IN THE KITCHEN AGAIN! 

“Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work” (1 Timothy 5:9-10).

Do you feel like doing something good today? How about making your husband his favorite meal? Or making some healthy cookies or an extra special meal for your children? Or you may like to bake a cake or some homemade bread and a big pot of soup for someone you know who is sick, pregnant or recently had a new baby.

“Goodness, you don’t want me to get into the kitchen again, do you?” I hear you say. Yes! And you will be doing the “good works” God planned for you.

There are two particular passages in the New Testament that give a description of God’s plan for women. As I read them again recently I noticed that they bring us back to the kitchen! God is so practical. And He wants us to be heavenly practical! That means doing the “good works” He planned in Heaven for us to do on earth!

The first passage is in 1 Timothy 5:9-10 where it gives a beautiful description of a godly woman. God puts everything in order and the first thing we read that she does is to:

1. Nourish children. The word in the Greek is teknotropheo and means “to cherish, nourish and give food to children; it is also used of a mother nursing a baby at her breast.” This is all about food! It starts with nursing our babies and then feeding them every day of their lives until they leave home! This means spending a lot of time in the kitchen! But it is not a waste of time. It is all part of our nurturing, mothering anointing. And it is all in God’s plan. What does she do next?

1. Show hospitality to strangers. Hospitality is also about food. The more people you invite to your table and to stay in your home, the more you’ll be in the kitchen! Don’t despair! God looks upon it with favor. He says it is a good work!

1. Wash the saints’ feet. In biblical times they washed the feet of their guests when they arrived at the home and before they sat them down to a meal. It speaks of serving. But once again, it is all about food. Washing feet is preparing to serve them food.

1. Relieve those who are in distress. Most of the time this will mean feeding those who are hungry and bringing into your home those who have nowhere to stay (which once again means feeding them)!

Do you notice how these “good works” are all to do with food? But we haven’t finished yet. The other passage is in Titus 2:3-5 where it tells the older women to teach the younger women “good things.” The Greek word is kalodidaskalos which means she is teaching them things which are valuable and beautiful to behold. The J. B. Phillips translation says that these things are “a good advertisement for the Christian faith.” Of the good things that are mentioned, most of them refer to food. Let’s have a look:

1. Love your husband. You can’t love your husband without feeding him. The old saying is true that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” One of the good things you can do for your husband is to make sure that you have a nutritious, attractive and aroma-filled meal ready for him when he gets home. Not an hour after he gets home, but as soon as he gets home! You abundantly bless him when he arrives home to a beautifully set table, a lovely meal and the family waiting for him to take his place at the head of the table.

1. Love your children. You certainly show your love to your children by preparing wholesome meals for them, not with resignation, but with excitement and joy. They know you love them when you delight to cook for them and make special things for them. And as you cook, you will let them help you, showing the way for the next generation.

1. Sensible. This is translated “discreet” in the KJV. The Greek word is sophron and means “a person who limits his own freedom and ability with proper thinking, demonstrating self-control with the proper restraints on all the passions and desires, one who voluntarily places limitations on his freedom.” To prepare meals for our husband and family, day after day, week after week, year after year (I have now been doing it for over 48 years!), takes sacrifice and limiting our own freedom. We’ll happily stop doing “our own thing” when it’s time to prepare meals.

1. Keepers at home. This speaks of running our home efficiently. To competently manage a home we need to plant a garden to provide fresh food for our family, shop, order food from afar, plan, preserve, and prepare wholesome and delicious meals. It’s all about food again!

1. Good. Remember, cooking and preparing meals is a “good thing” and God is watching!

1. Submit to your husband. Having a meal ready for our husband shows our deference and submission to him. What does the virtuous woman to do her husband? “She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life” (Proverbs 31:12).

Have fun cooking! Now you can do it with revelation, not resignation!

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Thank you, Father for showing me that preparing food is not an inferior task, but high on the list in your agenda for mothers. Help me to remember that it is one of the good works you have chosen for me to accomplish.”

AFFIRMATION:

Look out family: mother is cooking up a storm!

Many women like to save these devotions. They print them out and keep them in a folder to read over and over again. Some print them out and pin them on the fridge with a magnet to read through the week. If you are printing this devotion and need it to be smaller, highlight and change to a smaller font.

If you know others who would be blessed by these devotions, you are welcome to forward them.

WHAT’S YOUR CHOICE? 

“See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil… I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.
Deuteronomy 30:15, 20.”

We face life and death issues every day. Because we belong to a kingdom of life, we must get into the habit of choosing life in every situation. But to choose life, we must have God’s understanding about life. We often make decisions with our humanistic thinking. I believe it is imperative to know what God thinks about life from the beginning to the end.

What about the beginning of life? We believe that life begins at conception. However, I see in God’s Word that God goes even beyond conception. One of the many words that He uses to describe children is the Hebrew word zerah. This word is used to describe the sperm but is also used for people—babies, toddlers, teens and adults. It seems that God sees them all the same. He sees that the life begins with the sperm. There would be no babies or no adults if there were no sperm! Compare Leviticus 15:16-18 which uses zerah for sperm and Genesis 46:6-7 (among many other Scriptures) that uses zerah for people, “They came into Egypt, Jacob, and all his seed (zerah) with him: his sons, and his sons’ sons with him, his daughters, and his son’s daughters, and all his seed (zerah) brought he with him into Egypt.” This speaks of three generations of different ages.

I am always amazed at God’s revelation in Hebrews 7:9-10 where it says, “Levi also, who receives tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.” Levi was four generations down from Abraham, not even a twinkle in Abraham’s eye, but God says he was actually in the loins of Abraham and paid tithes to Melchisedec when Abraham paid tithes. God sees the seed of life that continues in each continuing generation. What a tragedy that so much life is cut off today before it is even conceived!

What about the end of life? It is quite prevalent today to encourage people into the arms of Jesus when they are nearing the end. Pastors and counselors often say, “The Lord is waiting for you. You can now go to the arms of Jesus. We release you to go.” A pastor said this to my father as he neared his last moments. I thought it sounded very spiritual at the time.

It was not until sometime later that the Holy Spirit convicted me that, although it sounded very nice, it is far from right! No one, no matter who they are, has any authority to tell a person it is time to leave this earth. This kind of thinking slowly leads us toward euthanasia. A person will give their last breath when they are ready, without anyone’s help. Even when they are unconscious or in a coma, they can still be aware of their loved ones around them. Maybe they want to linger on and savor the presence of family members as long as they can. They do not need auto-suggestion from anyone.

It is a divine privilege to breathe our last when we are ready, not when someone else thinks we are ready. Jesus gave up his own spirit. Luke 23:46 says, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

We are living in a culture of death, masterminded by Satan who wants to destruct. He comes to rob, kill and destroy (John 10:10) He wants to rob life from this world before it is conceived and after it is conceived. He wants to snuff people’s lives out before it is their time to go. In the midst of this culture, we must stand out like beacon lights, promoting life! Never being deceived by society around us! Never giving in! Never compromising! There is no middle ground. We either belong to the kingdom of God which promotes life or the kingdom of Satan which chooses death. One brings blessing; the other cursing. If we do not choose life, we are contrary to God’s kingdom.

Philippians 2:15-16 says, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the word of life.”

Make it a habit to choose life in every situation, even when you open your mouth to speak! Embrace life. Give life. Love life. Stand up for life. Speak life. Make decisions for life. Choose life that you and your descendants will live!

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Lord, please save me from being subtly deceived by the culture of death in which I live. Help me to always stand for life.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m lighting up, standing up and speaking up for life!

Many women like to save these devotions. They print them out and keep them in a folder to read over and over again. Some print them out and pin them on the fridge with a magnet to read through the week. If you are printing this devotion and need it to be smaller, highlight and change to a smaller font.

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THE DAILY RULE

“Then Solomon offered burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of the Lord which he had built before the porch; and did so according to the daily rule… he appointed the divisions of the priests for their service, and the Levites for their duties of praise and ministering before the priests according to the daily rule” (2 Chronicles 8:12-14 NASB).

“The daily rule.” These words sound tedious, don’t they? They don’t sound liberating or exciting. But life functions according to daily rules. Without them we could not operate our home efficiently or effectively. God himself appointed daily rules. He commanded the Jewish priests to sacrifice a lamb every morning and every evening upon the altar. God didn’t give these statutes to the priests as an option but as a daily rule and they became an established part of Israeli life.

The morning and evening sacrifices upon the altar laid a foundation for us to also have a daily Family Altar. This is an old fashioned term that we rarely hear today, but it came from this very principle of the daily sacrifice upon the altar which you can read about in Leviticus 6:8-13. Believers embraced the principle and came before the Lord as a family, not just once a day, but every morning and evening.

Life-Giving!

Is it inhibiting to keep this daily rule? No. It is life-giving! Jesus said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are LIFE” (John 6:63). God’s Words are “alive and active” (Hebrews 4:12). How can it be legality to impart life-giving words to your children each day? Isn’t it amazing how we can let things that have no life-giving purpose intrude upon this daily rule, when it is the most life-giving appointment of the day?

At the daily sacrifice, the Levites were commanded to sing and praise the Lord. Do you know what it was called? “The duties of praise” or as the King James Bible translates it, “as the duty of every day required” (2 Chronicles 8:14). I beg your pardon. Did God say that praise was a duty? Shouldn’t it come from the spontaneous joy and gratitude of our heart? Yes, but it is also a duty.

The Very Least!

What is the culminating moment in your day? In our home it is when we sit down at the evening meal and enjoy fellowship and Family Devotions together.I am aware that taking this time, morning and evening, to stop all other activity and listen to the living Word of God and pray, is the VERY LEAST we can give God in the day. Yet, how easy it is to let it slip! Are other things more important than praising God together, only twice a day? What is so pressing that we miss out on the blessing of imparting God’s life-giving word to our children? Why do we let the enemy use things to crowd into our day and stop us from the most powerful thing we can do as a family which is to pray together? And why do we vacate our precious family togetherness in the presence of God? Interesting questions!

I love both the morning and evening times, but the evening is often more special. We sit around a lovely meal and can spend more time than we can in the morning. We see that even Jesus was aware of this when He spoke the famous words in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door, and know: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” The word “sup” in the Greek is the exact same word that is used for “supper, the main evening meal.” Even Webster’s 1928 dictionary says that “sup” means “to eat the evening meal, to treat with supper.”

Jesus was saying, “When I come into your life, I want to have the kind of relationship and fellowship with you that you have when you sit around and commune together at the end of the day at the supper meal.” This is what “supping” is all about. It’s not only eating, but fellowshipping. It’s not only feeding our body, but feeding our soul and our spirit.

I am sure you wouldn’t want to stop your daily rule of eating three meals a day. In the same way, don’t let anything stop you keeping your daily rule of eating at least two spiritual meals a day with your family.

NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubiesorg

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PRAYER:

“Dear Father, I thank you for this daily rule which reminds me of my duty to praise you and feed from your living Word. It is the very least I can do to show my worship and honor to you. Please give me tenacity to make this happen in my home. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:
Daily Rule—it brings life to me,

And especially to our family!

FURTHER SCRIPTURES ABOUT THE DAILY RULE:

Exodus 29:36, 38-39; Leviticus 6:8-13; Numbers 28:3; 1 Chronicles 16:40; 23:30; 2 Chronicles 2:4; 13:10-11; 31:3 and Ezra 3:3-4.

CHECK OUT:

http://bit.ly/MorningEveningPrinciple

http://bit.ly/TheWifesPart

http://bit.ly/HowWeUseDailyLight

A WHISPERING CAMPAIGN!

“And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord” (Numbers 14:36-37).

Recently I have been writing and speaking about the twelve descriptions God gives of the land of Israel and relating it to the land of motherhood which God has given to us.

God loves the land of Israel because He chose it and it is in His plan. God loves the land of motherhood because it is the anointing He has chosen for us to live in. Because both lands are very close to the heart of God, Satan hates them. He hates Israel and wants to annihilate it from the face of the earth because the land of Israel proves the promises of the Word of God and the existence of God. He wants to eliminate motherhood because it brings forth life (which Satan hates) and the image of God in the world.

When the spies came back from checking out the Promised Land, they came back “bringing up a slander upon the land.” Oh yes, they told them that it was a fruitful land, flowing with milk and honey. It took two strong men to carry one cluster of grapes! BUT, they also told them about the giants living there and the walled cities that would be impossible to overcome! They did not believe that God was big enough to do what He promised them. They slandered the land that God had searched out for them and given to them by divine covenant.

Just as the spies slandered the land of Israel, many times mothers slander the land that God has given to them. They do not believe that God will be with them in their pregnancies and births. They do not believe God can provide for the children He wants to give them. Often they do not even believe that they are meant to be in their homeland of motherhood and would prefer to live “out of the land.” They talk disparagingly against motherhood. They laugh with contempt about having another baby. They are doing exactly what the spies did--they are slandering the land!

God calls it “slander” and “an evil report” when we do not believe that He is able. Psalm 78:19-22 says, “Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?... Can he give bread also? Can he provide flesh for his people? Therefore the Lord heard this, and was wroth; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also came up against Israel; because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation.”

Who were the spies that gave this evil report to the children of Israel? They were not the ordinary rank and file. Each one was a ruler among their tribes! They had been carefully chosen. Once again we see a parallel. It is often the leaders in the churches and the “older women” who slander the land of motherhood. Families share they are not welcome with their larger families in many churches. Pastors counsel newly married couples to delay childbearing. They encourage families to limit their families because God would not be able to provide for them or have enough finance to send them all to college. Even pastor’s wives lead by example and limit their families and leave their homes to pursue their careers!

The older women of this generation have turned this new generation of mothers away from the land. They give them an evil report. I know older women who have a mission to stop mothers having more babies. They have a “whispering campaign” going on. The Modern Language Bible translation calls it a “whispering campaign against the land.” This whisper of unbelief about motherhood has spread across the land, even in the church, until now we live in a society that rejects the highest purpose God has for women. Are these “older mothers” aware that they have turned a generation away from God’s truth and are responsible for eliminating God’s children in the earth?

Do you belong to the “whispering campaign” or do you have a different spirit like Caleb and Joshua?

God dealt fatally with the spies who slandered the land. It is not something we can take lightly. God says that “he that uttereth slander is a fool” (Proverbs 10:18). Titus 2:3-5 is very strong when it says that those who slander the land are “blaspheming the Word of God.”

Am I guilty? Yes, I am often tempted to speak unbelieving words regarding God’s provision. May God save me from this sin of unbelief (Romans 14:23b). May God help us to have a positive confession about the good land of motherhood. May we always confess that God will carry us through and that He will provide.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Oh God, please help me to see the good things in the land of motherhood and not to be overcome with unbelief and doubt. Amen."

AFFIRMATION:

I am going to confess five positive things about my land of motherhood each new morning!