“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs
Through the weekly and daily devotionals you can be constantly encouraged in your great role of parenting, the highest career in the nation. You can also stay updated on what's happening with the Above Rubies ministry.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
“In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.”~ Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless
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How do you come home to your family? Like a wet blanket with a frown and gruff voice? Or do you bring joy and happiness the moment you arrive home?Why not come home with surprises sometimes? Some interesting things for the children or flowers for your wife.
Walk in the door with an encouraging word and a smile for everyone. What a difference you can make to your wife who has been home with the children all day!
Let your wife and children anticipate your homecoming with joy and excitement.
~ Colin Campbell
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To stay home and not vote is to forfeit your privilege and constitutional rights as a citizen of this country. When you vote, you put feet to elect leaders who will legislate conservative and godly values. To not vote simply allows evil to overtake this great country. The opposition will not be satisfied until they take over everything and “we the people” will own nothing and will have no rights to vote them out of power ever again for voting is against their mindset.Sadly, perhaps only then will those who stayed at home regret they did not vote. By then it will be too late to change the rules with the freedom that God has currently provided in this country.
The future of this blessed country is in our hands.
We must do all we can do to silence the voice and power of the radicals who have no fear of God and have given themselves over to every type of evil imaginable. And yet have the audacity to call evil good and good evil. Read Isaiah 5:20-24.
Many understand that the challenges we are currently facing are prophesied in the Bible, e.g., the one world government, the World Economic Forum, not being able to buy or sell without a mark or number of the beast etc., eventually have to take place, so “bring it on,” they say. “Let’s get it over with.” This attitude is very fatalistic and requires no resistance of evil. The least we can do is to oppose evil with our vote. That’s just the beginning.
God’s people are called to be salt and light which resist evil and darkness. As if abortion were not evil enough, we now have the culling of the population through vaccinations and even transgender where they are mutilating children’s bodies to the opposite sex and who will never be able to have children. We who are the vessels of salt and light are expected to not only approve it but to applaud it. This we cannot do.
We must resist all temptation to be neutral which is neither for nor against evil.
James 4:17: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Read also 1 Peter 5:8, 9.
My heart tells me that these elections are not just about the economy which is bad enough. It is much more important to stand up and resist the flood of evil, lies, and the diabolical immorality that is flooding our country and infecting all that we have and are in this nation.
The only hope that we have left is that righteous people will stand up, put on the whole armor of God, and resist all evil. These elections are just one important way of resisting evil.
We are fast running out of time. We must take action now.
Be encouraged.
Colin Campbell
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Men who do not have "spark" are bland and boring. Their eyes are dull and lifeless. They have no oomph in their personality or spring in their step.We know how bad it is when we keep pulling the rope to start the engine of the lawnmower but there is no spark. You feel like throwing the wrench at it! No woman should marry a man like this, and no one should ever hire such a man.
Spark denotes life. As men get older, they tend to lose their spark and zest for life, but I do not believe that it should be this way. Men should take all the corrective measures possible to stop themselves from oxidizing and getting rusty. We know that drugs, alcohol, and pornography can ruin a man's personality. Sitting around and living a sedentary lifestyle, coupled with laziness, and not showing initiative, also takes the spark out of a man.
Mountain climbers would never dream of taking a man without any spark on such a dangerous expedition. God also wants men like Abraham and Caleb with lots of spark to climb His mountains.
Let’s be reminded again of Caleb’s confession: “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come. Now therefore GIVE ME THIS MOUNTAIN” (Joshua 14:12, 12). This mountain was inhabited by giants, but he was ready to take them on at 85 years of age!
Remember, it only takes a few sparks to get a fire going. The best sparks come from Christians filled with the Holy Spirit. Reading God's Word and praying daily are an excellent combination to create sparks.
~ Colin Campbell
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“Men, if we are going to be men of courage, we must speak up for what's right when the opportunity presents itself. If you have any truth in you, for goodness’ sake, SAY IT! Do not hide truth behind closed doors.”
~ Colin Campbell
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"Every day, remind your wife that she is doing the greatest job in the world.
Remind her that you need her at home,
the family needs her at home,
and the nation needs her at home.”
~ Colin Campbell
Painting by Mary Cassatt
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"Hindrances are helps. If one of Joseph's misfortunes had been omitted, his good fortune would never have come. If his brethren had not hated him, if he had not been sold, if he had not been imprisoned, he would never have ruled Egypt."
~ Alexander MacLaren
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Dads, lead your children in God's truths and ways and it will go well with you.
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This promise is to the man who fears the Lord and delights GREATLY in His commandments.
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The Devil never stops telling you lies. You've got to stop listening, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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“In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”- Thomas Jefferson
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Today we discover four more personal enemies that we must CONFRONT, CHALLENGE, and SLAY!4. STATUS QUO
Maintaining the existing condition or state of affairs. Comfortable with things as they are.
Resisting change. Accepting the current ungodly trends and character of society. Not willing to fight for a revolution. No miracles. No power. No holiness.
THE CHURCH WAS BORN AT PENTECOST TO TURN THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN!
We have been born again to ROCK THE BOAT! To eradicate the status quo.
We must resist enemy occupation. We are resistance fighters.
Question: What are you doing?
5. NEUTRALITY
Neutrality does not want to participate in war. It does not want to take either side in a matter under dispute. Neutrality will not engage the enemy.
Neutrality has no place in spiritual revolution.
If your car is in neutral, guess what? You are going nowhere. If you remain in neutral, you will get run over.
We cannot be neutral in this fight with the kingdom of darkness.
In Judges 5:15-17 (NLT) Deborah challenges the tribes who would not come to fight the battle for their people: “But in the tribe of Reuben there was great indecision. Why did you sit at home among the sheepfolds—to hear the shepherds whistle for their flocks? Yes, in the tribe of Reuben there was great indecision. Gilead remained east of the Jordan. And why did Dan stay home? Asher sat unmoved at the seashore, remaining in his harbors.”
BUT verse 18: “But Zebulun risked his life, as did Naphtali, on the heights of the battlefield.”
Jeremiah 48:10: “Cursed is he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”
To which company do you belong?
6. PASSIVITY
Passivity is acceptance without objection or resistance to enemy attack. It is reluctance to take action.
It has no place in spiritual revolution.
The church today is crippled and paralyzed because we have been robbed and cheated out of the true power of God. Where are the signs and wonders? Where is the fire of God in our lives?
In Luke 12:49, 50 (NLT) Jesus said: “I HAVE COME TO SET THE WORLD ON FIRE, and I wish it were already burning! I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished.”
7. NORMALCY
Normalcy is the accepted standard. Conformity to average lifestyle and mindset. Normalcy can be brought about by the fear of being different to popular opinion, fear of being seen as a fanatic or unbalanced.
It also has no place in spiritual revival.
Dare to be a Daniel,
Dare to stand alone,
Dare to have a purpose firm
And dare to make it known!
Be encouraged.
Colin Campbell
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The following are some of the personal enemies in our lives that we must CONFRONT, CHALLENGE, and SLAY!1. MEDIOCRITY
This means the state of being neither good nor bad, average, ordinary, commonplace, halfway up the mountain, fence sitting, half-heartedness.
Jesus called it LUKEWARM!
Revelation 3:15, 16 “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot . . . So then because thou art LUKE-WARM, AND NEITHER COLD NOR HOT, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”
Mediocrity does not belong to evil-slayers!
2. TOLERANCE
This is the practice of allowing or respecting the natural beliefs of behavior of others. The enemy wants us to be desensitized to sin and evil. The devil wants us to be tolerant of homosexuality, pornography, abortion, adultery, fornication, false religions, and horoscopes etc. We dare not allow it to entertain us on the movie screen.
Whatever God does not tolerate, we must not tolerate!
We must be those who stand up and speak up. We must not lie down. We must pray, intercede, and blow the alarm in God’s holy mountain!
3.COMPLACENCY
This means feeling contented, satisfied, and self-righteous. It’s the sitting around and “do-nothing” attitude.
Complacency does not rise to the need of the hour.
Complacency does not care that we are weak and needy.
Complacency does not care about how the government is ripping people off.
Complacency does not care about the staving, homeless multitudes. Matthew 14:14 tells us that “Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.” Read also Matthew 9:36; 25:31-46; Mark 1:41; and 6:34.
The most evil and dangerous thing about complacency is that it will not engage in battle.
Complacency is like cement for it hardens the heart to make us indifferent and unmoved by needs around us.
Complacency may allow us to complain and disagree with current trends but in the end, we do nothing about them. May God have us from this selfish do-nothing spirit.
Judges 5:23: ‘Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the LORD, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof: because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.”
Nehemiah 3:5: “Their nobles put not their necks to the work of their LORD.”
Although God is certainly capable of fighting our enemies, He always enlists the help of His people. On the other hand, we read how God blessed Phinehas and his posterity because he was prepared to stand up against evil.
Numbers 25:6-11: “. . . And when Phinehas . . . saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. . . . And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas . . . hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel, while he was ZEALOUS FOR MY SAKE among them . . . Wherefore say, Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and HIS SEED AFTER HIM, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was ZEALOUS FOR HIS GOD, and made atonement for the children of Israel.”
Which is our testimony? Complacent or zealous?
More to come in the next post.
Be encouraged.
Colin Campbell
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