Hebrews 3:13, “Encourage one another daily.”

God has blessed us women with the ability to be sensitive to the needs around us. We sense when those in our family are in low spirits or need lifting up and encouraging. I believe this is one of the special privileges and responsibilities we have as a wife and mother—to be the Encourager in the home.

Our husbands are desperate for encouragement. They thrive on it. Encouragement will change their lives and even their attitude to us. Our children need encouragement. Encouragement is the rich soil in which they grow to their full development. We must give it daily, and even more than once a day. It should become a habit that flows from our lips.

But you are more than an Encourager. You are also the Enricher of your home. This word means ‘to make richer’. Is your home filled with love and the joy of the Lord? Make it richer with more love. Perhaps there is no loving atmosphere in your home. Start filling it up with love. It won’t happen unless you do it. You are the Enricher, remember. You are the one who makes your home richer with all good things.

As you catch the vision to be the Encourager and Enricher of your home, you will also be the…

Enabler – enabling your children to reach their full destiny.

Endearer – endearing your family to each another.

Enhancer – enhancing the atmosphere of love and joy in your home, making it richer day by day.

Enlarger – enlarging your heart to the needs of your family, and maybe even some orphans.

Enlightener – giving understanding and enlightenment of the ways of God to your children.

Enlivener – making your home alive with the presence of God.

Ennobler – training your children to be honorable and noble in all things.

Enthraller – enthralling your children with new ideas, creativity and the wonders of God’s creation.

Enthuser – enthusing your children to be ardent for God.

Entertainer – keeping your little children happy.

Enticer – enticing your children into the joy of prayer and reading God’s living Word.

Enveloper – wrapping your children around with protection and love.

Envisioner – giving vision and hope to each member of the family.

Energizer – releasing the spirit of work and creativity in the home.

Engraver – engraving the names of your children upon your heart in prayer. (Exodus 28:29-30)

Entreater – entreating your children to keep a straight course in the ways of God. 

What an amazing vocation you have in your home!

NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

AFFIRMATION:

Exodus 25:23-24, “You shall also make a table of acacia wood… and you shall overlay it with pure gold.”

The first mention of the table in the Bible is in the above passage where God tells Moses to make a table from acacia wood and then to overlay it with pure gold. In the Bible wood always speaks of humanity. The pure gold speaks of the divinity of Christ. It is interesting that this table was to be made of both wood and gold, speaking of Christ’s humanity and His divinity. However, I believe it also relates to the tables we have in our homes.

We come to our table, loaded with humanity. We come with our weaknesses and failings. Our children come to the table in their humanity. They are certainly not perfect. Sometimes they are fussy. Sometimes they don’t want to eat. They may grumble and complain. There may even be arguments. Without God’s intervention, it can be a total shambles! But God, represented by the table overlaid with pure gold, wants to come to your table.

He wants to bring His presence to your table. He wants to cover your humanity with His divinity. He wants to fellowship with you at your table. This is what He did at the beginning of creation with Adam and Eve, and He wants to continue this practice throughout all generations. (Genesis 3:8-9) Every day He came to talk with Adam and Eve. He did not come to them in the heat of the day or during their hours of work (for God established the principle of work before sin entered the Garden of Eden). He came to them in the cool of the day, in the evening time—the time of the day when we gather around the meal table to eat together, fellowship and relax.

God wants to join you at this time of each day too. Invite Him to come. Don’t hide from His presence as Adam and Eve did after they had sinned. Make sure that you are gathered together as a family to meet Him. I think that many times God comes to homes, waiting to join them as they sit at table together—but the table is empty! No meal is prepared, mother is preoccupied with other things or is still out in the car with the children, or the family is snacking in front of the TV! 

The table of wood and pure gold that God told Moses to make was for the Holy Place in the tabernacle in the wilderness. Each week the priests would bake 12 loaves of bread which they would place on the table. These loaves were called the Bread of His Presence. At the end of the week the priests would eat the loaves together in the presence of the Lord. This also speaks of God delighting to fellowship with us at our table.       

When you give thanks at the beginning of each meal, invite God to come with all His divinity to your table. Acknowledge His presence. His presence will bring the atmosphere of Heaven. It will cover your earthy humanity. I don’t think you can do without Him at your table. I can’t.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

AFFIRMATION: 

Psalm 5:3, “I will look up.”

It is an amazing fact, yet hard to comprehend, that we are created in the image and likeness of God. We were created to reveal what God is like through our nature, but also through our physical body. God designed our body to function in the way He functions without a body. Although God does not have a body, He can see, hear, smell, touch and speak, just as He created us to do. Whenever God appeared visibly to mankind, he did in the form of a human body. And wondrously, God prepared a human body for His own precious son, “made in the likeness of men” just as man was made “in the likeness of God.” (Philippians 2:7 and Genesis 1:26)

Another interesting factor is the way God created our physical body. He did not create us to walk on all fours like the animals, but created us with an upright posture. We were born to look up, to have an upward gazing countenance. God did not intend his highest creation to grovel in the dust and to be bowed down with depression and defeat. He created us with an erect carriage, a posture that enables us to look up to Him, a posture that gives expression to freedom and positivity.

God wants you to walk with your head held high. He wants you to turn your thoughts to Him, your heart to Him and your face to Him.

Leviticus 26:13 says, “I am the Lord your God, ,which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye shall not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright”

The RSV says, “Made you walk erect.”

The NLT says, “So you can walk free with your heads held high.”

The children of Israel walked erect with their heads held high because they were free men, no longer slaves to Egypt. Not only did God create us free, with the command to rule and reign, but when sin came in and we became enslaved to its power, God sent a Redeemer to deliver us. Once again, through the power of the cross, we are set free to walk with our heads held high.

The psalmist says in Psalm 34:5, “They looked unto him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.” The Knox translation says, “Ever look to Him… no room for downcast looks.” When your head sags, He is waiting to lift it up. He is the lifter of your head. (Psalm 3:3) You will never be ashamed when you look up to the Lord. Your face will brighten. Make it the habit of your life. It is what you were created to do.

We are often encouraged in the Psalms to wait upon the Lord. Did you know that this word also means to look to the Lord? Some scholars believe that the word ‘wait’ (quvah) has two roots:

1) To bind together by twisting, to be joined

2) To expect, to look for patiently, hope, be confident. This Hebrew word quvah is translated ‘wait’ over 30 times, but the same word is translated ‘look’ over 14 times.

Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait (quvah) on the Lord, be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart, wait, I say on the Lord.” If you want your heart strengthened, you must look up the Lord in expectancy. This is what gives courage to your heart, physically and spiritually.

Check your posture today. Are you walking erect? Is your head held high? Is your face upturned to the Lord?

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

Prayer:

“Lord, I thank you that you created me to look up to you. You are my strength and motivation for living. Hallelujah.”

 

Affirmation:

I look to you and worries cease

And now my heart is filled with peace!

Exodus 28:28, “Thus the two will be joined in a workmanlike fashion and will never come apart.”

I am always amazed at how practical the Bible is. God is interested in the practical details of our every day lives. God gave explicit instructions how to make everything for the tabernacle in the wilderness. He told Moses exactly how He wanted each piece of furniture and each piece of clothing to be made. God is even a clothes designer. He planned the glorious garments for the High Priest to wear.

The High Priest also wore a breastplate and God gave precise instructions how the rings of the breastplate were to be tied to the rings of the ephod with blue cord, “thus the two will be joined in a workmanlike fashion and will never come apart.” (Exodus 28:28 Knox) I was arrested when I read this Scripture. God is concerned about good workmanship. He showed Moses how to do it so it would never come apart. God wants things done properly. He does not want shoddy work.

I was brought up with the maxim, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” I am sure you did too. And now you are training your children the same way. We continue this training from generation to generation. And it is important that we keep passing on this baton, because it is a biblical one.

Not only should we do each job we tackle to the very best of our ability, but if we start something, we should finish it. Sometimes we face obstacles in the things we start and we want to give up. My 90 year old father is staying with us at present. Whenever he faces a problem he says, “A good man’s never stuck!” He will always find a way to fix the problem and finish the job. His father passed on these words to him and they became part of his life. He passed them on to his children and grandchildren! All my children and grandchildren know this statement by heart and I continually hear them quoting it.

God Himself shows us the example when He created the world. “And God saw every thing that he had made and, behold, it was very good… thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” (Genesis 1:31; 2:1)

Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34; 17:4)

Paul had the same spirit when he confessed in Acts 230:24, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

We also read about Zerubbabel in Zechariah 4:9, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it.”

How about one more example? 2 Chronicles 3:1 says, “Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah.” We then read in chapter 5:1, “Thus all the work that Solomon made for the house of the Lord was finished.”

To see a job through to the end is a godly trait.

Let’s carry on God’s example of good workmanship in our own lives and impart this godly character trait into the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

Prayer:

Affirmation