LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 408: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 14

Back to our series today. We talk about three things.  How can we praise God MORE AND MORE?  You are FAR MORE precious than rubies.  The trial of your faith is MUCH MORE precious than gold.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Today we are coming back our series about “Welcome to the Land of More and More.” I hope you enjoyed the last two podcasts with Connie Lanford. It was lovely to be able to do those with her. So, we’re back to our series today, to get through all the things in the Word of God where God wants us to do them more than the normal, more than the average.

Now, before we start, I want to talk to all our lovely ladies listening in the UK, and in Continental Europe. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we were coming in May for the Above Rubies Family Camp, but now it’s been postponed, and we’re having it in October. The reason is that quite a number of families were so wanting to come, but they hadn’t been able to save up the required money to come. They pleaded with Beverly, our director in Above Rubies in England, saying, “Could we have more time?”

So, Beverly has now postponed it until October. That gives families more time to prepare, and to save, ready to come together the first weekend of October. That’s going to be a wonderful time to get together. Put it on your calendar. Start saving. We hope that we’ll be able to see you in person there. It would be wonderful. Some of you from countries in Europe, you may like to pop over to the UK. It will be held in Wales. It would be great.

Another thing: Beverly has asked if I would ask you, could you please send in your emails to her?  She doesn’t have everybody’s emails and it’s so important to have your emails to keep in contact with you. Her email address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. It’s also in the magazine. She would really like to get the mailing list up to date and add the emails and any other information you have.

Also, all you lovely ladies listening there in continental Europe, could you send me your emails? We don’t have a lot of your emails either. It would be so lovely to be able to keep in contact with you more this way. So, send those to me, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Thank you so much.

All right, we’re up to . . .  

No. 28. MORE PRAISE TO GOD

The Scripture I have here is Psalm 71:14, where David says: “I will hope continually, and will yet praise you MORE AND MORE.” David wasn’t satisfied with his praise to God. He knew that God was worthy of more and more praise. This is what he cries out here.

And so, this is a challenge for us too. Are we those who just, well, we’re just an average praiser of God? We go to church, and we sing hymns of praise and beautiful worship songs of praise. We enjoy that. Many times, the music carries us along. But we go home, and how much are we praising Him throughout the week? Because our praise should be continually of Him. In fact, more and more.

Let’s think of how we can praise Him more and more, getting into the habit of saying, “Thank You, Lord,” even when some little thing happens. When you're walking out in nature and you see the beautiful new leaves of the trees coming in the spring. You see a beautiful new spring flower, and you just thank the Lord. You praise Him for His wonderful works of creation. You praise Him.

I think I’ve told you this before, but something that I have made a habit in my life now, and that is to praise and thank the Lord every day for His death upon the cross, for His great salvation, for the glorious and eternal inheritance that awaits me and for all those who love His appearing. Oh, how can we take it for granted? Let’s remember to praise Him.

Of course, if you are meeting with your family every morning and every evening, you’ll be having time then when you can praise the Lord, because not only do we read the Word, but we love to pray. Of course, part of prayer is praising and thanking the Lord.

I’m not doing this at the moment, but I did this for a number of years. I’d love to tell you about it, because it’s a great idea. I think it’s marvelous, especially for moms with children all around you. Sometimes things can get rather hair-raising. You get overwhelmed. There’s nothing like having your thoughts and your attention turned back to the Lord to keep you in that place of peace and joy.

So, one day, I was reading Colossians 2:7, which says: “Abounding therein with thanksgiving.” That word “abounding” is that same word that keeps popping up all the time; perissueo. I’ve told you about perissueo before. You know that it means “to be abundant, over and above, overflowing, to excel.”

I was reading that, and I said, “Well, how can I excel in thanksgiving? How can I be over and above? “More than” in thanksgiving? Because you get involved in what you're doing, and it takes up all your thoughts, and your time, and your actions.”

Then I thought of this idea, and I know it was the Lord who gave it to me. I thought of my kitchen timer. I thought, “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to turn my kitchen timer on every hour. When I hear the ‘ding,’ “Well, then, I can stop whatever I’m doing and praise the Lord.” Just give a moment. “Thank You, Lord.” Just thank Him for something that I think of at that moment. Then I turn the timer on again, and it’s going to “ding” again in an hour. You can do this in your home, lovely mothers. You can do it with your children, and they will also get into the habit. When they hear that “ding,” they stop and praise the Lord.

That’s a better ding than all those iPhone dings, isn’t it? They drive you crazy! I can’t even believe how it seems that most people today don’t know how to live without their iPhone right on them, right next to them. Actually, it’s not even healthy with it right on you. Oh, I see girls putting it in their back pocket. Oh goodness me, that’s not a good place to have it. They put it in a pocket, even in their breast. Oh goodness me, that’s a terrible place to have it. These phones are not good. They affect your body negatively. You really don’t want them right on your body at all.

But it seems that so many of them have to look at their phones to find the time. I never do that. I just keep my old watch on. It saves me doing that. And they’re listening for every ding! I was talking to someone the other night. She’d just got a new phone. She said, “I’ve got to get my dinger on, because I don’t know when my messages are coming it.” I said, “Oh, how wonderful that you don’t have to be bothered by all those dings!” She said, “Oh no, I want them!”

Actually, I don’t want them. Forgive me for saying that, because maybe I won’t get your message. Hopefully, eventually I will, but I have missed weddings. I have missed showers, all because I didn’t even get the message, because now nobody does anything through paper. It’s all through social media on your iPhone. I just can’t be one who is totally bound by this phone!

Anyway, whatever you're going to do, maybe you can do a timer on your phone, because kitchen timers are a little bit archaic now, aren’t they? But think of some way where you are reminded, maybe every hour, or whatever time you want to do it. You all stop. “OK, children, let’s praise the Lord! You can thank the Lord for something.” Get each one to thank the Lord for one thing.

That’s such a great idea. It keeps your heart looking toward the Lord. You may be in the middle . . . maybe the children are having a fight, and somebody’s getting mad, and you're getting upset. And “ding”! “Oh, it’s time to praise the Lord!” Wow! That was really good. You needed that. Perhaps you’d like to try that idea. Get your children into the habit of it also, so that you're all taking those moments throughout the day to praise the Lord.

And it’s not praising the Lord, “Oh, thank You, Jesus, for this lovely day.” No, it’s over and above! In fact, when we go to that passage where it tells us about Jesus feeding the five thousand, we read this word, perissueo again. It’s here, in John 6:13. It was after Jesus had fed the five thousand plus.

You remember, before He fed them, He did something. Jesus told the disciples to make all the people to sit down. In fact, every gospel tells us that Jesus commanded the disciples to command the people to sit down. He didn’t give them any food until they were all seated, and they were all seated in groups.

Was that just something Jesus did? Well, He did it, but it was for a purpose, because Jesus Himself knows that when you eat, it’s important to sit down. We’re not meant to eat on the run. We’re not meant to eat standing up. We’re meant to eat sitting down, taking time to sit and relax, preferably sitting around the table. We’re also communicating, because food is something that goes with fellowship and dialogue.

But when Jesus had got them all seated, then He blessed the food. Of course, we know the miracle of how the food multiplied and fed all these people, and not only fed them, but fed them over and above. We read here in John 6:13; this is after Jesus told the disciples to gather up all the leftovers. It says: “Therefore, they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragment of the five barley loaves which remained, over and above, unto them that had eaten.” That word is perissueo.

It is the same word that’s used in Colossians 2:7: “Abounding in thanksgiving.” Now here, it’s talking about the leftovers. Twelve basketsful over and above. Perissueo. Abounding, more than is needed, excessive. That’s how God fed the people. That’s how He wants us to praise Him, over and above what is normal or necessary. It’s meant to be over and above.

TWELVE BASKETSFUL OVER AND ABOVE

So, lovely ladies, and I speak to myself and challenge myself. Where am I on this scale? Am I yet up to twelve basketsful, over and above? My, that’s a lot, isn’t it? Maybe we start with one. Yes, you've got one basketful over and above. You’re just getting to praise the Lord a little bit more. Yes, He’s worthy of so much more.

When we’re talking about praising, we can also include the members of our household. How we should also be praising them. Praising our husband. Thanking our husband. Praising and encouraging our children. How do we do this? Just with this boring one-basketful leftover.

How is it when we not only thank the Lord, but thank other people? When they do something for us, or give us something? “Oh, thanks so much. That’s nice.” Well, that sounds OK, but do you think we could notch it up a few basketsful? Maybe we get to three or four basketsful over and above. “Wow! Thank you so much! Wow! I appreciated that!”

Now, that’s getting above the normal. And I believe that’s how we are meant to be in our praising and thanking of God. And also, even our thanking and appreciation of others around us. Those in our family, our husband, our children, and then, people who we’re in contact with.

So, ladies, I’m putting out that challenge for you, as I also give it to myself, so that I’m not going to be, well, no basketsful left over, or just one or two. But more and more! So, we’re becoming a very thankful and praising person, even over the top. That’s how we meant to be! Yes, twelve basketsful over and above!

Now imagine a household, imagine a family who are loving and praising God twelve basketsful over and above. Appreciating and thanking and praising one another! Twelve basketsful over and above. Wouldn’t that be exciting? Well, actually most of us are so boring that we would think we were being strange to get more over the top. Even when thanking people, “Oh, thank you so, so much!” Have you ever said it like that in your life? Well, it’s time we got to do these things a bit more. Anyone saying “amen”?

Or perhaps you’d rather stay average and ordinary? Did you know, lovely ladies, nothing in the Bible is average or ordinary? Even in our praise to God, let’s begin to praise Him more and more, as David wanted to do. Let’s get out our iPhone timer, or the old kitchen timer, or something, and make these moments throughout the day to stop and praise the Lord. OK? I’m sure you will be so blessing your home as you do this.

No. 29. MORE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES

Now, of course, the magazine I do is Above Rubies: “Who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies?” As I checked out different translations of the Bible, I found that half of them said: “Far above rubies,” and the other half said: “Far more precious than rubies.” So, both are great. “Far above,” or “Far more” both mean the same thing.

But what it’s saying is that a virtuous woman is one who is worth far more than precious jewels. And dear precious, lovely wives and mothers, this is talking about YOU. This is what God wants you to do in your home as a wife. I wonder why she is far more precious than rubies, than pearls, than precious gems? Well, it says that: “she will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.”

Often, when my husband is reading Proverbs 31 on the evening of Shabbat each week, he will sometimes say the wrong words, just to see if we are listening. He will say, “She will do him good and not evil, some of the days of her life.” Oh, if nobody says anything, he knows we are not listening. When they’re listening, people will butt in and say, “No! ‘All the days of her life.’”

This is true. A wife who is doing good, blessing, and loving, and encouraging, and helping her husband all the days of her life is worth far more than precious jewels. And even in her home, it says: “She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.”

Do you notice, ladies, how that verse 27 doesn’t say “she looks well to the ways of her career”? No, it actually doesn’t say that does it? It says: “She looks well to the ways of her household.” This is the most preeminent goal, to manage her household well.

Let’s look at one or two other translations.

The CEV says: “She is the most precious treasure a man can find.” Do you like that one?

An Aramaic translation says: “She is precious beyond incomparable, precious stones.” Yes. I actually love to say, “incomparable.” I know the correct pronunciation is “incomparable,” but it doesn’t sound so amazing as saying “beyond incomparable, precious stones.” That means her comparison is impossible. There is absolutely nothing or no one to compare with her. So, my lovely ladies, be encouraged today. This is the description God has of you in His Word. You are worth far more than precious jewels. Amen?

As I think of this Scripture, I think of that verse over in 1 Peter 3, where it is talking about wives. It says here, verse 3: “Whose adorning, let it not be the outward of adorning of plaiting the hair, and the wearing of gold, or the putting of apparel” (that’s not saying that you can’t wear gold, and you can’t fix your hair, because it says here “or putting on of apparel” (that’s putting on your clothes, and you must put on clothes!)

But it means that’s not the main thing that you're thinking about. Of course, you're going to wear clothes, and fix your hair nicely, and maybe wear jewelry when you go out. Yes, that is fine. The Bible speaks about women wearing jewelry. It’s not against the Bible to wear jewelry.

But it goes on to say, what is the most important? “But let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek (or gentle) and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of GREAT price.” Here we have the same thought. This woman is worth far more than rubies. This woman in the home, with her gentle spirit, is in the sight of God, of great price.

I can remember reading this Scripture as a young wife and mother A=and thinking, “Help! I give up. I can never be like that!” It wasn’t even my personality to be gentle and quiet. But, however, the Lord has worked upon me over the years. Of course, this word “quiet” doesn’t actually mean that you are a quiet personality, and you never, ever raise your voice.

No, it’s talking about, in fact, the actual picture of the word in the Greek means “to stay on your seat.” In other words, it means when things are getting out of control, and you're getting worked up inside, and you're ready to blow your top. But no! You stay seated. You stay calm. You stay seated inside, so that you're not going to get out of control. That’s the beautiful picture of that word.

Of course, I wasn’t like that in my beginning days. I was a bit of a riot. But as we seek to live God’s ways, and we seek to live in His Word, God begins to change us, little by little, and conform us into the image of His Son. Don’t despair. Keep pressing on into the Lord and remembering that this beautiful spirit is of great price in the sight of God.

No. 30. MORE PRECIOUS TRIALS

Well, we don’t like to think about trials, do we?

1 Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, being MUCH MORE precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

Do you notice, in that Scripture, it doesn’t say that “the trial of your faith, being more precious than of gold”? No, it says: “MUCH MORE precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire.” Because that’s what happens with gold. It is always tried in the fire to purity it. They heat it up to intense heat, and as they do that, all the muck and the junk comes to the surface which they scoop it off the top, but they’re not satisfied with that.

To get the pure gold . . . there are different karats of gold. You know, 12 karat, 18 karat, and it goes up and up. It’s how it’s purified. But the costliest is that which is the most purified, where they keep heating it up, often seven times, to get rid of every impurity. We go through our trials. We all go through them in different ways and different seasons. Sometimes we hate them, and we don’t like them, and we complain about them.

But God wants us to see them as opportunities for Him to work in us, and to be able to bring to the top and expose all the stuff that’s there that shouldn’t be there, so it can be skimmed off, and the Holy Spirit can work in our hearts, and bring us forth more and more like pure gold.

So, don’t despise the challenges, the difficulties, the trials that you go through. Let God do His perfect work, because what is happening, ladies? You are going to receive, what does it say here? “Praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” Three adjectives to describe what God is working in you now and that will appear at that judgement seat of Christ.

Because there is coming a day when we will all stand at the judgement seat of Christ, and we will be tried according to all the works that we have done, and according to all the words that we have said. That is scary, isn’t it? Praise the Lord for the precious blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all things.

And I believe that according to the Word of God, that everything that is exposed in our lives as we repent of it, and we confess it, and we turn from it, that the Lord Jesus cleanses us, and forgives us. It says in Hebrews 8:12: “And I will remember your sins no more.” That which is forgiven and comes under the blood of Jesus will be remembered no more. Praise the Lord! 

But there are things that are still there in our lives that have not come under the blood of Jesus. We will stand for them there at the Judgement Seat of Christ, and we will be rewarded according to our works, whether they have been evil or whether they have been good.

Oh, there are so many rewards for the good things that we do. Jesus and God, both in the Old and the New, speak about the rewards that are coming, because God is a rewarder also. There are going to be many rewards in Heaven too, and here it says that we’re going to receive “praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

I was reading a statement the other day. This man was a Puritan, an old Puritan. He said:

“Behind me is Christ. Before me is Christ’s coming.”

He said, “This is how I live.” I love that thought. Yes, the cross of Jesus is behind us. As we come to the cross, and we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). So, we have cleansing through the blood of Jesus that was poured out at Calvary. We are so blessed. That’s why we thank Him every day for His great salvation. So, we look behind to thank Him, but we look ahead at the coming of our Lord Jesus.

Did you know that Jesus is coming for those who look for Him? We are to be looking, and “hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, will melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:12). So, it goes on, because that day is coming. I think it’s a wonderful way to live. I believe, and I’m coming to realize more and more myself, to live every day, thanking Christ for His death upon the cross.  

So, I look back to that, but I live, looking to the coming of the Lord Jesus, because this life, ladies, is only a vapor. It’s just so short. And every day, and every moment is preparing for the eternal world. It’s preparing for eternity, which is the real world, so that we will stand before Him, with “praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

So, dear mothers, in your homes, as you're mothering, you are in the perfect will of God. This is what God wants you to do. He gave you these children, so don’t think, “Oh, goodness me, I could be doing something else! What am I doing here, just looking after these children?” No!

You are in the most powerful career in the nation. You are in the perfect will of God. You are where He wants you to be!

Pour out your heart as you mother your children. You are training them and you are preparing them to be godly sons and daughters in this world and ultimately preparing them for the eternal world. This is where you will receive your praise and honor and glory. It’s not running out of your home to find somewhere else. It’s in your home, where God places you, where He has planned for you to be, to prepare and mold your children, and begin to give your children this vision also, that their lives, every moment of their lives, is counting toward the eternal world. It’s the real world, mothers.

Children, young people listening, it’s the real world. Everything in this world that you do is going to be burned up if it’s just wood, hay, or stubble. The only things that will last and go through the fire are those that are gold and silver and precious gems. Those things which cannot be burned up, those things which are the will of God (2 Peter 3:10-14).

As it says in 1 John; can I just read this to you as we’re closing?

1 John 2:15-17: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

Precious mothers, you are in His perfect will. Don’t do it with complaining. Embrace it with joy. And as you pour your heart into this mandate that God has given you, yes, you’ll face trials and difficult days. But remember, God is purifying you, and the trial of your faith will come forth, precious as gold, and much more precious. How “MUCH MORE precious” as the Scripture says? “How MUCH MORE precious?” That’s what we’ve got to get. Amen?

I think our time is up. Wow! OK, so we’ll end this session here, lovely ladies. Ending this on this wonderful note of pointing our hearts and our eyes toward eternity, toward the real world. Live for that world. Give your children a vision to live for this world. Amen? And then, we will experience this Scripture: “How MUCH MORE precious?” Amen.

“Dear Father, we thank You again for Your precious Word, and all these things, and we’ve got more yet to come, of all the things that are MUCH MORE precious. They’re all much more precious than the vain lustful things of this life, the things which we think are so important. They’re all going to be left behind. They’re all going to be burned up. Help us, Lord, to live lives that will last, and the things we do will last, and go into eternity.

“I pray for every mother today, that You will bless her, encourage her, lift her up, Lord, to see every day in the light of eternity. I ask it in Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS NEED ENCOURAGING.

*****

SCRIPTURES ABOUT HOW WE WILL HAVE TO GIVE AN ACCOUNT FOR ALL OUR ACTIONS:

Would you like to look up these Scriptures about how we will give an account for everything we have done and said in this life (unless it has come under the blood of Jesus): You could take a few of these Scriptures each day to read to your children. They are all powerful Scriptures and help us to live in the light of eternity.

O.T. Job 7:17, 18; 23:10; 31:4; 34:11, 21-23; 1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Kings 8:39; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 29:17; 2 Chronicles 32:31; Psalm 11:4, 5; 17:3; 26:2; 33:13-15; 62:12; 66:7, 10; 81:7; 139:23, 24; Proverbs 5:21-23; 17:3; 24:12; 25:4; Isaiah 1:25; 40:10; 48:10; 62:11; Jeremiah 9:7; 11:20; 12:3; 16:17; 17:10; 20:12; 32:19; Ezekiel 7:27; 33:20; Daniel 7:10; 11:35; 12:10; Hosea 7:2; Zechariah 13:9; and Malachi 3:3.

N.T. Matthew 10:26; 12:36, 37; 16:27; John 12:48; Acts 17:31; Romans 2:5-11; 14:10-12; 1 Corinthians 3:8, 11-15; 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 11:15; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 3:24, 25; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; Hebrews 4;13; 1 Peter 1:7, 17; 4:5; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 2:23; 11:18; 20:4, 12, 13; and 22:12.

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 407: TWO BECOMING ONE

Connie Lanford from Louisiana is with us again today. This time we will talk about the oneness of marriage. How do two different and unique people become one together? Connie shares about their challenges and difficulties, but how God showed her His way.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies. Well, today, I have Connie Lanford with me again. So, we’re going to do another podcast together seeing she’s right here, staying in our home. Connie and her husband, Les, are organizing the Above Rubies Family Retreat that’s coming up in the Smoky Mountains in August. You can go onto our website to check that out and get all the details.

In fact, ladies, if that is too far away for you, you are welcome to organize an Above Rubies retreat in your state. Colin and I have never actually organized one in our lives. We just come to speak. When people get a vision to put on a retreat in their area they call us. If we’re free, well, we’ll put it on our calendar.

So, we do Above Rubies ladies’ retreats where I will come and speak to the women. And then we do family retreats where both my husband and I come together. Colin speaks to the men, and I speak to the women. Both of them are such wonderful times. Oh, so great, and I do hope you can get to an Above Rubies retreat. If it’s too far away, well, maybe you can think about setting one up in your area, in your state, because we are so happy to come and talk to the families. I love to come and share with the women.

So, here we are. Last week, Connie and I talked about motherhood and some of her experiences in raising her family of eight children who are now all grown. Today we thought we would talk about marriage. We’ll see what Connie has to share after their 35 years of marriage. They just recently celebrated their 35^th wedding anniversary.

I should say, before we move on, that we forgot to talk last week about how when you were raising your children, you had this vision to get them taught musical instruments, and how they all ended up playing different instruments. Joshua plays the guitar, David the bass.

Connie: Daniel the bass.

Nancy: Daniel, of course, Daniel. Daniel’s your tallest, isn’t he?

Connie: Yes, six feet, two. Eyes of blue.

Nancy: And Stephen the piano, Nicole the flute, Anna Joy the violin, Rachel the clarinet, Jonathan the trumpet, and they all play together. I remember when they would all play at the Above Rubies retreats. This was way back, many years ago.

Really, I have to say, they weren’t that good. But they would play. They were young, and it was great to see them trying. It was so wonderful how you and Les gave them that opportunity. Now, when they lead worship at a retreat, they are so good. It’s amazing how the years of practice make perfect and what it does.

Of course, you not only play at Above Rubies retreats. You go to many functions and play as a family. And play often for the elderly just to bless them. In fact, it was Colin’s birthday on the first of April, his 86^th birthday. He was born April Fool’s Day! He always says to people, “Well, I’ve got an excuse. What’s your excuse?”

But anyway, it was prayer meeting night. Anna Joy had her violin with her, so she played two or three songs for Colin for his birthday. It was so beautiful. I love the violin. My, what will it be like in eternity when all these most incredible violinists and harpists are playing? I don’t know how we’ll even be able to contain the glory of the music! Because even here, there’s music that takes you into another realm. What will it be like in eternity? It will be so amazing, won’t it?

All right, tell me. What do you think is one of the most important things about marriage?

Connie: Oh, such a pleasure to be here again with Nancy. We’ve been tasting a little bit of Heaven here. It’s been amazing.

What I think is the most important thing is what God says that two shall become one flesh. It’s a profound mystery, isn’t it? Because separate lives are yielding to God and they’re discovering they have the power to relinquish all that self and become one—one in spirit, one in flesh, and one in unity and purpose, all through the bond of God’s Son, Jesus.

Nancy: I do believe that too, Connie, because it’s the very first thing that God says about marriage. “Therefore, shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” That’s the very first description of marriage. “One flesh.” Of course, it means what it says. We will be one flesh.

After the marriage altar, then we become one flesh, The marriage is consummated. It’s never meant to happen before a marriage. It’s something that happens after marriage. We do truly become one flesh. Well, of course, it even takes time to learn how to truly and ultimately become one flesh. That becomes something that you grow into more and more and more wonderfully, more amazingly, and more incredibly!

But of course, it also means that one spirit, and as you mentioned, one in unity, one in purpose. I remember reading a couple of quotes by an author. I was reading a few of his books. The author is John Garr. He says about marriage, that when you get married:

“Your twoness ceases to exist.”

That’s pretty amazing, because we come into marriage as two very unique and different people. Often God brings very unique people together, opposites. How on earth do we become one? Oh, goodness me! It doesn’t happen straightaway. It takes time to mold into one another’s lives. And yet, that’s what marriage is all about. I think you would be able to say that.

You know more of oneness now at 35 years than you did when you got married. I would have to say that after being married for 63 years, I can say now that we have molded together. We are completely one. It’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing in the world. But we weren’t completely one when we first married. It took time for us to blend together, and even to find out who each other was. So, it’s quite something, really. Maybe we should go back to the beginning. Tell us how it happened with you, Connie.

Connie: So, my husband and I are so opposite. One time, I noticed we were going to go on an outing. I thought I had shut the door all the way, but I hadn’t. When we came back, it turned out that it was slightly ajar. My husband, well, he really came unglued over that one! I realized what was important to him was money and time. That would waste a lot of money heating the outdoors. He said, “Are we heating the outdoors here?” To me, I thought, “Well, it does seem like a lot of fanfare over a small little thing.”

But I realized what was important to him. I had to respect that energy was being wasted. That was his hard-earned money, so I needed to respect that. We were totally opposite in so many areas, even the area of the wives submitting to your husband. I would submit but sometimes I would say, “Why are you doing this?” And I’d be right, but I would be wrong at the top of my voice because I would be arguing with him about it. So, it would not go over too well when I was getting angry over his behavior, or something he did.

Nancy: I like what you said there, Connie. You can maybe be right, but you can be wrong with your attitude and the way you speak. That’s something we have to learn, isn’t it? Sometimes, when we’re right, well, it’s not really appropriate to stand on your digs and demand that “I am right, and this is how it is!” We have to sometimes just be quiet about it and pray about it.

Often, God will show in the end that maybe you were right. Sometimes your husband’s right. But it’s sometimes just standing back and being quiet and waiting for God to work. I think that’s so true. I loved also what you said about how you had to find the things that were important to your husband and respect them. They probably were things that weren’t important to you.

Connie: No.

Nancy: Two different personalities, but because God has made you one, therefore, you have to find out what’s important to him so you can mold into that.

Connie: The Bible says to “see to it that you reverence your husband.” The Bible says to “submit to your husband, and see to it that you reverence your husband.” That’s in Ephesians 5:22, talking about wives submitting to their husbands. Even Christian wives can “win their unbelieving husband to the Lord without a word by their reverent behavior, coupled with the fear of the Lord” (1 Peter 3:1-6).

Since I have a Christian husband, I take that as any area they’re disobedient to the Word, they could be one without my many words. Instead, my husband can be one with my gentle and quiet spirit, my pure and reverent heart, not in my many words.

Nancy: So, we can be prone to many words.

Connie: We can be prone to many words as women.

Connie: So, we were going along, and God was telling me something about us playing our instruments, as Nancy just mentioned, and playing and singing together. We got many words from the Lord about it and from others. I wanted to go ahead and start doing that.

That wasn’t my husband’s agenda because he believes in hard work. We had a farm and there’s a lot of work to be done. He didn’t seem to understand why we would need to play instruments and sing. Then he also would say that would be a waste of money to hire people to help us with instruments. I couldn’t teach them.

So, it was always a struggle, but I realized in the struggle that God was teaching me to zip my lip and reverence my husband and wait on the Lord. And to also check my own values and see if this something I’m doing is unto the Lord or am I doing it as unto man, to please man? Am I honoring my husband in my attitudes? That’s been a trial, but God sends trials our way through our husbands.

One time, I was reading about Samson fighting with the lion. He killed the lion, and in the struggle, it became his food, because the next year he was walking through that same vineyard. He saw the dead lion with the honey in it. He was hungry and he took a scoop of the honey and put it in his mouth. It was what actually nourished him later.

God was saying in the struggle of marriage, that I will be your sustenance later. It will be what sustains you, so stick with your marriage. God has a purpose for this trial. Of course, the ultimate purpose is to conform us to the image of Christ. If we didn’t go through the trial, we wouldn’t be conformed to the image of Christ, because God has so fashioned our husbands and the wife’s relationship to conform us to the image of Christ so that we could, in the end, look like Him.

If we didn’t have that iron sharpening us, we would not be conformed. So, we thank God for the trials because somehow God has allowed this person to sharpen us. Sometimes this sharpening hurts but in the struggle of the marriage, God is preparing us for Heaven.

Nancy: Yes, that’s true. Because, you know, there will always be those struggles, especially, I think, in the early days of our learning how to be one. I find myself, even now, I will remember. If something will happen, I think, “Oh, it’s a decision to be made and I could easily make it myself, and just do what I want because I love to plan and organize.” Then I have to think, “But no, I’m one, so this affects my husband too.”

THINK ONENESS

I have to think oneness. I think this is a big thing, to think oneness, not think, “Well, it’s just me and I have my rights. This is everything about me.” No, I can no longer think like that because I’m one with my husband. And so, everything concerns him as much as it concerns me. I have to consider him, and consider what he would like, consider the thing. What would he like best?

It’s not “me first.” You can’t have “me first” when you're being one with your togetherness. You have to learn that little by little. I think “little by little" is even with motherhood. You come into motherhood, and you're still this very selfish individual. Those babies come along. With each succeeding baby you learn to give up a little more of yourself and realize life isn’t all about you.

Life is about serving and laying down your life for others. In doing that, you find your life.

 Mark 8:35: “He that will find his life (or save his life) will lose it; but he that will lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” We often think we’ve got to find who we are, and find our lives, and save our lives by looking after me, number one.

But it’s the opposite. Jesus said, in fact, most of the Heavenly principles in the Word of God are opposite to how we feel. This eternal principle says that as you lose your life for others, that’s when you find your life. And you find that, even in marriage too. You see, I can’t lose my life. I’ve got to stand up for who I am.” No, as you are prepared to lose your life by serving your husband, laying down your life for him, you find your life. You don’t actually lose at all. You find. You save. It is an amazing principle.

Connie: Yes, life comes from dying to self.

Nancy: Do you have any other stories?

Connie: Yes. Now we play and sing all over, like Nancy said. But the struggle was in waiting for my husband to feel that it was time for them to learn their instruments. Then there was another struggle in that we also have a production company. We do the play “Esther”, and we’ve done many other plays. God was showing us that we’re to continue in it. It was growing. The popularity was growing.

Nancy: And you were getting how many people coming along?

Connie: The last play we had 2800, so it kept growing and growing.

Nancy: Oh, that’s amazing! You were thinking, “Whoo, this is pretty neat!”

Connie: I thought, “We’re just going to keep going and growing!” After the play was over, my husband said, “We’re not going to be doing any more productions.” In front of the whole cast he just shut the whole thing down.  I thought, “What? This has been my last season!”

We’re finally doing it. I had built up this production company and put lots of money into mikes and sound systems and hours and hours into making costumes. We had it all, and then it was just stopped. Crashed. And I knew God had called me to it.

I did express my concerns in not so nice terms but that didn’t work. I had to wait. It took four years of waiting and in the four years, God has taught me so much about myself and about how I need to reverence my husband in it, and how it had become all consuming. It was disruptive to the family, but God showed me there would be a time when it wouldn’t be disruptive to the family again in the future.

Nancy: Now this time, your children were grown. So, they were working with you too, doing acts and dance. It wasn’t as though you had little children, but your husband didn’t do that just for spite. He obviously felt that somehow, maybe he was perhaps not getting all he needed from you. Just getting a little less. Do you think that could have been one of the reasons that he made that decision?

Connie: Yes. I think that he was jealous of it because he wanted to see that I reverenced him before anything else.

Nancy: Really, as you were saying before, and as what the Bible says. The Bible says that wives are to submit to their husbands and reverence them. I think this is what a man . . . and I have had to learn this over the years. I’ve always loved my husband, but I have to confess that I haven’t always reverenced and respected him.

I loved him, but, oh, it’s another realm to show that respect and reverence. I still have to watch, you know? Because that’s what God wants us to do, because it’s a type of Christ and His church. And how do we treat Christ? We reverence Him. We are in awe of him. If we just think we can say anything and order our husbands around, that is the absolute opposite! We are giving a foreign, blasphemous picture of what marriage is meant to be and what the picture is of Christ and the church.

And also, it’s built within man to long for reverence. They long for it. Oh, wow. If they don’t get it, they don’t do well. So, even though you felt you were doing this amazing thing, oh, that must have been very hard for you. But you did let the Lord deal with you, didn’t you? And just lay quiet. Keep telling me how God helped you in it.

Connie: God was showing me the many ways I hadn’t really reverenced my husband in it. I knew that if ever I did that again, I would consider him before anything I did. That was a good lesson. So many good lessons I learned, and it gave us all time to regroup as a family, which was helpful.

Nancy: Do you think that your husband, as he saw your heart toward him, that gradually . . . it took four years, it didn’t happen the next day . . . four years to come to the place where he was willing for you to do the show again.

Connie: So, we’re going to be doing Esther again. It’s going to be June 19^th. My husband has graciously agreed to it. He said he even wanted to be in the play. So, he’s really behind this vision. The rest of the family seem to be excited about it, so it isn’t as disruptive to the family. It’s something we want to do together as a family.

I always felt that ministry, as I had children still with me, that it should be something we do together, not separating or dividing the family, but building and uniting the family with a single purpose. So, I’m very excited to be presenting it again, with the family together.

Nancy: That’s amazing. If you had just taken a strong stand and blown up, well, you can’t imagine what would have happened in your marriage, and you most probably wouldn’t have been able to have done it again anyway. But in just taking that humble, quiet waiting-on-God attitude, God has brought it all around again.

Connie: I would say, oftentimes husband and wives have different giftings. God made it that way. Sometimes the wife has discernment that the husband doesn’t have, and sometimes, in my case, my husband has a wonderful gift of teaching and administration and in counseling, and in pastoral kind of gifting.

I see that his giftings and mine blend with each other, but I was seeing recently that I have some discernment that he didn’t have in some areas. So, we were seeing it differently. I saw him go toward over-encouraging somebody that I felt, “Oh, that person’s not going the right direction.”

I had to wait on the Lord, but I learned in the process that I needed to trust in God’s work in my husband, and pray, and not say again, but just be silent, and wait on the Lord in prayer. In prayer I could move the mountains.

What I saw, is that through prayer, and through encouraging my husband, because I realized he just needed me to speak lovingly to him and speak admiringly and dote over him, tell him how much I appreciated how much he did all those years, for the children and me. And how he’s covered me with his life, and how he’s supported me. I try to think of everything he’s done well, instead of thinking what he wasn’t doing right.

I don’t know if he even knew how much something he had said hurt me until about two weeks later. I said, instead of just grouching about something I said, “You probably don’t know how much what you said this one time hurt me, but I just wanted to let you know that that was hurtful. The way you did not stand up for me, I felt that you weren’t really covering me, and that you were leaving me exposed. It really hurt my heart. I would want you to know how much that did hurt me, and just to pray about it.”

I didn’t try to blast him and tell him how much he did wrong or anything. I just said, “You probably don’t even realize it.” And then I waited on God to work everything out, and God did, so amazingly turn it around. God really vindicated his Word and what He was saying and gave me my voice back. I really felt like I was Esther pleading with King Artaxerxes for the scepter. The King gave the scepter to me and God used my husband as King Artaxerxes to really help me to get what I really felt the Lord was speaking to us then.

Nancy: Yes, yes. Anyway, you were telling me how there were times when you were going through difficult times, you would think, maybe, negative thoughts about your husband. Then God showed you to change your thinking. Tell us about that and how that changed you.

Connie: I was realizing that I was thinking, “OK, well, he’s never going to change. He’s always going to belittle me, just mocking me, and speak badly about me,” and things like this. And then God was saying, “You are cursing him with your words. You’re agreeing with the devil, so I can’t move. But if you will just speak my Word, and break every curse you've spoken over him, then God can move.”

So, I asked forgiveness for the way I cursed him, the way I cursed our marriage, saying, “Oh, it’s never going to change. I’ll always be the victim here.” And God was saying, “No, just speak the Word over it.” So, I said that “My husband is a good priest, good protector, and provider. He is covering me with the water of the Word, and he is laying down his life for me. And that our marriage is blessed. Our children are blessed.” I started changing my vocabulary and asking God to forgive me whenever the thoughts came up that I was just going to have endure this until we die.

Then God started working on my husband. At the beginning of the year, I had a dream that we were getting married all over again. I was wearing my white wedding dress. He was wearing his black tuxedo, and we had our pastors say the marriage ceremony. This was my dream. I never told my husband, but then last weekend, my husband took me on a surprise anniversary, out-of-town, out-of-state, beautiful anniversary vacation.

On the way home, I didn’t even know this, but he surprised me. When we got back to my house, he had an amazing dinner with many of our closest friends, and all my family. All my children were there. My children had done this amazing job putting on this great dinner. After dinner, our pastor was there, and we said our vows. He had us say our vows again to one another.

Honestly, I feel like I’m married all over again. It feels like a new marriage, like God gave me the marriage I always dreamed of after 35 years. My husband is a new person, and I’m a new person!

CHANGE YOUR THINKNG

Nancy: But that came with your changing your thinking about him. When you saw the negative things, you would change and begin to think and say OUT LOUD those positive things that you believed in him. How long were you doing that?

Connie: Well, that’s been the last couple of years, but especially the last two months, because there was a really big trial. You know, the trials don’t go away, do they? God has designed them to fashion us into the image of Christ. There was a big trial that came up and God used it to really teach me again to confess His Word over our marriage to see God move and watch the Lord’s hand move in this situation.

Nancy: Yes, I think that is so beautiful. I think the whole theme of this podcast is learning to be one. Another quote from that writer John Garr says:

“Marriage is a divinely sanctioned state of oneness that can be parallelled only in the unity that exists in God Himself.”

Now that’s a huge statement, because in the trinity there is total and absolute oneness. There are three, but they are totally one.

This is the kind of oneness that God longs for us to have in our marriages. I believe that we can have it. It takes both of us allowing God to work in our hearts. For both of us to put aside what we want to do, and what we think, and laying down our lives for the other. And thinking oneness. Always thinking in every situation, thinking oneness. Gradually, God brings us into that, into that beautiful oneness that He has destined for marriage. So, then you have two people, and you are like one.

WHAT YOU SPEAK INTO YOUR MARRIAGE WILL BE WHAT YOU EXPERIENCE

I have found in our own marriage that a lot of this has happened, the blessings, and the bliss, and the glory of our marriage has really happened through the words I speak. What I say to my husband, and constantly speak into him, and also write, because I love to write something to my husband every day. Little tiny things but I write something that is very positive, loving, romantic.

This actually, as I have been doing this over the years, changes him into a whole different person. Because every one of us are affected by words. When you are receiving beautiful words, and positive words, and very loving words into your life every day, it’s going to change you. It’s brought such oneness in our marriage. He was always a very shy person, but it’s opened his mouth to speak wonderful things to me. So, we both speak wonderful things to one another.

Words have such power. It’s what we say that will be what we experience. So, can I encourage you, young marrieds? Sometimes you can have a few little difficulties along the way as you're seeking that oneness. But be encouraged. Remember, it won’t work by your standing on your rights. No, be prepared to lay down your life, and remember that God wants you one, and continue that throughout your marriage. As you do, it will become more lovelier and more wonderful as the days go on.

One of my favorite quotes about marriage is from John Piper. He says:

“There has never been a generation whose view of marriage is high enough.”

I think that’s true. God has a very high and glorious plan for marriage, which not everybody enters into. They are thwarted, because of selfishness, and not being prepared to lose their life, because they haven’t lived the principle that when you lose your life, you save it. This happens, even in marriage.

But there is a glory in marriage that God wants us to come into. I believe that we can come into that as we continue to lay down our own lives. And also do the positive, which is the most important. It’s not always happening that I’m the poor person laying down my life. No, that becomes less and less as you become one because you enter into this glorious oneness.

But I believe the most powerful thing, can I say it again as we close? That is the words you speak. What you speak into your husband will be what you experience. So, start speaking beautiful, lovely, wonderful, loving, amazing, incredible words into his life. Amen? May the Lord bless you and bless your marriage. Shall we pray?

“Dear Father, we pray that You will help us all to see the plan You have for marriage. This glorious plan of revealing the oneness, Lord, that is in the Godhead, and the oneness between Christ and the church, where Christ came to totally lay down His life for His Bride. Even when we were sinners, Christ died for us because He loved us. And He continues to pour out His love upon us. This is just a picture of Christ and the church, and of marriage. It’s amazing He chose marriage to portray this picture, so Lord God, help us.

“I pray that You will bless every marriage and bring it into the oneness that You have designed for them. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS NEED ENCOURAGING.

*****

WOULD YOU LIKE TO ORGANIZE AN ABOVE RUBIES RETREAT IN YOUR STATE OR YOUR AREA?

EITHER A LADIES’ RETREAT OR A FAMILY CAMP.

It’s pretty easy. Just give me a call at 615 924 4455 and I can tell you what to do. Or email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

*****

The production of the Lanford family: If you are anywhere near this area, here are the details:

ESTHER, THE CROWN IS YOURS

June 19th, at 2 pm and 7 pm

Bethany Church, Baker Campus

13855 Plank Rd, Baker, LA 70714

*****

SAVE THE DATE and register now for the  . . .

ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREAT

IN THE SMOKY MOUNTAINS

August 21 – 24 2026, Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Wafloy Retreat Center

3610 East Parkway, Gatlinburg TN 37738

 

For all enquiries contact:

Les and Connie Lanford: 225 335 3959

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lanfordlegacy.com/family-camp

 

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 406: A HEAVENLY VISION

We interrupt our series to interview Connie Lanford from Louisiana. Connie shares stories about raising their eight children and also the difference in raising girls and boys. Her ultimate goal was to raise them to be prepared for the eternal world.

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Well, today, I’m interrupting our series about “More and More” because I have a visitor staying with me and I want her to share with you today. Her name is Connie Lanford. Say “hi.”

Connie Lanford: Hello! Welcome!

Nancy: Before I get talking with Connie, I just wanted to tell you about something else. This is especially for all our wonderful ladies listening in the UK— England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and continental Europe. We are coming over your way in the month of May 15^th to 17^th of May. We have a family conference in Wales (NOW POSTPONED TO OCTOBER).

So, we hope all you wonderful families can come and be part of that. It’s going to be a beautiful time together. For more information, contact Beverly, who looks after Above Rubies in the UK. Beverly England, and her email is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I’ll give it to you again, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Don’t forget to contact Beverly. Find out all the details. I hope you can come. It’s coming up soon (now in October).

Well, we also have another family camp to tell you about here in the USA. We have another one coming up in August in the Smokey Mountains. We’re sharing about that today because Connie and her husband, Les Lanford, and their wonderful family of eight grown children organize this retreat. Connie has been coming to Above Rubies retreats for so many years. What was the first one you came to, Connie?

Connie: It was in Mobile, Alabama at the Gulf Shores. It’s no longer there because a hurricane wiped it out. But we had a wonderful time. When we came, it was a mother’s retreat.

Nancy: Yes, this hurricane came through, so, no longer is it there. But then, Connie continued to come to the Above Rubies Ladies’ Retreats in Louisiana. Then we began to have family camps also, down there in Louisiana. I remember Angela Decoteau was the organizer, along with the wonderful Jane Lukachick family and the Bergeron family.

I think they both had about ten children each. They used to do all the cooking and cook wonderful Louisiana food because there’s nothing in the world like Louisiana food! So, we had some wonderful family camps there.

Then, when they moved on, Les and Connie took over. They have been organizing family retreats now for us, I think for about the last 14 years?

Connie: Yes.

Nancy: First in Louisiana, and then they did some in Alabama. Now they’ve come to Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains. [Music in the background] Oh, goodness me. You’ll have to turn that off for me. Thank you so much. I did have it turned off. Actually, we’re doing this podcast for the second time because somehow my dog came in and then some people came in and then the dog barked. Oh goodness me! So, we had to start again.

So, this retreat in the Smokies is near Gatlinburg. It will be from August 21^st to the 24^th. We hope that you can come. Put it on your calendar and start planning. That would be wonderful.

All right, well now, Connie and her husband have all these wonderful children who help them in organizing this retreat. They are now in their 20’s. In fact, tell us the names of your children, Connie.

Connie: OK, we have Joshua, Daniel, Stephen, Nicole, Sarah, Anna Joy, Rachel, and Jonathan.

Nancy: They are all wonderful young people in their early, mid, and late 20’s. Actually, none are married yet. Wow, there are four beautiful daughters waiting for godly young men. But they’d better be godly, because these girls are the most beautiful, beautiful, and pure, and lovely God-fearing girls. Wow! Anyone who gets them will be blessed out of their socks.

So, your days of mothering started many years ago with Joshua, who’s 32 now. Tell us about that. When you first started, you were longing for children, but your husband came from a different sort of culture, didn’t he? Tell us about that.

Connie: Yes, he was influenced by the zero-population growth theory in college. He thought, “Well, maybe I won’t have any children or maybe just one or two.” I thought, “God, are you sure You want me to marry him?” And God said, “Yes.” I said, “Oh God, you have some work to do!” I wanted all the children that God would give me.

But I would not ever recommend that to anybody because I would like to see that matter is settled before you marry.

What ended up happening with us is that my husband put me on the birth control pill. He had asked me to go on it, and I said, “OK.” I went on it for the first couple of years and didn’t have any children. I actually circumvented what God was doing because He wanted to give me the children, but through birth control, I aborted them.

The reason I know that is because, later on, my husband was praying, and God gave him a vision. He saw the children that were not born, that we had aborted through the abortifacient of birth control. He wept, and he really repented. But it wasn’t really until we went to an Above Rubies retreat that God really gave my husband a different vision. He said, “Oh, we need to be faithful. We would be really ridiculous to not keep all the blessings that God wants to give us.”

So, he really changed his heart. Now, he has been putting on this retreat with us for all these years. He really, really teaches men to embrace all the children that God would have for their wives and their families and raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

Nancy: I think, at that time, you read a couple of books. A Full Quiver is out of print now, but it was an amazing book. Then, of course, Be Fruitful and Multiply which kind of changed his heart.

Connie: Yes, and that’s why Nancy and Colin Campbell’s book, Be Fruitful and Multiply, changed his heart. Yes.

Nancy: We still have that book available. It’s a book that goes into the Scriptures to see what God says. The Lord has used this book to change so many hearts and to bring so many children into the world, which is so wonderful.

Anyway, eventually you were able to start having children but it’s amazing how the Lord blessed you with eight children because you were 34 when you were able to start having children. And then the Lord gave you eight before your fertility was all gone. Tell us about those wonderful days of raising your precious children.

Connie: Oh, yes. Well, my goal in in having children was that my children would tell their children one day that all my treasure was in Heaven and that Jesus meant everything to me, that we would raise up children for whom the world was not worthy.

Nancy: So, you had a Heavenly vision. How did that Heavenly vision work out in the practical day-to-day life?

Connie: Well, my children were taught the Word from early on. My husband would even have the baby come to the family devotions in the morning. Even if the baby was sleeping, I would have to get the baby and bring the baby out and nurse the baby. My husband and I were teaching the Word of God to our children from an early age.

Nancy: I think that’s amazing, you know, because I love that Scripture in 2 Timothy 3:15 where it says: “From a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation.” That word “child” in the Greek is brephos.

We see other Scriptures where that word is used. That word is used when the angel came to Mary and said that “You will conceive in your womb, and bear a child.” It’s brephos. So, it’s talking about a baby in the womb, and then it’s talking about a baby that’s just born. When the angels came and told the shepherds that they were to go and they would “find a babe, lying in a manger.” The word “babe” is brephos. Once again, a little baby.

So, your husband was getting the baby there to hear the Word. That’s very scriptural because that Word, even though the baby doesn’t understand the Word, that Word is going into them. And that’s the beautiful thing about a godly home where the Scriptures are being read, morning and evening. The little baby is there and the mother’s nursing the baby, but that baby is hearing the Word.

And then they’re growing and they’re hearing it as a little toddler, and then as they’re getting a little older. So, a child in a godly home, where the Scriptures are being read, can be ready to receive Jesus, to receive salvation at a very early age, because what does it say? “The Scriptures, you have known them.” They didn’t just sort of hear about them. They actually knew them. They were so part of their lives. “From a child, thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.”

So, in having a Heavenly vision for your children, of course, to have a Heavenly vision you want them to be ready for Heaven. Did they come to know Jesus when they were young?

Connie: Yes, they all came to know Jesus when they were young.

Nancy: What would be round about their ages?

Connie: Four to six. One of them wanted to rededicate. The oldest one actually wanted to rededicate his heart when he was 13.

Nancy: Well, that was the same with our children. One of ours was older but the others all actually had a real encounter with the Lord when they were only four years of age. And here they are today, in their 50’s and their 60’s and it is still as real to them.

And then, I behold your children, because I behold them every year when we see you, and sometimes in between—how they have grown up, not just Christians, but young people who love the Lord, who love to spend time with the Lord. They love the Word. Following God is the passion of their lives. So, God has answered your prayers. They are certainly being prepared for their Heavenly realm.

In fact, they are, what would you say? They’re putting up a lot of treasures in Heaven already because their whole lives are to serve the Lord, and to love Him, and to worship Him. It is so beautiful to see such wonderful young people.

But I think you were also telling me, Connie, how that one of the biggest things was not so much, OK, we did this, or we did that, but making sure that your heart was right and pure with God, because you felt that your example was the most important. Tell me about that.

WE MUST BE THE EXAMPLE

Connie: What I felt was that first His commandments must be in my heart and then we can teach them. So, I needed to have the scriptures in my heart. I also wanted to raise up children who would be not worthy of this world, children who God would not be ashamed to be called their God.

And also, in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, the Bible says “to endure suffering along with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Soldiers don’t get tied up in the affairs of civilian life, for then they can’t please the officer who enlisted them.” We wanted to not get entangled with the things of this world and also to have sincere faith.

“Sincere” means “without hypocrisy.” I didn’t want to say, “This is what the Word says, but this is what I practice in my own life,” and not have a sincere faithfulness for gratitude, joy, or have hypocrisy in that I’m saying God is love, but I’m actually holding onto bitterness and unforgiveness toward any person.

We did not want to give them a diluted message. We did not want to give them a mixture of toxicity or muddied water but the pure water of the Word. The only way to give them the pure water of the Word is that we would live out the pure water of the Word in front of them, and they would see by our example that Jesus really was everything, and He was everything to us.

Nancy: That’s so wonderful. We’ve seen that in the fruit of your children’s lives. It’s just a beautiful thing to see.

Connie: But there is a daily struggle in this way to just let go of any bitterness and unforgiveness. I often pray, “God, I ask You to take it away from me now because I feel it welling up.” I have to say, “God, I’m going to be choosing to be joyful and put a smile on my face.” The children will respond to the image they see on your face. So, we want to show them the joy of the Lord by our countenance.

Nancy: Yes, that’s a big thing, isn’t it? Because they look at us all day long, so they are going to grow into the image, just as we, as it says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, that: “As we behold the Lord, we are changed into His image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” But in a very similar way, our children are looking at us all day long, even when things go wrong, and even when they’re not doing so well.

What is our attitude? And what do they see on our faces? Do they see a frown? Do they see you worried? Do they see this long face? Or, as you were saying, do they see the joy of the Lord, smiling? Our children will be what they see on our face. It’s a big thing, isn’t it?

Tell me also, that little story of your grandmother and how you were getting involved in doing something, and how it spoke to you?

Connie: I had four small children, and I asked my grandmother to come and watch them because I was going to go do worship dance. She came up, and she watched the children, and I went and did my thing. I came back, and the children were all fussing. The baby needed me to nurse. I was just going and doing my own thing.

My grandmother really talked to me. She said, “You know, I’ve seen this over and over again. The mothers think they can do it all during this season, but it doesn’t ever turn out well for their children. They don’t appreciate it much.” She said, “There’s no substitute for the mother in the home.” I thought of that, and I said, “You know what? I’m bagging it. This is my career.”

WE LOVED DOING EVERYTHING TOGETHER

When I look at my children, I want them to say I gave it all. I really embraced motherhood. I quit the worship dance, and I danced with my children around the home and brought them to church and we danced together. I am so grateful. Everything we did, we did together.

Even later on, we were raising chickens. We still have chickens. My son was trying to breed them and incubate them with the hens. He separated the hens with her eggs, but the hen kept getting off the nest. I said, “Stephen, I’m not sure why the hen keeps getting off the nest.” He said, “What do I do?” I said, “I’ll call my grandmother. She’ll tell me, because she had chickens in Italy.”

So, I called her, and I said, “Nona, this hen keeps getting off the nest. Stephen’s trying to incubate these eggs, but the hen won’t stay on the eggs.” My grandmother said, “Huh. In Italy, you can’t get the hen to get off her nest for anything! Huh. Must have been an American mother!” [laughter]

Nancy: That is so true. I can remember way back in the early days of my mothering. You’re learning, too, how to be a mother. You’ve still got that feeling, ooh, you want to get out and do this and that. You’re learning how to nest. I found that when I would go out, just like you, and come back, it makes mothering harder.

Connie: Oh, yes.

Nancy: You don’t realize how much the children miss Mother. And they all need you as well. They may be perfect for the babysitter, but the moment Mother comes, oh, out come all their needs, and all their wants, and all their desires. They’re all crying at once. They all need you because they really missed you. We’re meant to be there.

Connie: That’s right. Total mothering.

Nancy: It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Connie: Beautiful.

CHOOSE TO BE A NESTING MOTHER

Nancy: That’s part of mothering. It’s so good to be a nesting mother. Never be afraid to be a nesting mother. That’s what a mother is. She nests. She’s there with her babies and her little ones. There will come a time . . . it actually comes too quickly. There are seasons.

Connie: There are seasons. They go so quickly, mothers, so quickly. The season of having your little ones in the home flies by. Believe me, even though I had eight, it flew by.

Nancy: Oh, yes. So, make the most of these beautiful nesting days. They are so blessed, because there will come a time, there will be new seasons ahead and these precious little ones in your nest will be grown and they will be flying away.

Another question I have for you, Connie. You have four girls and four boys. How did your mothering differ? Did you mother them differently? Or what did you do? Did you make it all the same or did you parent them differently?

WE WORKED WITH OUR CHILDREN

Connie: Well, we did many things together as a family. I remember     Mondays we would clean the bedrooms, and then on Tuesdays, the bathrooms. That was something. Wednesdays we did the master bathroom and the sunroom. Thursdays we cleaned the kitchen all together, and Fridays we cleaned the big room all together.

Nancy: You did it all together.

Connie: We did that all together when they were young. Each of them had their own area of jurisdiction. Some of them would go out and get the eggs in the morning before breakfast while I would take care of the baby. Then one of them would be setting the table. I involved them all in everything.

We also gardened all together. We would check our gardens once a day and then we would garden together on Saturdays, or one day where we could all be together. We tried to do the things that would pertain to maintenance. We had an old starter home, so my husband would have my sons help him remodel and actually sometimes gut out and start all over from scratch on different parts of the house.

It was a really good learning experience for the guys on how to drywall, how to do construction. They would paint the house together and they would paint on the same side of the wall so they could fellowship along with it.

It’s not just telling your children, “Work harder, do this, do that.” But it’s teaching them as you're going to do this. I would tell my children, “Sweep harder,” but God said, “No, sweep harder with them.” So, it’s not just telling them to go and do something, but working with them, to show them how to do it. But also, to fellowship with them.

A lot of us are having trouble motivating our children to work because we’re not doing it with them and having a grateful attitude as we do it. But I think what motivates children the most is not just telling them, “OK, you need to clean, not just the top of the toilet seat, but let’s clean the whole thing, and let’s do it together. Let’s do it with a joyful attitude.”

Nancy: That’s great. You’re not only teaching them how to do it, how to do it properly, and how to work with all your might. Whatever you do, do it with all your might. But you're also teaching them the attitude. Some may have a groaning attitude . . . “why do I have to clean the toilet.” No! We do it with a joyful attitude and you are doing it with them with a joyful attitude. So, they are learning that.

Talking about Les teaching them building and teaching them construction, they also built a big tree house, didn’t they?

Connie: Yes. My son, Stephen, and my husband built a tree house. Stephen lives in the tree house now.

Nancy: It must be pretty big.

Connie: It’s pretty big. It’s a tree house that you can live in.

Nancy: It would be like one day you could make it an Airbnb or something.

Connie: That would be a good thing to do with that tree house, but Stephen lives there.

Nancy: People would love to do that with an Airbnb. They like to go to one that’s a cave under the earth, a tree house, and do something different. So, it has all the amenities in it, does it?

Connie: It does. Yes.

Nancy: Wow! That’s amazing. I’ve always been amazed too, how your husband takes your sons every year to walk the Appalachian Trail. They walk 100 miles every time, don’t they?

Connie: Right, they do. They started in Georgia when my youngest son, I think, I’m sorry, the third son was 12, but it might have been younger. They have been doing segment hiking, 100 miles a year on the Appalachian Trail. They will end up in Maine.

This year, they’re already in Pennsylvania. They look forward to it. It’s one of their favorite things to do every year as a family. It’s bonded them together, but it’s also been a great, rigorous time for them to grow into manhood. Now, my daughters are joining them, so they are really growing into being really ready for a rigorous life. I’m so grateful for my husband, for teaching them how to be men and women of God.

Nancy: Yes, they go for five days?

Connie: Yes, five days. They do 100 miles in five days, which is quite a lot of miles.

Nancy: Yes, they must be getting fit. But I know the Appalachian Trail is 2197 miles. When they eventually get to the end, they will have accomplished something so amazing. To think that they’ve done it with their father. That’s a beautiful thing.

Connie: Oh, yes. And they do also make it a time of intercession for the country. That was one of my husband’s goals. When they were at the highest heights, they would pray over the nation and over each state as they went through it.

Nancy: That’s great. And then you have a little family farm, don’t you?

Connie: Yes. We’ve sold honey and raised beef. We’ve had a farm.

Nancy: Honey! I can’t live without Lanford honey. Loveliest honey, and we’ve got it from you at different Above Rubies retreats where you brought it for people. It’s so amazing.

Connie: We’ve had a farm and we’ve grown our own produce. That’s also taught them the basic skills of life. It’s never wasted all these life skills that you can teach your children. They will never be wasted. They can grow healthy food for themselves. If ever the supermarket is not there one day, if ever we go through a crisis, they will be able to grow their own food one day.

Nancy: Oh, yes. So, OK, the girls were doing some of those too. What were some of the things you especially taught the girls?

Connie: We loved to worship as a family, actually. Each of my children plays a different instrument, so it’s not just the girls. We also sing together and we play at various places around the city. God spoke to me and said, “A house of praise, if we became a house of praise, He would send down His dew from Heaven and bless it.”

And the dew in Israel is more copious than even rain sometimes. It waters the plants. It’s necessary, so God has really sent down so much abundance of grace upon us as we learned to worship as a family.

WE LOVE DOING TEA PARTIES TOGETHER

Then my oldest daughter and one of my younger ones are going to do the work. They actually help with babies. My daughters and I cook together. We clean together.

We’ve done many teas where we have women in. Mothers and widows . . . we’ve done widows teas. Homeschool family teas. It’s been a wonderful time for us to teach younger mothers how to raise their children and how to love their husbands through the teas.

WE LOVE SHOWING HOSPITALITY TOGETHER

Then we love practicing hospitality. My children just gave my husband and I the most amazing 35^th anniversary celebration. It was a surprise to me, a celebration. We renewed our vows there. That was just on Saturday. But they did it and did a big surprise for us. It was amazing. They are really taking on the hospitality mantle and bringing it to a whole new level.

They love to redecorate my house.

WE LOVE TO SEW

My daughter Sarah and I have a sewing business. It’s called Taphar Sewing Co. Taphar is the Hebrew word meaning “to sew.” We do alterations. We even do reupholstering of furniture. We can sew anything you put on your body. It’s called Taphar, so look us up.

WE LOVE TO PRODUCE DRAMAS

Then my daughter Rachel and I and our family have put on . . . most years we have been doing a family play. This year it will be “Esther.” It will be at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge. We did it four years ago as well. My daughter and I will sew all the costumes. My daughter sewed the costumes a few years ago for our other plays. We have been enjoying doing things together as a family just to bless other moms who have needs and other families.

Nancy: Oh, that is lovely.

Connie: We put on the retreats together.

WE LOVE HOSTING ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREATS

Nancy: Oh, yes, that’s just a beautiful thing to do. We used to have such a gorgeous family who put on retreats for us in Wisconsin. The parents had their children working with them to help them. Then they all gradually got married and went off. And then she said, “Oh, we can’t do it now. We haven’t got the children with us.”

Connie: Oh, we’re going to keep on with it, Nancy.

Nancy: It’s so great. And I love your Heavenly vision, Connie.  It’s so beautiful, pointing your children toward Heaven. Do you believe that this is something that we should do? If we really believe, parents, moms, that we are going to Heaven, how much do we talk about it in our homes? Do we really talk about it much with our family? Do our children have a wonderful understanding of Heaven?

I think there are many Christians who don’t really understand what Heaven’s going to be like. Therefore, they’re not really planning on going there because they don’t understand all about it. In fact, a good book to read is Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. If you haven’t read it, I would encourage you to read it. They even have a children’s version, I believe, so you can look into that.

I think to just get a vision of Heaven, and to get our children a vision of Heaven, and that this life, it’s only a vapor. It’s so quick, and our whole life here is preparing for the eternal world. Everything that we do will be preparing for that world. Even the Word of God, Jesus said, “My Word will never pass away . . . Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Word will not pass away.” That means that His words are going to go in Heaven, into eternity with us.

I believe the more that we have of God’s Word in us now, the more we will be prepared, even in the eternal world because there’s so much in this Word that we do not yet understand. There are layers. There are depths. There are heights of understanding that we will never even understand in this world. But we will in the other world. And the more we have of it in our hearts and minds and lives, the more we will be prepared.

I was just thinking recently, now there’s only one way to get to Heaven. We all know that. Jesus is the Way. He is the Door into Heaven. Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is no way into Heaven except coming through Jesus and His blood that was shed for our sin. In fact, we see the type, even in the tabernacle where there was only one entrance to go in.

TWO WAYS – ABUNDANDTLY OR BY THE SKIN OF YOUR TEETH

But the Bible does speak of two different ways we can enter that kingdom. We’ll only enter through Jesus, but there are two different ways we can get in.

It’s very interesting. In 2 Peter 1:5, it talks about how we are to “give all diligence to add to our faith.” We don’t just get saved, and say, “OK, that’s it. I’m ready to go to Heaven.” No, we are preparing.

We cannot get salvation by works. It’s from Jesus. He did it all. But when we are saved, then the Holy Spirit wants to work in us, and God wants to work in us. He wants us to do works, and He wants us to “add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge self-control; and to self-control patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” which is agape love.

It goes on to say that if we have these things: “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure: (and verse 11 says) If ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you ABUNDANTLY into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” And so, we can get into Heaven with an abundance entrance, an abundant welcome into this everlasting kingdom.

Or there’s another way we can get in. 1 Corinthians 3. Let me read these verses to you as we close. Verse 11: “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation.” So, we can only come through Jesus, who is the foundation.

But then we build on Him, and it says: “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;” Wow. We’re either going to be building things that will go through the test of fire because all our works are going to be tested by fire, just like the gold is tested and tried.

This is what they do to purify the gold. They bring it up to this incredible heat so that all this scum comes to the top. And then they take it off. They scoop it off. Then they heat it again. They often heat it seven times until it’s pure. But if we are building with wood, hay, and stubble, it’s going to burn up.

So, it goes on to say, I’ll close quickly. 1 Corinthians 3:13: “Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day (that coming day) “shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (That’s a challenge!) If any man's work abide (his gold, silver, precious stones) he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”

It’s a picture of a burning building. Everything’s being burned up. But the person gets out of the house. They’re saved! But everything they saved, everything they put into their own plan, everything they’ve done is burned up. And the Bible says that our souls will get into Heaven the same, because they trusted in the blood of Jesus, but there are no works. There is nothing. They get into Heaven by the skin of their teeth. Well, I hope I can get in with an abundant entrance. I don’t want to get in just by the skin of my teeth.

So, precious ladies, we must constantly bring these things before our children, raising them for that world, the real world, which is going to be the heavenly world, the new Heaven and new earth that is one day coming, which will never pass away, which will never be destroyed, which has no end (Daniel 7:14 and Luke 1:33). This is the world for which we are preparing our children. Amen?

OK, Connie, you pray. I always pray for the ladies. Would you like to pray for them?

Connie: “God, we thank You so much for these mothers in their homes with their children. God, I thank You, God, for them. I ask Jesus, that they would be the most thankful and most blessed of all mothers, God. That they would raise their children to be mighty upon the earth, children of whom this world is not worthy, God. Thank You, God, that they will love their husbands, and God, that they will embrace every child that You would give them, and realize that this is a brief moment in all of eternity, and that they would fashion these children for Heaven.

I thank You, God, for these mothers, God, in these wonderful gifts that You’ve given them. God, thank You that signs and wonders would follow. God, I thank You that they will be mighty upon the earth themselves. And God, I thank You that You will give them a voice like Esther, to speak the Word of God, and that they will impart these truths to other mothers, and to their children. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”

Nancy: Amen!

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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DON’T FORGET TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT THESE PODCASTS AND TRANSCRIPTS.

“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

DON’T KEEP THE BLESSINGS TO YOURSELF.

ALL WIVES AND MOTHERS NEED ENCOURAGING.

*****

SCRIPTURES ABOUT HOW WE WILL HAVE TO GIVE AN ACCOUNT FOR ALL OUR ACTIONS:

Would you like to look up these Scriptures about how we will give an account for everything we have done and said in this life (unless it has come under the blood of Jesus): You could take a few of these Scriptures each day to read to your children.

O.T. Job 7:17, 18; 23:10; 31:4; 34:11, 21-23; 1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Kings 8:39; 1 Chronicles 28:9; 29:17; 2 Chronicles 32:31; Psalm 11:4, 5; 17:3; 26:2; 33:13-15; 62:12; 66:7, 10; 81:7; 139:23, 24; Proverbs 5:21-23; 17:3; 24:12; 25:4; Isaiah 1:25; 40:10; 48:10; 62:11; Jeremiah 9:7; 11:20; 12:3; 16:17; 17:10; 20:12; 32:19; Ezekiel 7:27; 33:20; Daniel 7:10; 11:35; 12:10; Hosea 7:2; Zechariah 13:9; and Malachi 3:3.

N.T. Matthew 10:26; 12:36, 37; 16:27; John 12:48; Acts 17:31; Romans 2:5-11; 14:10-12; 1 Corinthians 3:8, 11-15; 4:5; 2 Corinthians 5:10; 11:15; Ephesians 6:8; Colossians 3:24, 25; 1 Thessalonians 2:4; Hebrews 4;13; 1 Peter 1:7, 17; 4:5; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 2:23; 11:18; 20:4, 12, 13; and 22:12.

*****

The production of the Lanford family: If you are anywhere near this area, here are the details:

ESTHER, THE CROWN IS YOURS

June 19th, at 2 pm and 7 pm

Bethany Church, Baker Campus

13855 Plank Rd, Baker, LA 70714

*****

SAVE THE DATE and register now for the  . . .

ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREAT

IN THE SMOKY MOUNTAINS

August 21 – 24 2026, Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Wafloy Retreat Center

3610 East Parkway, Gatlinburg TN 37738

 

For all enquiries contact:

Les and Connie Lanford: 225 335 3959

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lanfordlegacy.com/family-camp

*****

THE ABOVE RUBIES FAMILY RETREAT FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM AND EUROPE IS NOW POSTPONED TO:

OCTOBER 2 – 4, FIRST WEEKEND OF OCTOBER

This gives families more time to save and prepare.

VENUE: Cefn Lea, Newtown, Wales.

https://www.cefnlea.co.uk

For booking and all details contact:

Beverley England: (+44) 07955 701 588

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The other meetings for UK and Europe are also postponed until October.

*****

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY (mentioned in the podcast)

What the Bible says about having Children!

By Nancy Campbell

Every couple, without exception, should read this book. We owe it to God, to ourselves, and to our future children to know what the Scripture says about this subject. This book goes into God’s Word to dig out the truths.

"I will never be the same! BFM brings the Bible to light in a shining, warm, enlightening way."

"BFM is a light in the darkness."

“For a long time, I have had so many questions that I could not find answers to. Thanks for making it all clear!”
“This is the best book I've read on this subject.”

“I cannot even express how intrigued I was with BFM--the research, the statistics, the credibility, and the Scriptural truth.”

 

To purchase, go to: Be Fruitful and Multiply (www.aboverubies.org).

 

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY AUDIO BOOK

Does your husband not like to read?

Don’t worry. We have this book on Audio!

Listen when traveling or working.

Narrated by Jake Shanks, third generation radio broadcaster.

To purchase, go to:

BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY AUDIO BOOK (BFMAudio) (www.aboverubies.org).

 

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 405: Welcome to the Land of More and More, Part 13

How can we please God more? How can we experience more of God’s power in our lives? And how can we experience the “how much more” of the cleansing of the blood of Christ? 

Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to the Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies, a magazine bringing strength and encouragement to families across the world.

Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! Welcome to the Land of MORE AND MORE! I hope you are enjoying this series. Most of all, I hope you are getting to do it. Are you doing more and more in these things we’ve been sharing about? Oh, please don’t stay on the same old level. Let’s come up to the more and more.

Because, ladies, remember I’m not making this up. I’m getting it from the Word. All I’m doing is going into the Word and giving it to you. The Word of God is so amazing. The Word of God lifts us up above our normalness. Oh, don’t stay in the normalness. Are you just normal? Average, along with everyone else? Well, that’s not where you're meant to be! We’re meant to be in the MORE AND MORE kingdom. So, what has God got for us today?

No. 25. MORE PLEASING TO GOD

That’s a good one, isn’t it? 1 Thessalonians 4:1: “We beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.” Now there’s another Scripture that has “abound” as well as “more and more.”

You remember that word “abound” is perissueo, which means “to exceed, to excel, above and beyond, superabundantly, from bud to the full flower.” Yes, that’s what we’re meant to be doing. So, this Scripture uses “abound,” and it uses “more and more.” We can’t really get off the hook, can we?

Now Galatians 1:10: “For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.” 

And also, in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, “Even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.” I find, dear ladies, that to please God (many times we will just please men, in fact fact, this happens most of the time). But, dear ladies, pleasing God is number one even if it doesn’t please others around you. We have to please God.

I know, many of you, you are doing just what you're meant to be doing. And you are pleasing God. You are serving the Lord. You’re in your homes and you're raising your children, loving them, training them, and teaching them in the ways of God. Maybe you're the only one all around you. All the other women around you, maybe even all the other women at your church are out in their careers.

But you're home with your children. You’ve opened your heart and your womb to the children He wants to give to you. And you're seeking to serve Him. Oh, precious mothers, can I tell you this morning, you are pleasing Christ. You are pleasing God. You may not be pleasing men. You may not be pleasing your mother-in-law. You may not be pleasing even friends.

But that’s not the criterion. The criterion is, are we pleasing God? I feel it is time that we got on God’s side. We’re either on God’s side or we’re on the devil’s side. Remember when Joshua called out to the people of Israel: “Who is on the Lord’s side? As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Now, how do we know if we’re on the Lord’s side? Well, we’ll be doing what He says. If we’re on the Lord’s side, we’ll know His commandments and we’ll be doing His commandments.

There are really only two kinds of people. Those who obey and do God’s commandments are on the Lord’s side. And those who, well, they may even read the Word, but they don’t really take any notice of it. When they do that, they’re not on the Lord’s side. They may be on the devil’s side.

And remember this statement. I read it sometime back, and I thought, “Wow! How true!”

“The devil owns the fence.”

If you're on the fence, trying to be between both sides, you're on the devil’s side. He owns the fence. You’ve got to be on God’s side. You’ve got to get right off the fence. You’ve got to get a three-day gap.

Remember back when Moses went to take the children of Israel out of Egypt, out of their slavery? He told Pharoah, “We are taking them on a three-day journey.” And the Pharoah kept trying to think of every way he could keep the Israelites. “Oh, yes, you can serve the Lord, and you can sacrifice to your God but do it right here in Egypt.”

“No,” said Moses, “God said we’ve got to go out of Egypt, a three-day journey.” A three-day gap between Egypt (which speaks of the world) and going into God’s ways and into His land.

And then, the Pharoah came with other temptations. This was a really sly one. “Oh, Moses, you can go and take all your people but sacrifice just over the border. Oh, don’t go too far. Just over the border.”

 “No,” said Moses, “God has told us to go a three-day journey.” He would not give in. That’s what they did because they knew if they went just over the border, oh goodness me, they’d be back the next day. *

We can’t stay close to the border. We’ve got to take this three-day gap. That’s the principal God gives us in His Word. So, if we please God, we may not be pleasing men. That doesn’t matter.

Colossians 1:10: “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.”

Enoch had this testimony. We read it in the “faith” chapter, Hebrews 11:5: “God translated him, for before his translation, he had this testimony (what was his testimony?) that he pleased God.”

What a beautiful testimony to have, dear ladies. And I know many of you have got that testimony because you're doing what He wants you to do. He’s given to you these precious children and you're not giving them away to someone else. You’re looking after them, and teaching them, and loving them, and nurturing them in your own home. And you're doing that which pleases the Lord.

So, what was it that Enoch did that he got this amazing testimony, and not only this testimony, but God translated him? Let’s go back, and see what we can find out, shall we? We go to Genesis 5:21: “And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah.”

Any children listening today? Children, do you know how long Methuselah lived? Do you know? Maybe some of you got it right. 969 years! He was the oldest man that ever lived, and Enoch was his father.

Genesis 5:22: “And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years.” Now, it’s easy to remember how old Enoch lived because he lived 365 years. We have 365 days in the year, but Enoch lived 365 years.

Genesis 5:24: “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Did you notice, ladies, the only thing that’s mentioned that Enoch did? Do you remember? What was it? Yes, “he begat sons and daughters.” That’s the only thing that God writes about him.

RAISE SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND WALK WITH GOD

And if we go over to the New Testament, there is Enoch in the “faith” chapter. He had this testimony: “that he pleased God.” And God translated him. God was pleased with Enoch, because he did that which God wanted him to do. He just kept on begetting sons and daughters. We don’t know how many he had but he did what God wanted him to do. And as he begat sons and daughters and raised sons and daughters, he walked with God.

Lovely mothers, that’s the most beautiful thing you can do.

Raise sons and daughters and walk with God.

Walk with God as you do it. There’s nothing more beautiful on earth than to walk in your home with God as you raise sons and daughters. And you will be pleasing the Lord. Isn’t that beautiful?

Hebrews 12:28: “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” The word “acceptably” is the Greek word that means “well-pleasing.” It’s the same word that’s used in the other Scriptures which I gave you, although they translated it differently here. It means “to walk well-pleasing unto the Lord.” In the Young’s Translation it says: “Serve God well-pleasingly.” Isn’t that lovely? And that’s what you are doing in your home, precious mothers.

Now, let’s go back to Hebrews again. Yes, in that “faith” chapter . . . we’re now going to go to chapter 13, the last chapter of Hebrews, verses 20-21: “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

And then, I’m going to give you one more Scripture. Colossians 3:20: “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” Any children listening? This is a Scripture especially for you. “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.”

Now, in all the Scriptures I read about walking well-pleasingly, it doesn’t really give a specific. It just really means in all your way of life. But this Scripture is SPECIFIC. It’s very specific about obeying parents, so this is an important one. It’s a very specific Scripture.

I did a series a little while ago. I wonder if you actually got to hear it. It was called, “Do You Want to Live a Long Life?” It was all about honoring parents. It’s worthwhile listening to it if you didn’t get to listen to it, because, oh my, God puts a lot of weight on obeying and honoring parents. I’d really encourage you to listen to that series if you can.

All right, lovely ladies. We’ll move on to the next one.

No. 26. MORE OF GOD’S POWER IN OUR LIVES

We all need this, don’t we? Let me read you Ephesians 1:18-20. Just listen and let it sink into your heart as I read the words. Oh, the Scriptures, they have to sink into us, don’t they?

We can read them on the surface. We can just read them through quickly and we don’t get it. You know, often, when we’re reading our chapter of the Word of God in the morning at family devotions, we get to the end, and we say, “Oh, we need a whole week just to read this over and over, to let it sink in.” They take such sinking in.

Anyway, here’s one to get you thinking: “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His . . . power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.”

Wow! He’s describing the exceeding greatness of God’s power, which enabled Him to raise Christ from the dead and seat Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.

That’s the description of the power to us who believe. He makes it personal to US-WARD, to you, to me. It’s not just a little wee bit of God’s power but it’s the exceeding greatness of His power. When I was reading this, I thought, “Wow! This is amazing!”

I wonder. Although I read the King James Version, I do love to look at other translations. So, I checked out some others. Let me read them to you. In the transcript, I’ll put the translations for you, but I’ll just read them here. Some of them say:

“Immeasurable greatness” (Holman, ESV, RSV)

“surpassing greatness” (NASB, BSB, CJB, Darby, Lexham, Moffat)

“overwhelming greatness of His power” (CEB)

“unlimited greatness of His power” (GW)

“transcendent greatness” (Weymouth)

“excellent greatness” (Wycliffe), and the

“incredible greatness” (NLT).

Others says:

“utter extravagance” (Message)

“tremendous is the power” (J. B. Phillips)

“how vast the resources of His power” (NEB, Beck)

“how infinitely great is his power” (Jerusalem Bible)

This is all to you and me, to us-ward. Now, Paul didn’t use the words “more and more” here, but this is what it means as I’ve just shared with you. “Exceeding, immeasurable, surpassing overwhelming, unlimited, transcendent, excellent, incredible, tremendous, vast.” Oh, we go on and on. It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

Let’s read Ephesians 3:20: “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” Do we really get it? We read these extravagant words. “Unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,” in you and me. Oh my. I think we must limit the power that God wants to work in us.

Colossians 1:11: “Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.” Once again, precious ladies, this glorious power gets right down to us, to where we are in our homes, with screaming children making us mad. Did you really get it? Listen to it again: “According to His glorious power, unto . . . what is it unto?  Unto doing some miraculous thing, some great thing, or being very, very powerful? No, “Unto all patience!”

Oh, darling mother, are you desperate for patience? And longsuffering? All mothers are desperate for these attributes. “Patience! Please help me.” Longsuffering. And joyfulness? Yes, sometimes we don’t have any of these. And yet, we do! Because when Jesus lives in us, these beautiful attributes are in us. Yes, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

This is the gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He rose again and is seated at the right hand of the Father, but He sent His Spirit to dwell in us. And all the attributes that Jesus has don’t fly out the window when they come into our lives. When He is in us, He gives us the power to walk in patience and longsuffering, to be joyful, even in the midst of difficult circumstances.

It is what this glorious power is for. It’s for us, in our homes, right where we’re facing all the challenges, and the difficulties, and the impatience, and feeling upset and mad. We have these things in the flesh, but we don’t have to yield to the flesh. We can yield to Christ who dwells within us.

Have I shared with you before the wonderful revelation of Philemon 1:6? The truth of this Scripture sent me into a whole new realm of living as a young mother. How does it go now? Goodness, I can’t even think of the next one. Something about your faith may be effectual. We want our faith to be effectual, don’t we? But how does it really be effectual? How does the power of God work in our lives?

Yes, I’ve got it now. “That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by . . . how? Now it’s going to tell us: “By the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.” Can you get that revelation? It’s saying that every good thing that’s in Jesus, His patience, His longsuffering, His joyfulness that we’re talking about, His love, and His rest, and His victory, they’re all in Him.

But when He’s in us, they’re in us! THEY’RE IN US! Yes, but they become effectual when we acknowledge them. We have to acknowledge them. So, when you are starting to get agitated, and you really feel like flying off the wall, you just take a moment. You say, “Oh Lord Jesus, thank You that You live in me. Thank You for Your patience. Thank You. Lord, thank You for Your patience that fills me. I’m the most patient mother in my city right now! Thank You, Lord!”

And you acknowledge His patience, or His longsuffering, or whatever it is you need. You can’t go screaming and “flying off the handle” when you're saying, “Thank You, Lord, for Your patience.” You either give into the flesh, or you yield to the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.

Begin to live by this principle. There will be times when you’ll fail, of course, but you’ll gradually live more and more and more this way, so it becomes your habit of life. Yes, it’s acknowledging that every good thing that is in you is in Christ Jesus. Amen?

And this power, this glorious, exceeding, abundant, immeasurable, transcendent, incredible power is for us and for our needs in our homes to help us to have patience. Isn’t that wonderful? To help us have longsuffering, to help us have joy and victory. Amen! So, we sure need more and more of that.

No. 27. MORE POWER IN THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

Hebrews 9:13-14: “For if the blood of bulls and of goats . . . sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

How much more shall the blood of Christ? There is power in the blood to cleanse us from every sin. And yes, when we come to Christ, we receive the cleansing of the precious blood of Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I need the continual cleansing of the blood of Jesus. Because when you are in the Word, and when you walk with the Lord, if you're keeping close to Him, you will find that the Holy Spirit will be convicting you.

He will show you things that are not pleasing to Him. He’ll bring things to your mind, and you think, “Oh, wow! That’s not right!” And you have to, once again, confess, “I’m sorry, Lord Jesus. I confess this thing. I repent of it. Cleanse me with Your precious blood.” And we can continually receive the cleansing of the precious blood. But “how much more shall the blood of Christ?” Oh, it has such power.

1 John 1:7: “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Children listening, do you know that Scripture? 1 John 1:7? If you don’t, learn it. Mothers, if your children don’t know that Scripture, please make it a memory verse. I knew that verse from a child, and I am so glad. I believe every child should know it from a child, so it is with them all through their lives; the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse us from all sin.

And there is coming a day. The Bible speaks about that day, a day that is coming, a day when we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We will give account for all our works that we have done and all the words that we have said, except those that have come under the blood. Because if we’ve brought them to the Lord, and confessed, repented, and received the cleansing of the blood of Jesus, He says: “I will forgive you, and I will remember them no more” (Hebrews 8:12).

So, I want everything under the blood before I get there. Help! I’m scared to stand there on that day and I’m sure there will be things that I’ve forgotten about that will come up on that day. Oh, help! But let’s seek to keep short accounts with God and keep under the cleansing of the precious blood of Jesus which is so powerful. Yes, the precious blood, the pure blood, the powerful blood of Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 12:11, it says: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony, and loved not their lives unto the death.” That’s another good memory verse to teach your children, for you and your children. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.” Amen and amen.

I love to sing the hymns about the blood of Jesus. We sing the beautiful worship songs that are currently around in our church service. But at our daily devotions, we always sing, morning and evening, and in our prayer meetings during the week. We have two prayer meetings during the week too. I don’t know how we could even have less. Help! There is just so much to pray for at this time in our world. So much going on, so much evil, so much need of God to come. Oh, so our hearts are always crying out.

But at these times, we sing the hymns, because I believe there’s something so powerful about the hymns. Yes, I love the powerful worship music too which takes you into the glorious worship. I love it. I truly do, but I also love the hymns. I’m sad that this young generation does not know them. They’re full of doctrine and wonderful truths. I don’t know, maybe you don’t know them.

We have our big pile of hymn books beside our table where we have our devotions. But I also have put together five different hymn sheets, about ten pages in each one of special hymns we love to sing. Just recently I put one together, HYMNS ABOUT THE BLOOD OF JESUS. It is volume 5 for us now. I have ten pages here, but I’ve got 29 hymns that are all about the blood.

Oh, it’s so wonderful to sing them and remind ourselves of the power of the blood of Jesus. If you don’t know them, you can (maybe on my transcript, I’ll have to remember that) I could put a list of some really wonderful hymns about the blood. But you go on to the Internet where you can get music for any worship song or any hymn you like.

The only problem with the hymns is that, often, when you go to the Internet to get music for them, they’re very churchy and stilted. They don’t seem to sing them with such a beautiful, flowing anointing. But maybe you can search until you get a good one. When we sing them, we sing them with, oh, such a beautiful flow and with gusto.

My husband leads. I’m so blessed to have him because he knows thousands of hymns. He can lead us in them. It’s so beautiful. I understand that there are many who don’t know them, so you can’t lead them. If I was leading them, even if I knew them, it would be terrible, because I can’t even sing in tune. So, I love having my husband lead us. It’s so wonderful. But anyway, they are great. I will give you a list in the transcript. I’ll make a note of that.

But another little thing that I do, in fact, is every day, when we have prayer time (I have my own time in the early morning) then, after breakfast, we have our family time, our family devotions. When we have devotions, as you know, we read the Word, we pray, and we sing.

So, I love every morning to thank the Lord for His wonderful salvation, for His blood that He shed. I don’t think we can ever thank Him enough. I don’t think we’ll ever, even in eternity, ever absorb the enormity of the sacrifice of Christ for us, shedding His pure, spotless, precious blood.

And so, as the Israelites, for years and years, they killed the lamb and shed the blood, morning and evening, looking towards Calvary when Jesus, the Lamb of God from the foundation of the world, would come to give His life once and for all. There is no longer any need for sacrifice again.

But I like to look back, not to sacrifice again, of course, but to thank Him. I love to do that. Can I encourage you to do that? Because I don’t think we thank Him enough for His sacrifice, for His precious blood, His blood, which is how much more. It’s a much more. “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God purge your conscience.”

Do you notice there, in that Scripture, in Hebrews 9:14 that the whole of the trinity is involved in our salvation? Everyone. “How much more shall the blood of Jesus Christ,” the Son, “through the eternal spirit,” the Holy Spirit, “who offered Himself without spot to God,” God the Father. They were all involved in our salvation. That’s a beautiful Scripture involving the whole trinity in our salvation. And there are many others, too.

Well, time has gone again, precious ladies. May the Lord bless you this coming week. May you walk more and more in all these beautiful things that we are discovering in the Word. Let us pray.

“Dear Lord Jesus, we do thank You, with all of our hearts, for Your great redemption, Your eternal redemption. Oh, thank You, Lord God, that because You shed Your blood on the cross, Your pure, spotless, precious blood, You have given us an eternal inheritance, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. Lord, already You have a place reserved in Heaven.

Oh, we thank You for Your great sacrifice, and Your great redemption. We’re so unworthy. But, Lord, You did this for us, and we thank You with all our hearts. Help us to be thankful people. “Lord, I pray that You will bless each family who is listening today. Fill their homes with Your Presence, with Your joy, with Your love, and the wonderful joys of family life. In the Name of Jesus, amen”.

* Read the Scriptures about the three-day gap:

Exodus 3:18; 5:3; 8:27; 10:9, 25, 26; and 13:51.

 

Suggested Hymns about the blood of Jesus:

Are you washed in the blood?

And can it be that I should gain?

Alas! And did my Savior bleed

Christ has for sin atonement made

Blessed be the fountain of blood (Whiter than the snow)

Down at the cross where my Savior died

I hear thy welcome voice

I heard an old, old story

I will sing of my Redeemer

Jesus keep me near the cross

Just as I am

Lead me to Calvary

Man of sorrows! What a name

Nothing but the blood of Jesus

O for a thousand tongues to sing

Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it

The blood that Jesus shed for me

There is a name I love to hear

There is a fountain filled with blood

There’s victory in Jesus

The way of the cross leads home

There was One who was willing

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus

There is power in the blood

What can wash away my sin?

When I survey the wondrous cross

A few samples of current worship songs about the cross:

The cross has the final word (Cody Carnes)

Lead me to the cross (Brooke Ligertwood

At the cross (Chris Tomlin)

The power of the cross (Keith and Kristyn Getty

Nailed to the cross (Rend Collective)

Your royal blood (Rend Collective)

Hallelujah for the cross (Ross King and Todd Wright)

 

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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www.aboverubies.org

Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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“LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell, Above Rubies”

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