“Through childbearing God’s providence supplies humanity with problem solvers, world changers, and every other sort of individual. It is through this same mode that God Himself was able to come into the world to become human and become the ultimate problem solver and world changer.”
~ Bill Oord, BC.
Not only does God call mothering and homemaking a “good” thing (Titus 2:3-5 and I Timothy 5:10), but there's something else! He also tells us how to do these good things! How do you think we should do them? Grudgingly? Reluctantly? Complainingly? No, the word is “DILIGENTLY”!
Do you want to know the real meaning of the word? The Greek is “akribos” and it literally means "perfectly, exactly, and circumspectly." No room for slovenliness! No room for half-heartedness! No room for sloppiness!
Don’t forget who you are working for today—the King of kings and Lord of lords! That sets the tone, doesn’t it?
Have a blessed day,
Nancy Campbell
Did you notice I wrote the words, sacred AND secular, rather than sacred OR secular? God does not separate religious things with secular things. He wants everything in our lives to be touched with His divine presence. He wants everything in our homes—each person, each piece of furniture, and even all the pots and pans and utensils to be anointed with His presence (Zechariah 14:20, 21).
Everything that God created is holy. All His creation is holy. God doesn’t see a church building as holy and the trees and flowers as earthly. They are all holy unto Him. They all praise Him.
In Exodus chapter 30:22-33 God tells Moses how to make the anointing oil and what to do with it. They had to use a gallon of olive and oil and four different spices—pure myrrh, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus, and cassia. It was well-balanced—two sweet spices along with myrrh which is bitter tasting. Myrrh and Cassia speaking of the fragrance of Christ through His suffering.
But most importantly, this oil was to be holy! It was called the HOLY ANOINTING OIL. Verse 32 states: “It is holy, and it shall be holy unto you.” And God commanded him to anoint every piece of furniture and every vessel in the whole place—and the high priest and his sons.
One of the pieces of furniture in the tabernacle was the table of shewbread. This table had to be anointed with this holy anointing oil too.
Everything in the tabernacle was a type for us today. God has now made us “priests and kings unto God” (Revelation 1:6 and 5:10) and therefore He wants us to be anointed with this sweet and holy anointing oil which is presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He also wants every material thing in our homes to be anointed with His presence. He wants our tables to be anointed with His sweet and holy anointing.
You most probably feel that your dinner table is the opposite to sweet and holy! You are in throes of raising and training children who are not robots. They don’t like their food. They complain. Some may argue. They cry. Sometimes its bedlam!
Please don’t despair dear mother. Keep training. Keep praying and asking God to pour out His sweet anointing on your family meal times. Pray for His holy anointing to come to you. You will reap what you sow. As you little by little train your children and they grow older, you will move into such blessed and holy times together.
Without a vision nothing happens. But when we have a vision and we understand that God wants to come to our tables and manifest His sweet and holy anointing, we will press toward this vision in our family lives.
Be blessed in Jesus’ name.
Love from Nancy Campbell
God’s dealings with us can be gentle or powerful. God spoke to Isaiah and said: “My care for the people of Judah is like the gently flowing waters of Shiloah” (Isaiah 8:6). What a beautiful description of God’s care and watchfulness over our lives. He loves to be gentle with us as He convicts us of things in our lives that grieve Him and as He woos us on to be conformed into the image of His Son. Do we respond to His gentle proddings?
Or do we resist? When we resist, God needs to use stronger methods. The Bible says that that the people of Judah rejected God’s gently flowing waters. They wanted their own way. Instead, He had to bring a flood upon them, a flood that reached up to their chins! It was literally the King of Assyria wanting to take them captive.
We either experience the dealings of God one way or the other. We can live in the “gentle flowing stream” anointing as we respond to God speaking to our hearts. But if we let our hearts become cold and resistance to His voice, He may have to send a “raging river” upon us to get our attention.
Which would you prefer?
Let’s keep soft and tender hearts towards the Lord.
Love from Nancy Campbell
Are you satisfied with your life? In other words, are you content? We are always thinking of something we need, aren’t we? But do we really need it? We can’t afford it and so we go without, and we find we live life just fine without the thing we think we need! It’s amazing what we can live without.
Oh it would be nice to have this and that fixed in our home. I look at my floors and despair. I can’t wait to throw out all our old carpets upstairs and get some wooden or wood-substitute floors. Most the tiles in my office where I am typing now are worn down to the concrete. I am so ashamed when people work in. But really, what difference does it make to how I live, except my pride! So I am content.
Contentment is an anti-stress attribute. When we stop worrying about what we can’t have and accept what we have, we no longer stress.
I read this morning in Jeremiah 31;14: ”My people shall be SATISFIED with my goodness, saith the LORD.” Oh we are so blessed. We are overwhelmed with the goodness of the Lord. So much of the world lives in poverty and we live so well in America. Millions are being persecuted and we live in peace. We have a roof over our heads, food on our tables, and more clothing than we need to wear. What are we worrying about? Instead, we should be basking in God’s goodness.
I think of the children of Israel who lived in the wilderness in tents. They had no supermarkets to buy food, no entertainment centers, no mod-cons such as washing machines and dishwashers and so on. But God said in Nehemiah 9:21: “Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that THEY LACKED NOTHING.”
Can we learn to be truly satisfied with God’s goodness to us? It’s a beautiful way to live.
Love and blessings,
Nancy Campbell
I am always challenged by Romans 3:4: “Let God be true, and every man a liar.” I have to ask myself the question: would I be prepared to stand true to God’s truth if I was the only one believing? The truth is not always popular! #abhorevil #hateevil #lovegood #standfortruth #speaktruth #repost #aboverubies
God hovers over the baby He is creating in the womb. He is the designer and creator. Every person in the world was a person from the moment of conception, a new and unrepeatable miracle planned by God. Life is precious. #lifeisprecious #lifebeginsatconception #unrepeatablemiracle #godgiveslife #aboverubies
What is the crowning moment of your day?
For me, it is sitting down to the evening meal, enjoying rich fellowship, and then the culminating moment—Family Devotions—when we read God's Word and pray together.
It makes all the meal preparation of the meal worthwhile. It crowns the day with God's blessing. I am always aware of the power and impact it has, not only on our lives, but on the people and nations for whom we pray!
Try not to let the interruptions of this day keep you from this crowning moment in your home.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Mother, you may like to share this poem with your growing up sons or you may like to pin it up in their room or the bathroom.
YOUNG MAN OF VALOR
Young man of God, will you guard your eyes
And keep them only for your greatest prize?
The wife God planned for you from the beginning,
She’ll be enough to keep your head a-spinning!
Don’t waste your emotions looking at other girls,
No matter how special or gorgeous their curls,
Instead, keep your eyes fixed on the Lord.
Follow His leading and you’ll never be flawed.
Young man of might, will you guard your heart?
Don’t give your feelings to any up-start,
Keep your heart disciplined and wait for the time
When God gives you His choice; it will be sublime!
A daughter of virtue who has kept herself pure,
Who follows after truth and trusts God for sure,
One who loves children and keeping the home,
And who delights to serve without a moan.
Young man of valor, will you keep your body pure
For your wedding day when it’s bliss for sure?
Will you start your marriage on a holy foundation?
For this is the way to strengthen the nation
And establish a family that will endure any test!
For God will be with you and you will be blessed,
Even in the storms, the wind, and the battles of life
If you keep the covenant with your lovely wife.
~ Nancy Campbell
Our public education system separates children into their age groups. Our church Sunday schools also separate children into their ages. However, this is not a biblical pattern.
When God wanted to speak to His people, or when God’s law was to be read to the people, everyone came. Moms and dads and all the children, even the nursing babies.
Here’s an example from 2 Chronicles 20:13: "And all Judah stood before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children."
Include your children in your walk with God. Don't send them off to be influenced by the peers of their age group. Grow in God together as a family. Read God’s Word together. Pray together. Work together and play together.
Proverbs 22:15 says, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child." When you put a lot of children of the same age together, you have multiplied foolishness!
God intends us to follow Him as “families,” not in separated age groups. This makes strong families for God; and when we have multiplied strong families, the nation will be strong.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Check out this post: http://bit.ly/ShouldChildrenBeInChurch
Your "down in the dumps" dress, your "grumble groaning" dress, or, maybe your “self-pity” outfit? Pretty ugly, aren't they?
Did you know that God gave you a new wardrobe when He came to live in you? He wants you to cast off the old clothes of the flesh and put on the new clothes He has given you—kindness, joy, mercy, humility, longsuffering, love, and forgiveness. These clothes make you look very beautiful, especially to your husband and children.
Each morning you choose what you will wear—the drab “fleshly” clothes of your old life or the new clothes of the Spirit which Jesus Christ has given to you at the great cost of His life and His precious blood.
Ephesians 4: 24 says: “PUT ON the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
The NLT says: “THROW OFF your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. PUT ON your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.”
Oh . . . do you need to go and change your clothes? Won’t you look lovely in your “patience” outfit, or perhaps your new “joyful dress”? It will change the whole vibe of your home.
Enjoy your new wardrobe.
Love from Nancy Campbell
I remember seeing a cartoon many years ago. It was a picture of a mother looking at the adverts in the newspaper. Around her were children out of control and the house in utter chaos. The caption read: “I’m looking for a job, I need a rest!”
This may be just how you feel sometimes. Dear mother, I want to remind you today that you already have the greatest career in the nation. I know it’s not easy. It has the longest hours. It’s full of challenges. Sometimes you feel so tired you can hardly see straight. But no job that is nation-changing, generation-influencing, and eternity-investing is easy.
And to top it all off, God is with you all the way through. He does not give up on you half way through your commission. He is with you to the end. David reminded his son, Solomon that “God will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 28:20).
God is also with you as you build your “house of the LORD” and daily serve Him as you mother and train your children. And did you get the message? He will be with you UNTIL YOU FINISH THE WORK! Yes, in all the serving in your home. Not half way through, but all the way through. You may feel exhausted along the way, but because God is with you. You will make it to the finishing line!
God’s promise to you in Hebrews 13:5, 6 says: “Be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament reveal the full meaning of this Scripture: “I WILL NOT, I WILL NOT, I WILL NOT let thee down, leave thee in the lurch, leave thee destitute, leave thee in straits and helpless, abandon thee.”
Lift up your head today. You are not doing this on your own. GOD IS WITH YOU UNTIL THE FINISHING LINE!
Be encouraged.
Nancy Campbell
God intends babies to be nursed at the breast and enfolded in their mother’s arms. We see this in nature. Animals instinctively encircle their little ones to them without having to read books or listen to CDs. What I find hard to fathom is how human mothers can leave their little babies with someone else to look after while they do their career? This is not even instinctive. Mothers and new babies should be inseparable.
~ Nancy Campbell
I was arrested by a Scripture I read this morning in Isaiah 26:18 (NET): “We cannot produce deliverance on the earth, people to populate the earth are not born.” The NLT says: “We have not given salvation to the earth, nor brought life into the world.”
Wow, these words are very powerful, and yet true. There are so many hurt and broken people in this world and all around us. There are so many who need salvation, deliverance, and healing. God is waiting to show them His salvation and deliver them from all their bondages. But how does it happen? God uses His people. We are His body on the earth and He works through us.
The sad thing is that thousands of people are missing from the earth. Men and women who God wanted on this earth to bring His deliverance and salvation. But they are not here because for the last eight decades or so God’s people have thrown away God’s plan and decided they had a better plan.
Instead of receiving the children God planned from them, they limited their families to the average two-child family in the nation today. Millions are missing. We have not populated the nation with the godly seed. We don’t even have a majority to vote for righteousness, let alone the army of God’s people who should be bringing salvation and deliverance the lost and hurting.
I pray for the eyes of God’s people to be opened to God’s ultimate plan. The more children God chooses for us to bring into this world, the more impact we have for the kingdom of God. God wants His salvation and glory to fill the earth. He wants His people to be “more and mightier” than the heathen (Exodus 1:7-12).
Psalm 105:24 tells us that God “increased his people greatly: and made them stronger than their enemies.” We become weaker when we diminish. We become stronger when we multiply. These are plain facts. Plus they are Bible language.
I love the quote from Frank Boreham: "We fancy that God can only manage His world by big battalions abroad, when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies at home. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, GOD SENDS A BABY INTO THE WORLD TO DO IT. That is why long, long ago, a Babe was born in Bethlehem."
Spread the good news,
Nancy Campbell
What is the most important thing on your agenda in your home? Does it prove God is preeminent in your home? #meetwithgoddaily #dailydevotions #familydevotions #familybiblereading #familyworship #familyprayer #nancycampbellquote #aboverubies
God told Moses to consecrate the hands of Aaron and his sons, the priests. Exodus 28:41 (Knox) says: “And thou shalt consecrate their hands, and set them apart to serve me in the priestly office.” Because God has also made us “kings and priests unto our God” He wants us to have consecrated hands too.
Have you consecrated your hands to the Lord as a mother? Yield your hands to the Lord today as you use them to cook, clean, wash dishes, change diapers, and do all your household tasks. Think of them as being “set apart” to the Lord as you serve in your home.
You are doing a priestly work. Because Christ lives in you everything you do is sacred. You can experience God’s blessing and anointing upon you in everything practical thing you do in our home. God sees you doing it unto Him and it’s written in His book. Nothing goes unnoticed.
Have a blessed day,
Nancy Campbell
Dear mother, when you are caring for your children in your home, you are in the heart of God’s kingdom. You are right where God wants you to be. You are in full time service in the kingdom of God. You couldn’t be doing anything greater! Have a wonderful day. #motherhood #ilovemotherhood #powerofmotherhood #fulltimeservice #aboverubies #nancycampbell
A modern trend in parenting is to make our children happy. Whatever we can do to make them happy is the aim, even if it’s giving in to their whims and wants.
I don’t believe this is the kind of parenting that works. Of course, it’s easy parenting. It takes effort and disciplined parenting to train children to become mature adults who are ready for life and ready for marriage and raising a family.
Our purpose should not just be to make them happy (although of course we want them to be happy) but to train them to be responsible, hard-working, honorable, trustworthy, reliable, unselfish, evil-hating, and God-loving people.
Some parents think that easy parenting is loving parenting. I don’t think this is rue love. True love longs for our children to become all that God wants them to be. True love deals with the negative and selfish ways of our children. True love does not want our children to grow up taking these habits into their adult life. When we allow our children to get into the habits of disobedience, rebellion, and moods, it shows we don’t care about them at all. We are not thinking of what it will be like when they get married one day.
The Bible tells us that God corrects those He loves. Actually, it’s stronger than that. Hebrews 12:6 says: “For whom the Lord LOVETH he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” That’s because He loves us and longs and yearns over us to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).
Of course there is balance. We ultimately want our children to live in a home of happiness, joy, fun, and laughter! But in reality, this doesn’t work if we constantly face rebellion and moods and disobedience. That’s miserable parenting. No wonder some parents don’t want any more children.
When we train our children, we can then relax, and enjoy the atmosphere of a home of peace. Proverbs 29:17 states: “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.”
How much do you love your children?
Love from Nancy Campbell
How close are you joined together as husband and wife? How close does God want you to be joined together?
The word that God uses for marriage closeness is the Hebrew word “dabaq.” It is translated “cleave” in Genesis 2:24 which means “to cling to, to follow close, to stick, to be joined.”
Other English words are used in other passages and each word helps us to understand more of the oneness God desires in the marriage relationship.
I love the passage where it is used to describe the leviathan in Job 41:15-17 (HCSB). Let’s read the description:
“His pride is in his rows of scales, CLOSELY SEALED TOGETHER (dabaq). One scale is SO CLOSE TO ANOTHER THAT NO AIR CAN PASS BETWEEN THEM.” They are joined so closely that they cannot be separated.
What do you think of that ladies? God wants us to be joined so closely that no air can pass between us! Impossible to separate. What a great description of cleaving!
When Jesus was on earth, He confirmed Genesis 2:24. When answering the Pharisees about marriage, He said in Matthew 19:4, 5 (HCSB): “’Haven’t you read,’ He replied, ‘that He who created them in the beginning made them male and female . . . For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one flesh.’”
Jesus not only confirmed God’s original words but elevated them to a greater level: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, man must not sperate.’”
This means we are to be glued together, never to come apart. We are so stuck together that’s it’s well-nigh impossible for anything or anyone to pull us apart.
My grandson said to me recently, “Nana, they call a husband and wife a couple. But doesn’t God say they are one?
“Yes, you are absolutely correct,” I replied.
Maybe, rather than saying, “Look at that lovely couple walking along,” we should say, “What a lovely “oneness” walking together.”
How close are you making your marriage?
Love from Nancy Campbell
How long do we stay a child? Some folks are still acting like children when they are adults.
When we are converted and are born again into God’s family, His goal for us is to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). He does not want us to stay in our babyhood but little by little, He leads us into maturity.
This is the goal of parenting. Little by little we train our children toward maturity. We deal with their foolish and childish habits. We will not allow them to stamp their feet or get into moods. Why? We don’t want them to grow up acting like children.
And yet this is how many couples live in their marriages. They continue to act like children, demanding their own way, and look out if they don’t get it! It’s my way or the highway! If they don’t throw a fit, they’ll withdraw into the silent treatment. Or stay in a mood that permeates the atmosphere of the whole house. Help.
What does the Bible say about this? First Corinthians 13:11, the chapter that teaches us about agape love says: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I PUT AWAY childish things.”
Did you notice these words? “I PUT AWAY childish things.”
The AMPC says: “I AM DONE which childish ways and have put them aside.”
The CJB says: “I HAVE FINISHED with childish ways.”
Knox: “I have OUTGROWN childish ways.”
The other day I was offended at the attitude of my husband towards me. I conjured up in my head how his attitude was selfish—and poor me! Then of course, God convicted me. What a lot of junk! I was acting like a child! Ridiculous. It was all a big self-pity trip! And lies from the enemy!
And so I finished with it. I was DONE WITH IT! And now I can hardly remember what it was all about. And I don’t intend to recall it.
You see, dear ladies we either choose to behave like an immature child or behave like an adult. None of us are perfect. Why do we get upset over some little thing (that we may think is a big thing) but usually because we are making it bigger in our minds!
Maturity overlooks idiosyncrancies. It puts aside words and actions and hurts from others and forgives and loves! This challenge comes in the love chapter! Agape love does not love according to circumstances and feelings. God’s love continues to love in spite of anything and everything.
Let’s choose to be adults instead of children.
Love from Nancy Campbell
AboveRubies
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