their grumpy face and it’s such a boring day. It’s so sad. You don’t have to be like that. It all depends on our attitude and what we want to do. Because, ladies, we have the power to make our homes what we want them to be.

Now if your home is a boring place, that is showing that there is something wrong with your attitude. Who is making it a boring place? Nobody else but you! You see, we make our homes what we want them to be.

Dear, precious mother, if you want a joyful home, well make a joyful home! It starts with you being joyful, but you can do it! If you want an exciting home, well make it exciting! Think of exciting things to do. If you want a home that’s filled with peace, be a peacemaker. We make the environment that we want to have.

It’s interesting, as we have found out so many times, everything in the Word, everything in God is not normal. It’s over the top. That’s one of the meanings of this word, abounding. It means to be over the top, more than is necessary, being excessive, superabundant.

Can I encourage you to just get out of the normal, the boring, and the status quo? Come on now, spend a little time as you’re going off to sleep tonight, thinking, “Now, Lord Jesus, what could I do tomorrow that could make my home more exciting? What could I do to bring more joy into our home? What could I do to make our marriage more exciting? Show me, help me to think of new and creative ideas that are beyond the normal status quo. Bring these ideas to my mind. I ask You in the name of Jesus.”

So pray and ask God to show you so that in your marriage you’re going to think of new, different, lovely, sweet, exciting, and creative things to do to your husband to blow him away. You’re going to think of ideas to do with your children that take them from the normal and the boring into a whole new realm. And it starts with your attitude.

Of course, you can’t do that unless you change your attitude yourself and you’re going to have an abounding attitude in your spirit. You can take the most mundane, ordinary bit of work you have to do and make it a joy, make it fun. Teach your children how to do that. You’re training them how to work and of course they’re going to realize that work takes work. Sometimes work is hard.

But even hard work can be fun. Work can be fun because work is good. Did you know that? Work is good. Work is therapeutic. God gave us work for the blessing of our bodies, and the blessing of our souls, and the blessing of our minds.

When I was a young child, I had the idea that work came in after the fall of man and that’s when we had to work with the sweat of our brow. Because, when I was a child, I didn’t like work. But I realized as time went on that, No. God established the principle of work before man sinned. As soon as God put him in the garden, God told him to dress it and to keep it. The word “dress” means “to work, to work with the sweat pouring down your brow, to work hard.”

Goodness me, that was even before sin came in. It in this ideal environment where everything was beautiful, glorious, and wonderful. And they had to work? Yes, yes, because work does good to your body. You’ll have a good night’s sleep. You’ll be healthier for hard work. Work does good for your soul.

There’s something about working. It’s therapeutic and if you learn to do it with the right attitude and with joy, you realize that every single job you do, whether little or mundane or difficult, even slimy and horrible is still sacred. Because Jesus lives in you and when Christ lives in you everything you do, or touch is sacred.

It’s good for your mental abilities. When you work at something you get more ideas of how to do the thing better or more ideas come to you all the time. If you’re just sitting, panning out, you don’t really get any great ideas so much as when you’re working and thinking. It is a blessing.

So working, you’re going to learn how to do it yourself with this great, abounding, exciting, fun, joyful, amazing attitude. Then your children will see, “Oh, so work’s fun. This is what work is? I want to work!”

We’re training our children for work all the way through their lives because we’re preparing them to be young men and women who know how to work hard. Young women who know and are prepared to run a home, who can get in there and know how to cook a meal, how to clean a home, and how to get stuck in and manage a home. Oh, there are so many beautiful, beautiful girls who know how to do this. I have been in many wonderful, godly homes and the young people growing up and the middling and older teens, oh, just beautiful girls.

I remember, actually we will have been, by the time you hear this podcast to our Above Rubies retreat in Panama Beach in Florida. As I speak, I will be going down there tomorrow. My husband and I will be speaking there. The family who put on this retreat, Daniel and Alison Hartman, lovely, lovely family and a few weeks ago we were actually staying at their home.  It was such a blessing to stay with them and their ten children. Not only were we staying with them, but the Alison family, Serene and Sam and about ten of their children.

So there was a big, big crowd of us in that home, but we all just fitted in so gloriously. For the evening meals they asked more people and we sat down for these great meals, and the adults never did anything. The young people, they just got in, they cooked these wonderful big meals to feed all these people. They cleaned up afterwards and left everything glorious and shining. Oh, it was just with joy and singing and delight. It was just so glorious to behold.

And then you can go to other homes where there are young people and they are even in their late teens and early twenties and they don’t know how to cook. They don’t know how to clean up. They don’t even do the dishes. They’re not even being prepared for life!

Then our young men, oh my, we want to see young men who know how to work hard. They are the young men who will get jobs. I’m a great believer that hopefully God will bless these young men while they are young with the one that God has chosen for them. That doesn’t always happen, sometimes they don’t meet that one till later. But it’s such a blessing when they meet them when they’re young, and they can get married young and get into life together when they’re young. And they take on responsibility.

I was talking with a young married man last night and he is doing very well and studying to be a doctor. They’re living in a home that they’ve bought, they have two cars and they’ve now got two little children. They are doing so well. And I said to him, “You know, I think that if you weren’t married, you wouldn’t be living in this home and I don’t think that you would have all that you’ve got now.”

He said, “You know, that’s true. I’d be living in my parent’s basement, eating fast foods.”

And you know, that’s true because he would have no real purpose to live for. Statistics tell us that married men do better financially that single men because they have a wife and a family to care for. He can’t be just a young single guy, maybe he has a car, but it doesn’t even work. Goodness me, no! If he’s married, if he’s got children, he better have a car that’s going and it’s on the road, because what if something happens to his little baby or his little child? He’s got to be ready to run and do something!

So there comes this need for rising into maturity and to provide for the family. It makes a man of them, even when they are young. But you see, these kinds of young men have to be trained, and prepared, and taught how to work hard so they are ready for life. There are too many young men today still living with their parents. I beg your pardon? It’s time for them to get out and establish a life on their own, unless they are working in a family business, of course. Sometimes that happens also and that can be very good, too.

But we are going to be those who love work and train and teach our children how to love work. And we will abound in working in our homes because this is how we are serving the Lord. If God gives us children, this is our work, our work for the Lord.

Now for the next one . . .

2. AS TO THE LORD, AND NOT UNTO MEN

It tells us that in Ephesians 6, to work as unto the Lord. Then Colossians 3:23 says: ”And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”

The J. B. Phillips translation of that Scripture says: “You are actually employed by Christ.”

This is true when we are in our homes mothering our children, working hard in our home. We’re not doing it for anybody else but the Lord. Well, we are— we’re doing it for our husbands, we’re doing it for our children. Actually, we’re doing it for ourselves, too, because it’s such a joy to live in a well-managed home, isn’t it? Who wants to live in a shambles? Nobody can enjoy life like that. But ultimately, we’re doing it as unto the Lord.

So even if we’re not getting any reward, even if no body’s saying, “Oh, you’re doing such a great job,” even if we think everybody’s just taking us for granted, well, who cares? We are doing this as unto the Lord and we will receive a reward. Do you notice that? In fact, in this Scripture it says that “KNOWING that we will receive the reward” because God is looking.

Maybe your husband forgets to say anything encouraging to you. Maybe you feel as though you’re just hidden away, on the back benches, just being taken for granted. But God is watching, and you will receive your reward.

In our first Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15:58, that Scripture also talked about the reward when it says that we are “. . .always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor [your work] is not in vain. . .”

Mother, your work is not in vain for the Lord. Your work as a mother is an eternal work.  You are mothering eternal souls. Your work is going into the eternal realm. And you will receive your eternal reward.

No. 3 DILIGENTLY

Proverbs 12:27 says: “. . . But diligence is man’s precious possession.” 

In Jeremiah 48:10 RSV it says: “. . . Cursed is he who does the work of the Lord with slackness. . ..” Now, that’s a challenge, isn’t it?

Romans 12:11 in the J. B. Phillips translation says: “Let us not allow slackness to spoil our work. . ..” And in that same verse the Good News version says: “Work hard and do not be lazy.”

The Proverbs 31 chapter tells us about that too. It says that this woman is never lazy. She works hard.

And so, that’s another description of how we work for the Lord in our homes—diligently.

No. 4. FAITHFULLY

In Matthew 25 it says he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in that which is much. We have to learn to be faithful in the little things of life, don’t we?  And in the little things of the home. Sometimes we think our work in the home is not really very powerful, we’re not doing much. But ladies, we are doing a great thing.

My Facebook post for this morning I headed up, “SIGNS AND WONDERS MINISTRY.” I was talking about how that in our homes, we are a missionary for the Lord.

Sometimes you may think, “Oh, goodness, what am I doing here, hidden in my home? If only I could be a missionary out in a foreign field, really doing something out there!”

But dear mother, you are serving the Lord as much in your home as out there. You are training disciples! What did Jesus do during His time on earth? He trained disciples. He trained 12 disciples who turned the world upside down.

Just think of the future of these disciples you are training and what impact they will have upon the world as you pray for them, as you minister to them, as you put God’s Word into them, and as you seek to put God’s character into their lives! You are a missionary training disciples.

But there are many things you are, of course, as a mother, but the other one I mentioned in my post was: you are involved in a signs and wonders ministry.

Now many people think, “Oh wow, that’s pretty amazing if you can pray and see signs and wonders. I’d love to be able to see signs and wonders in my ministry for the Lord.”

Well, dear mother, please get this truth. You ARE involved in a signs and wonders ministry. The Bible tells us that in Isaiah 8:18: “Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for SIGNS AND WONDERS in Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.”

Each one of your children are a gift to you from the Lord of Hosts, and He has given these precious children to you for signs and wonders in the world. How does God bring forth signs and wonders? Well, yes, He does it in creation, that’s true, but He loves to do it through His people. His people are His greatest signs and wonders.

Every new creation is a sign and a wonder from the Lord. It’s a miracle. Both those words actually mean “miracle.” They mean “a revealing, a showing forth.” Each new child that is born into the world is a new and fresh image of God who has the potential to reveal something of God in this world. To reveal His love, His salvation, His truth, His joy, and all the character of God, and to bring God to people in this world.

Each new child is unique and a miracle. Every single person born on this planet is a miracle. There’s never been another person like them and there never will be again. They are a unique creation, a powerful creation, an eternal soul, and filled with gifts and talents from God Himself.

No wonder abortion is such an evil, evil treacherous sin. Isn’t it terrible that we are living in a generation and a society where women now murder their own flesh and blood, and where they can do it by law? This generation will be known as a murderous generation and we live in it. And yet we get used to it. We don’t even become aware, or we are not shuddering or abhorring the sin of this generation that we live in. Because when a little child is murdered in the womb, it is a ”sign and wonder” from God that we are eliminating.

Dear lovely mother, your precious children, your little ones, your middling ones, your older ones, they are all signs and wonders and you are the one chosen to prepare these signs and wonders for the revelation of God in the world. You are involved in a signs and wonders ministry. Wow, that is pretty unbelievable!

Let’s be faithful in our task. You may think it’s a little task, but actually it’s a HUGE task. Let’s be faithful in it because it’s so powerful.

No. 5. FERVENTLY

Romans 12:11: “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” We’re to serve the Lord fervently.  The Living Bible says: “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.”  The CJB says: “Serve the Lord with spiritual fervor.”

Now, that’s more than the ordinary, isn’t it? When you’ve got a bit of fervor about you, you are getting a bit beyond the average or the normal, and that’s how we’re to be.

No. 5. FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

1 Corinthians 10:13: “. . .whatsoever ye do [that means your mothering], do all to the glory of God.” To the glory of God.

You wake up in the morning and you begin your day and you have these children around you. You’re teaching them at home. You’re in your home and you’re going to do it all for the glory of God.  And if you have this attitude, the glory of God will fill your home.

I think perhaps this may be one of the greatest reasons of our adjectives about working for the Lord, is doing it for His glory, so HE will get the glory.

No. 7. HARMONIOUSLY

That means to do it working together. In 1 Corinthians 3:9, Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he says: “For we are laborers together with God. . ..”

2 Corinthians 6:1 says we are   It’s a big thing to learn to work with others, isn’t it? Sometimes we’d rather do it on our own and that also gets back to teaching our children how to work. Teaching them how to do the dishes, teaching them how to cook. Many mothers will say, “Oh, I can do it better than you.” I find I feel like that myself sometimes.

Of course, I’m in a different season now. My children are all grown, but I have loads of people in our home and young people living in our home and they will often do the dishes for me. They are all so wonderful and so faithful in doing them. I notice how slower they are than I am, and I can do it much more quickly.

I think, “Oh, my, they’re having to take so much time out of their time to do these dishes, because they’re doing them slowly. I could do them three times as quickly.” But anyway, they are doing them, so they are being faithful.

But when you’re teaching your children, they are going to do it wrongly and it’s not going to be quite as good as you want it. But you’ve got to keep teaching them and working with them and learning to work harmoniously with them until they get it. So that’s an important point about working too.

No. 8. HEARTILY

With all your heart. In Nehemiah 4:6 they’re rebuilding the walls and it says here the people had a heart and soul (the word mind here means heart and soul) to work. Ephesians 6:6 says: “. . .Doing the will of God from the heart.”

When you do it from your heart, it then affects your actions. So you’ve got to get the right attitude in your heart first. If we’re putting our heart in it, then our body will get into it. Sometimes our body doesn’t get into it much because our heart’s not in it.

Colossians 3:23: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily. . ..”

No. 9: HUMBLY

Now we see some examples here of Jesus. I think I talked about this in the last podcast, didn’t I? Matthew 20:28: “. . .The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life. . ..”

Jesus said in Luke 22:27: “. . .I am among you as he that serveth.”

I wonder if we could say those words. “I am among you, people in my home, I am among you as one who serves.”

And then we see that beautiful example of Jesus in John chapter 13, where Jesus, the Son of God, rose up and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself and He began to wash His disciples’ feet. He served them.

Then He said to them in John 13:16, 17: “. . .The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”

Paul’s example in 1 Corinthians 9:19 he says: “. . .I made myself servant unto all. . ..”

Wow, that was His spirit. That was his habit of life, to serve.

And then we read about the woman in 1 Timothy 5:10. I love this, I think I’ve shared it with you before, but it’s one we need to be reminded of as women because it gives a description of the lifestyle that God intends for women.

It’s talking about widows in this passage. Paul said to Timothy in this passage that if children or grandchildren have widows in their family, they have the responsibility to look after them. However, if they have no children and no grandchildren, then it becomes the church’s responsibility to care for them and watch over them.

But there are a few requisites. One, they had to be 60 years of age and over, and of course they have no living relatives to look after them. And then they had to have lived a certain lifestyle.

And this was the lifestyle: “And have a reputation for good deeds. . ..”

Now, what were these good deeds, good works? The first one “. . .a woman who brought up her children well. . ..” Now, that was the first thing on the list, did you notice that? God always puts first things first. This is a woman who embraced motherhood. She brought up her children.

That word in Greek is teknotropheō. Two words, teknon means child and tropheō, the verb, and there’s another one, trophe, it means, nourishment. The word means “to nourish, to nurse a babe at the breast and to nourish children with food.” That gives a beautiful description of a mother. She begins her motherhood nursing her baby and then she continues to feed her children. She’s always feeding them, always making meals.

Many mothers think, “Help! I don’t have to make another meal now, do I? How many is it that I’ve now cooked . . . is it up to ten thousand? I don’t know!”

But, no, we have to realize this is a glorious and beautiful serving ministry in our home. It is part of our motherhood. This woman, she embraced bringing up children, feeding them, nourishing them.

She also “. . .received strangers in her home, performed humble duties for other Christians, helped people in trouble, and devoted herself to doing good.”

She became a servant, she served in her home and then she served those who had needs, who were poor, needy, and in trouble. This was the lifestyle of the woman who God wanted to bless as she got older and had no one else to provide for her.

Then we read in 1 Peter 5:5 in the Williams Translation: “You must all put on the same servant’s apron of humility to one another.” I love that. The servant’s apron of humility.

I’m one of those ladies who loves to wear aprons. Aprons are not very modern. We don’t see a lot of mothers wearing aprons. Maybe because they don’t do a lot of work in the home. Some of them hardly cook in the home. But I find when I get into the kitchen, I need an apron on. When I’m wearing an apron, I even like to wipe my hands on my apron. So my aprons get very dirty and very stained. But they’re well used aprons. In fact, really, if I don’t wear an apron, I will get my clothes quite marked, and so I love to do that.

But this Scripture says that the apron that we must put on is the servant’s apron of humility. If we’re serving, we’ll have a humble attitude, won’t we? So let’s put on our apron of serving and our apron of humility each day. Even if you’re not wearing a literal apron, put on your apron of serving and humility.

No. 10: IN THE FEAR OF THE LORD

We’re to “Serve the Lord with fear. . .” (Psalm 2:11).

Hebrews 12:28 says: “. . . serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” We are to serve also in the fear of the Lord knowing that everything we do is being done in the presence of the Lord and we are going to give an answer to every deed done in our bodies, the Bible says. So everything we do is in preparation for eternity, for the real world. So we are wanting to do it in the fear of the Lord, walking in the fear of the Lord.

I think this is something that is missing from the church today, is the awe of walking in the fear of the Lord. This is also how we need to serve Him.

Well, time has gone, so let’s pray:

“Dear Father, we thank You that Your Word is filled with so many admonitions showing us the way in which we are to walk and the way we are to live. We think of all these adjectives of how we are to serve You, Lord. We pray that You will save us from serving just boringly but serving You with all our hearts and souls. Serving You diligently, serving You to bring glory to Your name. Serving You, Lord, knowing that You are the One Who we serve. Not really anyone else. We’re doing it for You.

“I pray Your blessing on every mother and daughter and grandmother and all the little ones, every one in each family who are listening, bless them. Please strengthen their marriages, strengthen their homes, and fill them with the joy of the Lord as they serve You. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 49 - How Can We Change the World- Part 15

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

Nancy: Hello ladies, good to be with you again. Perhaps you are listening for the first time. We are currently doing a series called “How do we change the world?” We are finding that we don't change the world by being ordinary, by being normal, by being the status quo. No, we have to go beyond that. We are up to point number 15.

No, 15. WILLING SERVING THE LORD

We don't just serve the Lord, we willingly do it. In fact, today, we are going to find out even more ways that we can serve the Lord. Last time, we looked at that wonderful Scripture in Proverbs 31:13, which says that this woman works willingly with her hands. Now, we see two things here.

We see, first of all, that she works and that really is another name for serving, isn't it? Because when we serve, we have to work. You can't really serve somebody by sitting on the sofa doing your own thing. You have to get up and serve. Today, the words “to serve” and also another word that starts with S, “to submit,” are not very popular words today. It's more popular to serve yourself, to be independent, to look after yourself, but that's not the Bible way.

The Bible way is often opposite to our way. Usually, we think our way is best, so we go along with our way. If only we could realize that God's ways are the ways that work. I have always been challenged, all throughout my life by Mark 8:35 where Jesus said: “For whosoever shall save his life shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s shall find it.” We think that we will find our lives by saving them, by looking after number one, by looking after ourselves, making sure we are looked after, and everything is nice for us. We don't have to do too much, and we don't have to pour out our lives for others. That's not how we find life. We actually find our lives by losing our lives in others, by pouring out our lives for others. As we pour out our lives and serve others, we find our lives. We find fulfillment. We find joy. We find blessing. We live an overcoming life. That's how it works. This comes right into our home, right into our motherhood experiences. Once we begin this journey of motherhood, we know it is going to be a serving experience.

We can't be a mother without serving. We can't be a wife without serving. It takes going beyond ourselves. Serving another person, pouring out our lives for someone else, for others, our husband, our children and as they grow, to others outside the home. That is the whole ministry of a woman, pouring out her life for her family and for others.

This is in every woman, even single woman. Women who are not able to have children of their own can still fulfill their great calling of motherhood as they pour out their lives for others. We always think of mother Theresa, don't we? Such a great example but there are many, many other examples too. She was a woman who poured out her life for others. She didn't marry; she didn't give birth to children of her own, but she mothered more children than we will ever dream about. She brought life and sustenance and nurturing and care, and the love and compassion of God to thousands and thousands. She was willing to pour out her life. She forgot about her own life; she poured out her life for others. This is what serving is all about. Whether we like it or not, we will need to serve in our families, but how do we do it?

Do we do it with joy? Do we do it with a willing heart? I think what we need to do is to realize that this is what Jesus did. I think this is our most wonderful example, Jesus, the Son of God. The one who left the glory of heaven, and He was willing to come to this earth, not only to come to this earth, to leave the glory of the eternal world but to come and die.

What did Jesus say in Mark? Let's have a look at it here. Mark 10:42-45. Jesus was speaking here, and he says: “Whosoever desires to become great among you shall become your servant, and whosoever among you desires to be first shall be slave for all. For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus, who was the son of God, didn't come to be waited on and served. He came to serve, to serve others, and lay down his life. That is what serving is; it's a laying down of your life to bless and serve others. If Jesus could do that, if He lives in us, surely, we will want to do this too.

I know many times as I was mothering my children it seemed as though all I did was serve, serve, serve, all day long, and sometimes I thought, “Goodness, I'm just a jolly servant.” Then the Holy Spirit would come to my heart and say, “Nancy, isn't that what I came to do?” Once again, I would get into perspective. Yes, this is what Jesus came to do. He came to serve. He lives in me, so this is my life. Praise the lord. We see another example of Jesus in Philippians 2:6-8. Here, Paul is writing to the Philippians, and he says: “Let this mind or this attitude be in you.” In other words, have the same attitude Jesus had. “Let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant.” Did you get that, ladies? And took upon him servanthood. He took that upon him: “And was made in the likeness of man and being found in the fashion of a man, he humbled himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

This is another challenging Scripture. I often think, if we were only allowed one Scripture in the whole of the Bible for us to know how to live a successful marriage, this would be the Scripture. Of course, we have been given so many more. If we were to take this one, just this one, and we thought to have the same attitude that Jesus had who was willing to lay down his godhead, who was willing to become a servant, to humble himself, who was willing to become obedient to the Father's will, I don't think we would have any problems in our marriage. Don't you think that's right? If we could just have this beautiful serving attitude. Because this is the heart of Jesus. This is the attitude of Jesus.

The other day, I was posting a message on Facebook as I do each day. I hope you get on to these messages, Above Rubies Facebook. I write little posts each day to encourage you as a wife and a mother, and I was writing about the different characteristics of Jesus and are these characteristics in us? Of course, one of these characteristics was a serving attitude. I'm looking for a picture. That's usually my most difficult thing in posting a post on Above Rubies. That is finding a picture to go with the article. I was looking and looking, what am I going to post?

I found this lovely picture of a wife serving her husband. Her husband was at the table and she was serving him his food. I thought, what a beautiful picture of serving. It was an old black and white picture, and I thought, isn't that interesting? I couldn't find a modern picture of a wife serving her husband. It's not a thing done today. Back then, it was normal.

I think back to even when I was a child, that was a normal thing for a wife to serve her husband and to have a meal ready for her husband when he came in after a day’s work. She didn't say, “Oh, you're home, better get something out of the cupboards, or fix yourself something.” No, it was her joy and delight to have a meal ready, waiting on the table, ready for her husband. That is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful serving ministry of a wife to her husband and to her family.

I remember when I was courting my husband, or should I say, he was courting me, and I was visiting his home in a different city. Their grandfather had a bush farm way out, and sometimes he would come by to see them. He would always turn up at a mealtime because, being on his own, way out in the bush, he didn't often have very good meals. As he was coming past the window, he would call out, “Pour out the gravy.” because back in New Zealand, that was part of our normal evening meal. It was usually roast lamb and roast potatoes and pumpkin and parsnips and always gravy with your meat.

What was he doing when he said that? “Look, I'm here, it's time to put the meal on the table and pour out the gravy.” I think some women would feel most offended if their husband said that as he came past the window or even in the door. That was normal back then. He wasn't doing anything that was abnormal. It was expected and why shouldn't it be expected? God created us to be helpmeets to our husbands, to be helpers to them.

That is definitely not an insignificant thing because that word “help” in the Hebrew is ezer. That word was first used to describe women, but that word is also used to describe God, the one who is our Help and our Shield who comes to help us. It's a character quality of God Himself. In embracing that, we have the privilege to be like God, and we are as God to our husband as we serve him. The Hebrew word even takes on more meaning. It's a word that means to save, to be strong. It's a woman of strength and honor who has that grace to serve her husband. She's not some little three-year-old, some immature person who hasn't even grown up yet and has to have her own way and do her own thing and can't serve anybody else. That is immaturity because serving comes with maturity. Have you noticed that, ladies? Serving comes with maturity.

Little children don't really know how to serve. They are very self-serving. We are having to look after them and they are self-centered, and it takes time for them to learn to go beyond that and not be taken up with themselves as they get older, to see that the world does not revolve around them. We have to teach them that.

I hope you are teaching your children that the world does not revolve around them, and they should not get everything they want just when they ask it. Every time they go to shop, “Can I have that?” If they don't, they throw a tantrum. No, we teach them when we go out shopping, they don't ask for anything. You are going to bring home all the things we need for the family, to feed the family for the next week and maybe you'll even bring home some surprises for the children. You don't want them to ever get into the habit of thinking, when they see something, that they can have it. That's training them to have an entitlement mentality which so many people have today. It's destroying our nation.

We are training our children out of that; we are training them for maturity; we are training them how to serve others, and we are training them for their future marriage. Remember that, precious ladies. Think of when you're giving into your children, when you allow them to have what they want because they want it and so on, how that's going to help them when they are married. Instead of being someone who's mature and knows how to serve, they only know how to serve themselves; they are going to be self-serving. We don't want to train children like that. We are training children to maturity, to be servers. This is a sign of maturity because Jesus revealed it, and certainly, He was the most mature of us all, wasn't he?

I think of Psalm 40:7-8, and this is a prophetic word of Jesus, and it's looking to the future. He's still in eternity. And it says: “Then said I, 'Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of men, I delight to do thy will, oh my God.'” I often contemplate how that Jesus, who was the lamb of God, was the lamb of God not only when he came to this earth; He was the Lamb of God before the foundation of the world. It tells us that in the word of God. The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world and all through eternity, Jesus knew that he was the Lamb. He had to know that there would come this day when He would have to leave the glory; He would have to come to earth; He would have to humble himself; He would have to become a servant, and He would have to die. He would have to take upon himself not only our sin but the most horrendous sin that's ever been committed in the world, the most painful sicknesses and heartaches that have ever been felt in this world. He took them upon himself, and He took our place and died in our place. He looked toward that.

What were his words? Yes, it's written in the volume of the book. This is God's plan, the plan of salvation to redeem mankind. He says: “I delight to do thy will, oh my God.” We will never face anything like the serving that Jesus did. We serve so little in our homes, surely, we can do that with delight. Jesus said in John 5:30: “I seek not thine own will but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” He delighted to do the Father's will.

Precious mother, in your home, you are in the perfect will of God. You are fulfilling the will of your Father, your Father God. Your creator created you for motherhood. He created you for this purpose. He created your body to be able to conceive and bear a child, to nurse a babe at your breasts and to be a nurturing, nourishing human being. This is who you are as a female. As you embrace the precious children that He gives to you, you didn't do it. God gave them to you. You couldn't make conception happen. Conception comes from God. He gave these children to you for you to care for and raise for Him. You are in His perfect will.

Can you speak like Jesus? I don't seek my own will but the will of my Father. Sometimes, you're not really rejoicing in it; you're grumbling in it maybe. Are you having a grumbling day today? Can I remind you, dear lovely mother, you will find that when you embrace your Father's will, you'll begin to enjoy your motherhood. enjoy your life in your home. You will be embracing what you were born for, so don't grumble, embrace it, live in the joy.

Jesus said in John 6:38: “For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me.” As you get up each morning, mother, what is your purpose? Is it to do your own will or the will of your Father in heaven? We have two choices every day, to do our own will, what we want to do, or yield our lives to the Father's will, to do what He wants us to. Of course, it's very plain when He gives us children, that's the work He’s given us to do, the work. We are talking about serving God willingly, the work He has given us to do. When He gives you children, that's the work He has given you to do. Embrace it. You put aside your own will.

What are you saying? Are you saying Amen? Do you know that the sheep say Amen?

God calls us His sheep. There are two animals that God likens His people to, well really, His people, He only likens them to sheep: “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.” In the Psalms, He also calls us His flock.

In the New Testament, it also talks about goats. The goats, they are the ones when the Judgment Seat comes, the sheep will go to the right hand of the Father and the goats to the left. What do the sheep say? The sheep are a very submissive animal; they are a meek animal, and the sheep say “Aaaaamen. What do the goats do? The goats butt. “But Lord, do I have to do this? But I can't do this.” They are always butting, and if you've ever had a goat, you'll know that they love to butt. That's one of the differences between the sheep and the goats.

Let's embrace serving. To serve means to work and work means to serve. I think of the story of Rehoboam. Do you remember Rehoboam? That was Solomon's son who became king after him. After Solomon dies, the people came to King Rehoboam, and they said: “Your father ruled us with a pretty strong hand, and he took lots of taxes from us.” Solomon was an amazing king, and he established the richest kingdom in the world at that time. Maybe it was the richest kingdom in the world of all time if we compared the monetary value to what it is today. I mean, his kingdom was filled with gold. Just about everything was made of gold and the temple was made of gold, and his home was made of gold and all the most amazing things. He was the wealthiest king. To do this, he put taxes on the people.

Anyway, so they said to Rehoboam: “If you'll lighten the burden upon us, we will serve you forever.” Rehoboam thought: “What will I do?” He went to the elders who had always advised his father, the older men of God, and he said: “What do you think I should say to the people?” They said, this is what you should say to them.

1 Kings 12:7: “If thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day and will serve them and will speak good words to them then they will be your servants forever.” That was interesting advice, especially when this was given to a king. This wasn't told to an ordinary person; this wasn't told to just some servants. This was spoken to the king reigning in Solomon's stead in the wealthiest kingdom in the world at that time. These elders are telling him: “Rehoboam, if you'll be a servant to your people, and you'll serve them, they'll serve you forever.”

 He thought: “I don't know about that. I'll see what the young men say.” He went to all his contemporaries and all his young fellows and said: “What do you think I should say?” They told him the opposite. They told him to make things harder than ever. 1 Kings 12: He took notice of the young men around him; he didn't take notice of the older men who had wisdom. In verse 13, it says: “And the king answered the people roughly and forsook the older men's council that they gave him and spoke to them after the council of the young men saying, 'My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father also chastised you with whips, but I chastise you with scorpions.'”

What happened? The people fled. They went off and chose another king, King Jeroboam. King Rehoboam was only left with two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, because he didn't listen to those wise words. Weren't they interesting? Words to a mighty king, yet they were words to serve.

We may not be a literal queen, but we are queens in our home. We are ruling over a domain, but God wants us to also be servants in our home.

I was talking about sheep, and I'm quite familiar with sheep having come from New Zealand. New Zealand is a sheep country and wherever you drive in that beautiful land of glorious green hills and fields and paddocks (you don't use that word “paddocks” here in USA), but we have sheep all over these beautiful paddocks.

Did you know that the sheep is an animal that serves and loves to give? In fact, it is the most giving animal of all animals. All the year round the faithful sheep grows its wool. It doesn't grow it for itself; it grows it to give away. Every year, once a year or even twice year (it has now become more popular twice a year to shear the sheep), the shearer shears all the wool off the sheep, and the sheep doesn't grumble. It doesn't complain, it doesn't kick, it doesn't fight, but it submits and yields and willingly gives its wool for the blessing of others.

Jesus himself was likened to a sheep. In Isaiah 53:7: “As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.” Of course, that was talking about him being a Lamb led to the crucifixion. As I said, I'm a little familiar with sheep, my father having been the world champion sheep shearer in his day. I'm sitting here in my living room doing this podcast looking at some of my pictures on the wall. I often call my home a sheep house because I have lots of memories of our country of New Zealand. I have sheep skins, and I have pictures of my father shearing sheep and also pictures of him at the big tourist show in New Zealand called Agrodome where they used to, well, they still do, but he has, of course, passed away now but where he used to entertain people and show them how to shear a sheep and how they trained the sheep dogs.

I want to read you something here, and this was written by, not my father but his brother, Godfrey Bowen who was also a great man in the shearing world. He wrote a book about sheep and shepherds, and I'd love to read you this.

“How impressive the sight of the giving sheep. The soft valuable wool contributed so willingly by the humble sheep who, when shorn, stripped bare and a little cold has given all that it has to give. What a wonderful sacrifice. And once shorn, that sheep is off again away on the range to grow it all over again. The sheep makes no fuss, waits for no compliments for its wondrous fleece because it has given as a sheep has always given because this is what it was born for. This is what it lives for, to give willingly all that it has.” Then he goes onto say, “The more we give, the more we receive; the more we give away, the more comes back to us. The more we serve, the more we grow in happiness, contentment and peace of soul.”

Lovely ladies, as we talk about working willingly, serving joyfully, will you do that today and realize that serving is not something to be looked upon negatively, just as submission is not be looked upon negatively. They are beautiful attributes. They are both beautiful attributes of God. They are attributes He loves to see in us, His people. Because they are His attributes, they are in us. We can squash them because we are demanding our own way. When we yield to Him, He will live these beautiful attributes of serving and submission through our lives.  They will bring beauty and love and joy to our marriage and bring beauty and love and joy to the atmosphere of our homes. Amen.

Let me pray.

“Dear Father in heaven, we thank You, thank You so much that You came to this earth to give Your life, to serve. You didn't hold on to all the glory that You had in eternity, but You gave it up for us. Lord God, we ask that You will help us to have the same attitude that Jesus has. And that You will come into our lives and fill our lives with Your beautiful attributes of serving and Lord, that we will delight to serve because You delight to serve. You said, “I delight to do your will, Oh my God.” Help us to delight to do Your Will. Delight in our mothering, delight in our homemaking, delight in serving our husbands. We ask that You will do this in us by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.”

FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell

Podcast 48 - How Can We Change the World- Part 14

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

Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies.  We are now up to . . .

No. 16. WILLINGLY SERVING THE LORD

God not only wants us to serve Him, but to willingly serve Him. We are finding in each one of these points an adjective that goes with them. God doesn’t want us to do anything ordinarily, but extraordinarily. In serving the Lord, He doesn’t want us to just serve Him just because we have to serve Him. No, but to do it willingly, out of our hearts. And of course, the greatest way that we are going to serve the Lord as mothers with children is in our homes—mothering, homemaking, and being a wife. They’re not mundane things. they are so powerful and, oh wow, when we can do these willingly, it just makes such a difference.

I wonder if we can go to that lovely Scripture in 1 Corinthians 15:58 where it says: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast. unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

This Scripture speaks to us as mothers because it’s talking about our work for the Lord. Everyone is working for the Lord in a different way.  If God has blessed you with children, you are a mother working for the Lord in your home, raising these children and making your home a beautiful place, a place that’s filled with the presence of God and doing many other things in your home. 

The home is such an amazing place to do so many projects, a place where you can bring people into your home to love them, and to feed them, and to show hospitality. It’s a place where you can create and make things to bless other people. Of course a lot of that depends on the season of your motherhood. When you have little ones, they take your whole life and you often don’t get much time to do anything else in your whole day. 

I can remember when I had three in 17 months, and then I had four children under four and so on. In those early days that’s all I did, was to mother these children and to care for my home and my husband. I would often write lists of things I wanted to do but I don’t think I ever got anything done at all. I don’t think I ever crossed anything off my list. Well, actually, I have to confess that even today I write lists and I still never cross everything off my list that I put down. Life is filled with so many things I want to do, but, the end, I had to realize that I am doing the most important thing. 

Then, as your children get older and they grow up and you get bigger ones and you get children in their teens, and you train them how to cook, run the house, and do many other projects, wow, the things you can accomplish in the home are absolutely amazing!

And many of these wonderful, creative things you will do to bless other people. Some will even be used to bring money into your home. You can do a business right there in your home and that can be a wonderful blessing, as long as you do it, as I said, in the right season.

Because when you do this, it’s doing it with your children and having your children to help and it’s usually a season of when they’re grown up with you and you have all these helpers who can help you in the home, can help you with the creative things you are doing, and that’s blessing them and enlarging them also. And so we wait for our season. Wherever we are, whatever season, we’re going to be doing it for the Lord, aren’t we? 

I must take you to this little passage here as I’m thinking of it, because I said how we can use our gifts and our creative talents and the projects we do, often to bless our home financially. But even in doing that I think we do have to be very careful that we don’t always do things for monetary gain.

What does it say? 1 Peter 4:9-10: “Use [or practice] hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

So God is saying here, as you’ve received the gift, not one of us have a gift of ourselves, every gift/talent that God has given to us, comes from God. He wants us to use the gifts that He has given us to employ them, to use them to serve one another. It doesn’t actually say in this Scripture to use it for your own, or your own monetary gain. Which, yes, there is importance in that, too, because we do have to care for our house or our households.

And although our husband is the provider of the home, in that season when we have older children we can continue to bless and do things in our homes. But let’s remember that our gifts are given to us, not just for monetary gain. Our gifts are given to us to bless others, to serve others. I think it’s a beautiful thing to do that, to realize, “Oh, Lord God, You’ve given me this gift, I want to use it to bless others.”

Erin Harrison and I, we do a talk show together. Some of you may have watched our Talk Show. We do it every Tuesday. It’s now on YouTube, Erin now puts it on YouTube. Just last week we were talking about this very thing and how important it is to do this, and to teach our children this too.

So many children today grow up with an entitlement mentality. Even if they do something in the home, or of course they have their faithful jobs and chores they need to do each day, but sometimes when we want them to do  something extra special or extra that needs being done, parents will say, “Well, look, I’ll pay you for that,” or “I’ll give you so much.” Well, that can be good.  But why is it that we have to pay our children for something special they do? We can do that sometimes. I love to do that! When our children were preparing at Christmas time and they wanted to earn money to buy Christmas presents I would think of all the extra jobs around the home—cleaning the windows (that didn’t usually get done) and all those kinds of jobs. I would pay them for it because they were working to get presents for Christmas.

We do have seasons when we’ll do that too,  but not everything. Not everything. Oh, I can’t believe the way children just expect things today. Dear ladies, don’t raise and train your children to grow up expecting things all the time, expecting something every time they go to town.

Or if you go out, “I’ll bring you something home!” I beg your pardon! Come on now, what are we training them for? We’re putting in an entitlement mentality that, “If mummy and daddy are going out for the night, then I’m entitled to get something because they went out.” Or if an extra job is needed to be done around the home because something is happening or someone is coming and we’ve got to get the place really cleaned up, well, they really shouldn’t have to be paid to do it. It’s part of family life.

Let’s raise our children to be those who will be employed to serve one another in the family, or even to serve outside the home. I think that is very important. That’s learning to serve the Lord willingly and aboundingly. 

Isn’t that what this Scripture says here in 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Always abounding in the work of the Lord. . . .”  That word “abound” is the word perisseuō and it means “to excel, to increase, to superabound, enough and to spare, over and above.” Do you understand how that word means “more than the necessary, over and above”? Let’s begin to do our mothering that way and to serve the Lord that way in everything we do and train our children how to serve in the family this way and to serve other people this way.

I love this Scripture because do you notice the end of it? We’re to be “Always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor . . . “  (Oh, did you notice that word? Your labor. What does that mean? Your work. Work, yes work. Did you get it? It is work, and motherhood is work. Yes, you’re not afraid of work, are you? I believe work is a wonderful thing and I think we should have the right attitude about it even in our homes.

Motherhood is not something where we just sit on the sofa and it all just happens. No, we have to work to keep our homes and manage them well. We have to work to mother our children. We have to work at homeschooling our children. It is work. But is work something that is a drudgery? Is work something that’s mundane? Is work something we just have to do until we can just relax and do what we want to do?

No, I believe work is life! We should embrace it and enjoy it and make it our lives. In fact, we really, I think, have it easy. Most of us have a weekend off in our lives these days, whereas God said, “Six days shalt thou work and on the seventh you shall rest.”

Some of us actually do have more rest than actually working six days. I believe that work is something to be enjoyed if we have the right attitude.

In fact I did write something else about work that I wanted to share with you. I’ve just been doing a study about “good works.” I started off with the word “good” and I’m looking up all of the Scriptures of the good things God wants us to do. My list is getting so long of all the good things that God wants us to do. Then, I have just noticed this morning about how He wants us to do good works and I found four different Scriptures that are related particularly to women specifically about good works.

Now there are loads of Scriptures that talk to everybody about good works.

In fact, Ephesians 2:10 says that we were “created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” We are not saved through good works. Only through the precious blood of Jesus. But we are saved unto good works so that when we are born again, “not of works, lest any man should boast.” But then we come into showing good works so that we will glorify God. What does it say in Matthew 5:16? “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Let’s have a look at the Scriptures specifically to women, shall we?

1 Timothy 5:10 is the first one. And this is written about an older woman, about a widow actually. Paul was writing to Timothy about a problem they had in the church. They had a lot of widows and they did not know what to do with them all. So Paul says, “Okay, so if these widows have children or they have grandchildren, they must look after them and care for them. This is their responsibility.”

This is still our responsibility today, to care for our parents, especially for a mother if the father has passed away. It’s our responsibility now to care for her, that’s biblical. But then, there were obviously women who didn’t have family for some reason, or maybe they lived far away, or passed on, too. And Paul said, “Okay, those women, you can care for them, provide for them from the church if they have lived (well, they had to be 60 years of age or older) a certain lifestyle.”

Now, when we read about this lifestyle, we get an understanding of God’s heart for mothers, for women. It says: “Well reported of for good works.” Okay, there’s our first one written to women about good works. Now, what are these good works?

Let’s look at the first one: “If she have brought up children.” Now I find that very interesting because God always put’s first things first. Everything in the Word of God is not haphazard, it’s all just how He wants it. It’s all in order. And this is the very first thing on the list: “If she’s brought up children.” The word for “brought up” is teknotropheō. Teknon is “child” and tropheō is “to feed, to nourish.” So that word means that she has embraced children and she has fed and nourished them.

She firstly nourishes the babe at her breast. Then as her little one gets older and then more children come along, she’s feeding them and feeding them. It’s interesting that the Scripture uses this particular word about mothering because one of the biggest things we do as mothers is prepare meals. Anybody notice that? Yes, every breakfast, every lunch, every super time and in between as well, you will be feeding your children.

But darling ladies, this is a good work. Did you know that? You see, it’s good to know the Scriptures, isn’t it? So we know it’s not just, “Oh goodness me, I have to get some more food for these children.” And as they grow up, they have to eat more. If you’ve got teenage boys, you’ll know you can hardly fill them.

I can remember when my boys were in their teens, I’d cook this big dinner (of course, that was back in New Zealand days) and I’d cook a big dinner. Most likely a big piece of lamb and roast vegetables around it. That was a typical New Zealand meal. So I’d feed all these boys and the rest of the family. Of course they were in their late teens and early twenties, the older boys by then. We’d have this big meal, have devotions, do all the dishes and then be hanging around and suddenly, “Oh, where’s Wes and Steve?”

One of the others would say, “Oh, they’ve gone to McDonalds.” I mean, I’ve just fed them this huge meal, but then they had to go and top it off. It’s very hard to fill them when they’re in that stage of their lives.

And so, you are a feeder. Dear, darling mothers, don’t despise feeding.  It’s a powerful thing, it’s part of your mothering. It’s a good work.

Then it goes on to say, “If she have lodged strangers.” If she has opened her home in hospitality. Hospitality has always been a part of my home life. When my children were little, we still opened our doors in hospitality, and we’ve continued to do it throughout all our lives. It was one of the greatest blessings of our lives. It’s so wonderful to invite others to join you at your table. It’s so lovely to have other families with children your age.

As our children grew and they got into their teens I would invite wonderful godly families with children the same ages as ours to our home and around for a meal. The children would get to know one another and become great friends. It became such a powerful thing because they found friends that were of good caliber and kindred spirits. We could be happy that they were hanging out with them because we could trust them and that was such a wonderful thing.

You can do that with hospitality. And of course you can reach out to those who are needy and needing encouragement and love and just the joy of being enveloped and welcomed into a family. That is one of the good works of this woman. We see that her motherhood extended. As her children grew, her motherhood did not stop. See, ladies, motherhood is not meant to stop. It’s not just for a certain time. No, our motherhood grows, it enlarges, it extends so when our children grow and they leave the nest, we’re just bringing more into the nest. We’re continuing to reach out to those who are needing and hurting.

We see this beautiful picture here and it finishes here that “If she have diligently followed [not just followed, but diligently followed] every good work.”

All these things are good works. They’re the lifestyle that God intends for women. And so we can embrace this lifestyle.

In 1 Timothy, the same book, chapter 2, verse 10, it talks about the woman professing godliness with good works. There it is again.

Then we go to Titus chapter 2, verse 5, about teaching the younger women. In Titus 2:5 we see here that one of the things that the older women are to teach them is that they are to be keepers at home. Now, that’s an interesting one. Most translations are taken from either one of two ancient manuscripts. So different translations will have a different Greek word.

Now the one Greek word is this, it’s actually oikourogo and it’s from two Greek words: oikos meaning “home” and ergon meaning “to work.” So you will see that some translations say:  “workers at home.” That is true and that is good. I am a great believer in women working. 

Of course, I don’t believe that they’re meant to be out in the corporate world working. God wants them to be workers at home. Some translations say: “home workers.”

Now when we’re in the home, we’re not going to be just hanging around being lazy. We are working in the home, it’s a work. Here we see it—“Work.”

The other word is oikouros It’s from two words also: oikos meaning “home” and ouros meaning “to guard, to watch over, to take responsibility.” That’s a wonderful translation, too, I love both of them. “Home workers” and “Home Guarders.” We work hard in the home and we guard the home. You can’t be a guardian of the home, you can’t be a watchdog over your children’s lives, over their minds, their souls, their spirits, and their bodies if you’re not there. You have to be home to guard your home.

And interestingly, ladies, we see this very same thing way back in Genesis. We go to Genesis chapter two, verses 8 and 15 and it says there:  “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden . . . And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

So there were two things God wanted us to do in the home and, can you believe it? They’re exactly the two things that I just shared about! One is “work” and one is “guard.” Isn’t that interesting?

The first, “to dress it,” that’s the Hebrew word, avad and it means “to work, to serve, to labor, to toil.” It means to toil with the sweat coming down your brow! The same word is used for, “there was not a man to till the ground.” It’s man out there tilling the ground in the hot sun, the sweat pouring down his brow. It’s real work.

Then the other word, “to keep it,” is the word shamar which means “to hedge about, to guard, to protect, to watch.”

And so, those two initial things God gave for the home in the very beginning, in Genesis chapter two: to work, and then to protect and guard, are the same two things we see in Titus chapter two. We are to be home workers and we are to be home guarders, protecting and watching over our children. Isn’t that amazing how we get it in the Old and we get it in the New?

The other one that is specifically for women is Acts 9:36, where it talks about Dorcas who made these coats for all the needy people and it says she “was full of good works.” FULL of good works.

So, going back to our Scripture, we are to be always abounding in the work of the Lord. That means in our mothering, in our homemaking. “For as much as we know that our work, our labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Lovely ladies, your work in your home, sometimes you feel you don’t really think you’re accomplishing much. I want to tell you, it’s not in vain in the Lord. If you’re doing it as unto the Lord, it’s not in vain. You will receive your reward.

There is a reward day coming. I mean, you’ll get it in this life. I mean, I have my rewards. Oh goodness me, the blessings and the rewards of our children and their children and now their children—there is no greater reward in the whole of this world. This is the greatest life anyone can live with children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren around them. They are riches!

In fact, a dear friend was staying with us recently. They were passing by and stayed the night and she gave me a gift. It was a wall plaque with every month of the year written on it and then she gave me little cards that I could hang to put the birthdays of every one of our children and grandchildren and so on, on these little round cards. So I got my Above Rubies helper to help me in this. Morgan writes beautiful calligraphy. So I said, “You can do it with calligraphy.”

Well, my friend gave me 100 little cards and we have used every one of them, except two, and this year I think we’ll fill them! And so we are just on 100 people and starting with Colin and me. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, talk about reward in this life! It’s unbelievable! And I haven’t even got to the next life yet! Wow! Be encouraged ladies, be encouraged! Oh, you have rewards ahead and you will be so blessed.

Let’s pray, shall we?

“Father, we thank You so much for all of Your goodness to us, Your blessings, Your blessing of marriage, Your blessing of a home, just a roof over our heads, a home to make life in it, our children. Oh God, we thank You and praise You. Help us to be filled with joy and gratitude and thankfulness for all of Your goodness.

I pray Your blessing upon every daughter, mother, and grandmother listening that, Lord God, You will give them a vision to see beyond what they are doing today. Sometimes they don’t see much further than today. Lord, give them a vision of what is ahead and that what they are doing today is not in vain. There is a reward coming here in this life and in the eternal.

I ask Your mighty blessing on every marriage and every home and every mother and every child listening. In Jesus Name. Amen.”