Further to my post below, I know you will be blessed by also reading this article:
http://tinyurl.com/yabpghxg
~ Nancy
Painting by J. Brickey
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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.
I think that many parents are not aware of the true agenda of our current public school system which is to indoctrinate our children with their progressive agenda. They now teach Islam in schools. They now teach the gay agenda. They now teach alternative sex education. And that’s only the top of the iceberg.
And yet parents say it wasn’t like that when I was at school. What about grandparents? They can’t imagine it being different to when they were at school. But it’s time to wake up to what’s happening now. How can God-fearing parents send their children into this godless place to be educated?
I hear many mothers say they are concerned, but would never be able to teach their children themselves. They undermine their God-given abilities. God has put an anointing in mothers to teach their children. It is ingrained in them. They do it automatically. They teach their children naturally about life and knowledge before they ever send them off to school.
Who do you think is the best teacher? Job 36:22 asks the rhetorical question: “Who teaches like Him?” Of course, the answer is God. There is no teacher greater than Him? But now I want to ask you another question. Who dwells in your heart? Doesn’t God dwell within you by the power of His Holy Spirit? The greatest teacher in the universe lives inside of you? He enables you to teach.
What is the purpose of God’s teaching? Isaiah 48:17 says: “I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.” God’s teaching profits us. It leads us in the right way. The Hebrew word is “ya’al” and means “to ascend, set forward, valuable, useful.” God’s teaching doesn’t leave us in the same place. It takes us forward. It’s always ascending, taking us upward, leading us more and more into God’s ways (Proverbs 4:18), and conforming us into the image of Christ.
This is the heart and passion you have for your children. You want them to move forward in God’s ways, His knowledge, His wisdom, and in preparation for God’s destiny upon their lives. Is this the vision of public school? No, they have an agenda that is opposite to God and His ways. It is anti-God, anti-family, and anti-righteousness. Why would you send your precious children to receive this kind of education (Psalm 1:1)?
You have far more anointing and ability to teach your children. God is in you. His anointing to teach is in you. You have the right motive for teaching. You want your children to ascend, not descend into the ways of the enemy. You can do it. You are the one who will inspire them in the way they should go.
The next verse (v. 18) says: “O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” If we do it God’s way, we and our children will be blessed. And did you notice the exclamation mark? The Bible exclamation mark, not mine!
Be inspired today,
Nancy Campbell
Painting: “A Gift of Time” by Jim Daley
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We do not live for ourselves or only for this generation. We are influenced by those gone before and we determine the future of the next and future generations. What are we passing on? What is our legacy? How will our lives influence the generations to come? And eternity?
~ Nancy Campbell
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Obedience is a very important principle in training our children. Rather than training children to obey immediately, many parents teach them to obey when they are telling them for the tenth time and are now shouting!
You decide! First time or tenth time? God's way or your way?
However, this principle also relates to us as parents. Do we obey God the first time He speaks to us? Do we respond to Him immediately when He speaks to us from His Word?
By the way, how do our children see our attitude toward our husband? Do we obey him and respond to him or do we have an indifferent and rebellious attitude?
Not only are we responsible to train our children to obey, but we also show them by example.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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I have a dear friend who literally built her own home. Her husband worked full time and earned the money, but because she was at home with her little baby, she decided she may as well build the home. With the advice of her father and studying building books she did it! She built this beautiful five-bedroom two-storied home which she and her family continue to live in today. And now she is a grandmother!
Lois Jordan was the design artist for Above Rubies back in the beginning days, forty years ago! I would often have to call her down from the roof to do some art work when we were working on a new magazine.
I know there are very few women who would have the capacity to do what Lois did. She is not the ordinary person! But God says that women are builders! We don’t have to build a house with hammer and nails. We are building a family. We are building godly generations.
Proverbs 14:1 says: “Every wise woman builds her house: but the foolish plucks it down with her hands.” What are you putting your time into? Into building up someone else’s organization or business? Or are you building up your home? That takes being at home. It takes time to build up your home and family. It doesn’t happen by gadding about here and there,
What about your marriage? Are you building into your marriage? That takes time too. What are you speaking into your marriage? Loving words? Encouraging words? Sweet words? More than anything else we build our marriage and our family with words. Words either build up or destroy.
Let’s be builders, not destroyers.
Love from Nancy Campbell
Photo: This is the home Lois built (and her beautiful garden), Palmerston North, New Zealand. I was blessed to see Lois again in New Zealand in March of this year.
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We live in a deceived society. There are many antichrists and false prophets around. And one day there will come The Antichrist and The False Prophet. Even now, we get little glimpses towards that day. Just recently we read where Pope Francis warned 33,000 Catholics in Rome to avoid a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” which he said could be “dangerous and harmful.” He also advocates for a New World Order. This leaves many of his followers confused, especially when he led Islamic prayers in the Vatican.
He also made statements to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in which he claimed that Americans have a distorted view of the world and put forward the idea that the people of the United States need to be ruled by a world government “for their own good.”
The Pope also believes that guarding America with the full muscle and might of a governmental oversight will be good for all humanity. In conversation with reporters from Ecuador’s El Universo newspaper, he said that it was essential to do so in order to formulate a cohesive, international stance against climate change. Can you believe what you are reading?
You can read and watch this and much more on this link: http://www.disclose.tv/…/popes_latest_warning_relati…/139720
Does this not grieve your spirit? I personally know many born again Catholics who love Jesus and walk godly lives. I hope they will stand up against this deception. But I think of so many who don’t know Jesus personally and how they will be so easily deceived.
It is false and reveals an antichrist spirit. As we see more of this, it is so important to ingrain our children in the truth of God’s Word. Are you daily implanting God’s Word into your children’s hearts? It’s only God’s Word that will keep them from being deceived, even by Christian leaders. The Bible is the great lie detector!
If you want your children to stand strong for Christ in this end time, fill them with the Word. It is imperative that you and your husband make this a priority in your life.
Matthew 24:24 says: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
Will your children know how to discern? Will they stand strong for truth even when Satan comes as an angel of light and with signs and wonders? Will they see through the lies? Will they will be willing to be persecuted or even face death for the sake of truth?
We must be preparing them now. We have a big task on our hands.
Be blessed,
Nancy Campbell
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We need great discernment to truly know what is good and what not just “looks good,” don’t we? Many times, things that are good rob us of the best! We can be involved I so many “good things” in our parenting and in Christian work and yet they are not God’s best. They are what we think is good. Or even what the enemy tricks us to think is good.
This is how Satan tempted Eve in the beginning. He didn’t tempt her with anything evil, but what looked good and wise (Genesis 3:6). If Eve could be so easily tempted who walked with God each day in the garden, how much more are we be susceptible to Satan who is “an angel of light.”
The greatest antidote to deception is God’s Word. It is our plumbline for everything we believe and do. It is also the great lie detector. Many times, we don’t know things are lies until we line them up with God’s Word.
One of the ways the enemy robs families of what is best is many of our extracurricular activities. None of them are bad. They are all good. And yet often they rob us of what is the most important. The tricky thing is that most of them are always around about the time we should be in the home preparing meal for the family so we can enjoy family togetherness around the table each evening. And of course, to have family devotions and worship together. And pray together.
The devil hates families praying and he will use good things to stop us. He’ll get us doing all these great things for our children, which are good, but which stop us from coming together as a family to pray. And the devil laughs. He wins the victory.
It’s praying families who are world-changing families. And as you know, this doesn’t easily happen. It takes a complete life change in our families to make it happen. But world-changing families are also sacrificing fmailies. They’re families who know what is the BEST, not only what is good.
Blessings, Nancy Campbell
Nancy Campbell
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The Number One vision of our lives should be to strengthen our marriage and family. Everything else should surrender to this priority. A child can be saved from much heartache later in life when brought up in a family where the father and mother love one another, are committed to one another, and the family ties are strong.
Can I encourage you to strengthen your marriage a little more today? Ask God for something you can do today to make your marriage a little lovelier, sweeter, and stronger. You may like to call your husband right now to remind him that you love him.
Perhaps you don't feel very loving to him at the moment? Forget your feelings and do it by faith! And watch what will happen. Plan a delightful meal and have it ready for him as he walks in the door this evening. Write a love note to have waiting on his pillow as he goes to bed.
How many extra things are you doing outside the home this week? How many evenings have you planned to go out? Why not cancel something and stay home with your husband and family instead? Think of a special thing you can do together as a family this evening. Turn off the TV and read a story together. Or, get each one to do a mime, read a poem, put on an act, or do something fun. You and your husband will be the audience, but be ready, the children will want you to perform something, too!
Batten down the hatches! In other words, close your doors to the outside world and shine the warmth of God's sunlight inside your home.
Build up your family life rather than things outside your family.
Make surprises happen today,
Nancy Campbell
Painting: Art print by John Walter
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Do you need encouragement in your marriage? Or do you know of friends or acquaintances that are struggling in their marriage? I’d encourage you to forward this testimony to them. I have published this testimony twice in the Above Rubies magazine, but I want to share it with you again today. I think it is one of the most powerful marriage restoration testimonies I have read. There is absolutely no situation too hard for God!
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This is too hard to believe that the education department are now bringing gender identity teaching to our state schools, beginning with kindergarten! Third graders will be taught they can choose their own gender. This is all being planned without informing parents!
It’s time to stand up. Parents can make changes. If all parents had taken their children out of the state schools when they took prayer out of schools, the education system would have had to back down. What will happen now? Will parents be like the ostrich and put their nose in the ground as if it is not happening, or will they act? If all parents took their children out of the state schools, they would soon get the message that they can’t teach this diabolical anti-God, anti-family junk in our; schools.
The education system should not rule the parents. Parents should have the last say! It is their children. We must stand up for the protection of our children.
Check out the full article:
http://www.fpiw.org/…/washington-schools-to-teach-gender-i…/
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Ordinariness. It’s a place where many people live. I’m not talking about the “sameness” of your everyday tasks, for even the most mundane tasks are sacred and therefore extraordinary when you allow God into them. I am talking about living in the state of thinking like the status quo, fitting in with the humanist agenda of our society, and trusting in your own resources and understanding. There is no other word for this state than ordinariness.
To move out of this comfortable state and live with a biblical mindset takes you into extraordinariness. It is a challenging life--a realm of faith, hanging on the edge of a limb, adventures of trusting God when you cannot see where His provision is coming from, battles against the adversary, speaking up for truth and God-given convictions in the face of popular opinion, and often receiving ridicule.
We are out of step with the world but in step with God. We are out of sync with public thinking, but we are listening to the mind of God. It’s not the easy life, but it’s definitely NOT ordinary.
Why live in ordinariness when you can live in extraordinariness? If God has anything to do with your life, it will be extraordinary, for God is never ordinary. Where do you and your family live?
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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I have a question for you. I asked this same question to the folks around our table this morning. Do you think it is possible to “glorify God in your body” which the Scripture tells us to, if we tamper with the way God created us?
We know that all God’s ways are perfect (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:30; and Revelation 15:3). Therefore, the way He created our bodies is perfect. He created the female body for childbearing. He designed her body that during “the time of life,” which is the time of ovulation each month, that she has the opportunity to conceive a baby.
However, we live in a society where many women don’t want to have babies. They don’t want to live the way God designed their bodies so they use contraception, or even sterilization, to make sure God cannot bless them with life.
Sterilization tampers with the Creator’s design for our bodies. It changes the function. More accurately, it stops the function! It stops the ultimate plan of our Creator. Therefore, in doing this, is it possible to glorify God in our body? Let’s be honest now.
We need to read the Scriptures again: 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 (ESV): “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN, for you were bought with a price. So GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY.”
And the Scripture we all know, but need reminded of daily: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye PRESENT YOUR BODIES A LIVING SACRIFICE, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1, 2).
We notice that this Scripture exhorts us to present our BODIES to the Lord, not just our spirits. How are we to offer them? “Acceptable” to God. This word means “what is agreeable and well pleasing to God.” And its repeated in verse 2. The perfect will of God is that which is agreeable and well pleasing to Him. It’s not what is agreeable to us and fits in with our lifestyle, but what is in accordance with His eternal plan and purpose.
We either live according to the humanistic plan of our modern society or according to God’s eternal plan that has never changed and never will change from the beginning of time.
In His love,
Nancy Campbell
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A couple of days ago I wrote a post called WHAT IS YOUR BOAST? It was about raising children ready for the coming of Jesus. Paul called the Thessalonian young believers his “glory, joy, and crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.”
I noticed he had the same heart for his babes in Christ at Philippi. He called them his joy and crown too. In Philippians 4:1 he says: “Dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” In verses 7 and 8 he says: “I have you I my heart . . . how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.”
This was his life. To pray for and exhort and encourage these young believers so they would be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ” (1:10 ESV). We should have this same passion for our children. More than any other aspiration for our children we should long for them to live lives that are “pure and blameless” in this evil society.
It was the same kind of society in Philippi. He exhorted them to “be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain” (2:15,16 ESV).
To keep our children straight and not veering into the humanistic lifestyle that is so prevalent today, and even in the church, we must constantly fill our children with God’s Word. It is the only antidote against deception. We must do it daily. Morning and evening. Without fail.
We must be strong to speak out against evil. We love people, but we don’t love and tolerate sin. If we don’t speak up against what is evil, our children will not know God’s standard and can easily fall into the groove of society. There are too many Christian young people who accept homosexuality! How can that be? Do they no know God’s Word? Do their parents not speak up?
We are not raising children to be like the word, but children who walk pure and holy lives. Children who will shine their light in the darkness of this world. Children who will be our “joy and crown” at the coming of the Lord.
We’ve got to become passionate parents for the Kingdom of God.
Be blessed,
Nancy Campbell
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Can I tell you about a beautiful word in the Bible? I should say, one of the many beautiful words. The Hebrew word ta' anuwg means "delightful, lovely, precious, cherished, pleasant, fondled." This word relates to us because it is used in three different times about family life.
1) The love of a husband and wife. In Song of Solomon 7:6 (NLT) the husband says to his wife: "Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing my love, how full of delights!" Why is she so delightful? Because she takes time and thought to make herself delightful and desirable to her husband.
2) A mother's love for her children. In Micah 1:16 (ESV) God calls our children a “delight." Our children are to be "loved," "cherished," and "fondled." They are too precious to give to someone else to care for, aren't they? We treasure them enough to take this responsibility ourselves.
3) A woman's love for her home. Micah 2:9 (ESV) says: "The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses." God was angry with those who evicted women from "the homes they love" (GNB). It is inherently within us to love our home. It is how God created us. Adam was created before God created the Garden of Eden, but He had the home waiting for Eve (Genesis 2:7-8, 18-22). She woke up to life in the home God prepared for her.
And what did God call His first home? Eden means "delightful." God wants us to make our homes delightful--a delightful place for His presence, for our husband, and our children. And why would we want to leave our delightful homes? Why would we forsake something we love for something lesser?
Be blessed in your delightful home today,
Nancy Campbell
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Are you preparing for the Coming Day? The day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns from Heaven? What will we present to Him on that day? Paul writes about what He is preparing for the Lord Jesus. He doesn’t mention any material things or aspirations of building a great organization. Instead he talks about his babes in Christ.
When writing to the new Thessalonian believers, he says: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy” (1` Thessalonians 2:19, 20 ESV).
What a challenge to us as mothers. We have such a powerful ministry right in our own home. God has given us precious lives to lead to salvation and to nurture, train, and teach to be ardent disciples of the Lord. We have the responsibility to pray and pour into their lives so we can present our children to the Lord at His coming—sanctified and blameless in body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
We have no greater ministry. The Lord Jesus will not be interested in our presenting our career to Him. Or our material possessions. Or the great name we made for ourselves. He will only look for cleansed, purified, and holy sons and daughters. This will not happen without our intercession, dedication, sacrifice, and pouring out our lives (1 Thessalonians 2:7-12).
Are your children your boast in the Lord? This is my greatest burden of prayer and longing? I am sure it yours too. May our children be our “glory” and “joy” at His coming. Oh, may we not live in vain. I pay along with Paul in Philippians 2:16: “Holding forth the word of life that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have NOT RUN IN VAIN, NEITHER LABORED IN VAIN.”
You are a full-time pastor in your home.
Be blessed and encouraged,
Nancy Campbell
Painting by Jessie Willcox Smith
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“When God lays a new-born babe in the arms of a mother, he says to her heart, "Take this child and nurse it for me and I will give you your wages." The answer of maternal love should be, ‘Oh God, you have put your noblest workmanship into my hands. I accept the precious trust. I will shelter this young life under your mercy-seat. I will be truthful that it may never learn falsehood. I will nurse this soul in its infancy with the sincere milk of love, that in after years it may bear strong meat for strong service of God and righteousness. Oh, Heavenly Father, make my life in harmony with yourself, that this young life may reflect your blessed image in following my example!’ To such pious fidelity—God offers the highest wages; he pays the heart's claim, in the heart's own coin.”
~ Theodore Cuyler, 1896
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Not merely in the words you say,
Not only in your deeds confessed,
But in the most unconscious way
Is Christ expressed.
Is it a beatific smile,
A holy light upon your brow;
Oh no, I felt His Presence while
You laughed just now.
For me ‘twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me still dim,
But when you came to me you brought
A sense of Him.
And from your eyes He beckons me,
And from your heart His love is shed,
Til I lose sight of you and see
The Christ instead.
~ Beatrice Clelland
3158 Hits
I recently read an article by the Puritan, Thomas Doolittle (1632-1707). His words were challenging. I don’t think many Christians could receive them today. They would be outraged. But would you mind if I shared two little excerpts from his writings? He wrote:
“When God is a Benefactor to a people and they do not serve Him, what monstrous wickedness it is! God hath kept you all safe in the night, and yet in the morning you do not say, ‘Where is the Lord that did preserve us? Come, come, let us give joint praises to Him?’”
Talking about all the blessings God pours out upon us—salvation, healing from sickness, and deliverance from affliction, etc. he writes: “And yet you do not pray to nor praise this your wonderful Benefactor together. Let the very walls within which these ungrateful wretches live be astonished at this! Let the very beams and pillars of their houses tremble! And let the very girders of the floors on which they tread and walk be horribly afraid! That such as dwell in such an house together go to bed before they go to prayer together! Let the earth be amazed, that the families which the Lord doth nourish and maintain are rebellious and unthankful, being worse that the very ox that knoweth his wonder and of less understanding than the very ass (Isaiah 1:2,3).”
Wow, were you able to take that? Not for the faint-hearted! But it is true, isn’t it? Are we truly thankful if we don’t gather as families to praise and worship God each day? We give more importance to all the plans we have for the day than taking time to praise and worship the God who gives us our very breath.
We praise God that there is no longer any need for the daily sacrifices for sin. Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb slain before the foundation of the world was slain ONCE AND FOR ALL (Hebrews 9:11-14; 25-28; 10:10-14; and 1 Peter 3:18). But just as every morning and evening sacrifice pointed to Calvary, I feel strongly in my heart to look back to Jesus’ great salvation. I don’t like to let a day go past without thanking Him for His eternal salvation which is beyond all comprehension. I love that we meet as a family to take the time to do this.
And not only for our great salvation, but for all His goodness to us. We pray daily for God’s protection over all our family. I know you do too. But we also need to thank Him for His covering and protection. Oh, how many times He delivers us, many times when we don’t even know it. In recent weeks, we have been miraculously saved from two fires, one that could have burned our house down, and the other on July 4th when our shed nearly blew up owing to a little boy who lit some fire crackers in the shed! There was gasoline, paint, and chemicals in that shed. But God miraculously delivered us both times. We sure remembered to thank Him.
Let’s be grateful people, not every now and then, but DAILY.
In His love,
Nancy Campbell
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How do people around you describe you as a family? How do the people in your community describe the church you go to?
In the early church Christians were known as the people who “call upon the name of Jesus Christ.” Saul, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter” sought to arrest and imprison all those who called upon the name of the Lord.
This should be the lifestyle of every believer and the testimony of every God-fearing family.
Is it your habit to gather your family each day to call upon the name of the Lord? Jeremiah 10:25 is a big challenge to families: “Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name.” This Scripture says that if we are not families who call upon the name of the Lord, we may as well be heathen families.
There is so much for which we need to call upon the Lord. For our own family. For this nation. The nations of the world. For Israel. For the persecuted church. How can we forget about our fellow brothers and sisters who are being persecuted around the world? We dare not forget them in prayer. Hebrews 13:3 9 (NLT) says: “Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.” Is this how you pray for them each day?
What is another priority in prayer? 1 Timothy 2:1-3 says: “I exhort therefore, that, FIRST, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men: for kings and for ALL THAT ARE IN AUTHORITY: that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” Therefore, we have a responsibility to pray for our president and those in authority. Do your hold them up in prayer each day as a family?
Recently my husband was speaking to a group of men—good, upstanding, faithful Christian men. And yet when he asked who prayed for President Trump in their home each day, only one man put up his hand.
It’s time to take up our responsibility. We are obligated to hold up Trump’s hands. Remember the story of Joshua fighting the Amalekites? When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, but when his hand got tired and he let it down, the Amalekites prevailed. Therefore, his brothers, Aaron and Hur stood either side of him and held up his hands and they wasted the Amalekites!
We now have Trump’s slogan to make America great again. But this can’t happen without prayer. The prayers of God’s of families. Because if families are not praying together, churches will not be praying. Everything starts in the home.
Can you imagine what could happen in our nation if every God-fearing family prayed daily for our president and those in authority? We miss so much of God’s blessings because we do not pray.
I am challenged by the words of Norman V. Williams: “God didn’t make the course and destiny of nations and of individuals dependent on the decisions of Congresses and Parliaments, nor did He lay this power in the hands of rulers and kings; but rather God placed it in the praying family! Therefore, the devil cannot ruin nations of men until he has destroyed the homes of prayer! That’s why Satan hates the family altar.”
Praying families have the power to turn the tide in this nation. But will we, do it?
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Calling on the name of the Lord, OT: Genesis 4:26; 1 Kings 18:24; Psalm 116:17; Joel 2:32; and Zephaniah 3:9.
Calling on the name of the Lord, NT: Acts 9:14, 21; 22:16; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Romans 10:13; and 2 Timothy 2:22.
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A Facebook question popped up on my Facebook over the weekend: “What's your take on guys and girls being friends? Even best friends? Can a girl be friends with a guy who isn't friends with her spouse and just be friends? Vice versa too? Can it be a purely platonic relationship?”
I was grieved in my spirit by the answers to this question. Most answered saying they thought it was healthy and beneficial to have friends of the opposite sex who were not their husband.
I beg your pardon! What has happened to God’s ideal of marriage? What has happened to the sacredness of marriage? What has happened to keeping our solemn marriage vows?
The marriage officiant asks the groom: “Do you take [bride’s name] to be your wedded wife, to live together in marriage? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, and FORSAKING ALL OTHERS, BE FAITHFUL ONLY UNTO HER, as long as you both shall live?” The bride is asked the same question.
We know that “forsaking all others,” means to keep sexually pure in marriage. But I believe it means more than that. It means forsaking personal friendships (without including your husband) with the opposite sex. I don’t care what all these young marrieds say, it is not in God’s plan for marriage. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t have friendship with men. My husband and I have many friendships with couples and families. Our lives have been given to hospitality through the years and we have enjoyed the rich blessing of many couples at our table as we fellowship together.
But I wouldn’t dream of going out to eat or going somewhere on my own with the husband of that couple. Why do I need to do that? Why do I need another guy apart from my husband? Isn’t he enough? My husband is my best friend. I have vowed to forsake all others and be faithful only unto him—sexually, emotionally, mentally, and because of my scared marriage vows. And this is not dependent upon feelings, but upon commitment.
And how does this affect our children, the next generation? As I write my thoughts, I stopped and talked to my Above Rubies helpers in the office, young girls in their twenties. I asked them how they would feel if their father or mother went out on their own with someone of the opposite sex. They were aghast. They felt it was wrong. They said it would make them feel very insecure. One girl mentioned that before she came to Above Rubies, she was coming home from work and saw her mother with another man in the car. Her heart fell. She arrived home to find that her mother was taking the builder home who was working on the house! But just seeing another man in the car upset her.
The Bible tells us that love is jealous. What kind of love does a husband have for his wife if he is happy with her being with other guys? Or vice versa.
One comment from the Facebook stated: “Psychology has proven that relationships thrive when both parties maintain friendships outside of the relationship (meaning with the opposite sex).” I’m tired of listening to man-made wisdom. I’d rather adhere to God’s Word!
Song of Solomon 8:6: “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death: jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.” It’s not wrong for a husband or wife to be jealous of their spouse giving attention to another man.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2, 3).
God states emphatically in Exodus 20:3-5: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me . . . Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am jealous God.”
Marriage is a mystery. It is a picture of God and His people Israel. It is a picture of Christ and the church. God’s first commandment is to love Him with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength. And to cleave to Him. God is jealous when we love other things more than Him. He wants us to have the same commitment to Him that has to us. Hosea 2:19, 20 says: “I will betroth thee unto me forever: yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness.”
The marriage relationship is an exclusive relationship. We do not share it with another, apart from couples together.
Be blessed, Nancy Campbell
Nancy Campbell
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