PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 396: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 5

LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell

EPISODE 396: WELCOME TO THE LAND OF MORE AND MORE, Part 5

Yes, there is always MORE AND MORE! This session we talk about more enlarging; enlarging our vision and our boundaries. And more face-to-face fellowship with one another. God not only loves us to do this but to do it SO MUCH MORE!

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: Good morning to you, ladies! Well, of course, I know it might be evening when you are listening, but it is morning here in Tennessee. This is podcast 396. Wow, we only have four more and we will be up to 400! Well, it’s amazing just how we keep going.

Anyway, we are still on this series of “Welcome to the Land of More and More.” This is the land of the kingdom of God and the land of the Word of God. God wants us to know all that He has given us. Well, we’ll never know all that He has given us. There is just so much. But I do believe that we’ve got to be those who explore and find out all that God has for us, or as much as we can.

I think of when God took Moses up to the mountain before he died. We read about this in Deuteronomy 34. It says: “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead unto him.”

God was going to be taking Moses. In fact, we don’t even know where Moses is buried. But he went up to the mountain, and he went to be with the Lord. God buried him, because I think God knew that if they knew where Moses was buried, they would maybe have worshipped him and worshipped his grave.

But before this happened, God wanted to show him the land that He had promised him. So, up there, on the top of Pisgah, Moses was able to look out and see all this land. It continues: “And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over there.”

God did not allow Moses to go into the land. God had chosen Joshua to take the people into the land. Moses had fulfilled the task that God had for Him. But He wanted to show Moses, to show it all to him. So, he got a vision, he got a glimpse of it.

God wants you to get a glimpse of all the land that He has given you, of all that He has given you on His table, which is a feast. The Word of God is a feast. There is so much. The table is laden with good things in this kingdom and in Christ. He now dwells within us if we’re born again and have received Him into our lives.

God has given us a land of good things. So often, we just paddle around the shallows. We never get out into the deep. We never even know all that God has for us. But in this series, we are looking into all the Scriptures where it talks about “more,” because this is what the land is all about. It’s not status quo. It’s not normal. It’s not average. It is more. Everything in God is more. Not only more, but so many Scriptures say, “how much more.” So, let’s carry on, shall we?

No. 12. MORE ENLARGING

In 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, it says: “And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh, that Thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Thine hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.”

Now, Jabez was obviously a very interesting guy. He was not content with the status quo. The Bible calls him “more honorable” because he wasn’t content with his status quo. He wanted to enlarge his coast. He had a big vision, a large vision. That’s what God wants us to have, dear ladies. He doesn’t want us to have this little, miserly vision. He wants to give us a big vision, and a big vision of the land that He has given to us.

I love that Scripture in Isaiah 54:2-3. It is an exhortation to Israel, but we can take it personally. The Scriptures are all written to us personally. Many times, they’re written about Israel, or to Israel, or about other people. But every Scripture is still for us. The Bible tells us that everything that was written in the Old Testament was a type. It was a type for us to learn from today. It was written for our learning, for us who are living now.

This Scripture says: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.”

This is giving God’s people a big vision. Don’t be content with just a little. Have a large vision. Enlarge your vision. Enlarge the place of your tent. Now, back in this time, they were living in tents. Here it’s telling them to enlarge their tents. You know, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes because you've got to get a bigger vision! I think God loves to come alongside those who have a big vision.

I know some of you, maybe even with big families, because this is a vision for a big family; enlarging your coasts, enlarging your vision, enlarging your home so you can fit more in. Some of you, even with large families are living in little houses. It’s amazing how you are managing. God is blessing you. That is so wonderful. But always be open to enlarge.

I do believe that as we trust God for the children that He wants to give us, and He brings them along, God provides for them. I love this Scripture. You can bring it before the Lord and ask Him to give you an even bigger vision.

In Jeremiah 29:6, where the children of Israel are now being taken from their land as captives, and they’re taken to Babylon, in this strange country with strange gods. But God comforts them through the prophet. He says, “While you're there, keep increasing.” Then He says the words: “Do not diminish.” God never wants us to diminish. He always wants us to increase, enlarge, and to have an enlarging vision.

I think back to the story of our lives. We started off, of course, when we were first married, just living in a little apartment. In fact, it was not long after we were married that we went to a Bible school for a few months. During that time we stayed with some people. You wouldn’t believe it. We stayed in a room where they had originally had pigs! It wasn’t really very nice at all.

But anyway, we were young and adventurous and sold out to God. We didn’t care where we lived. After that, we went to the Philippine Islands and lived in some very interesting places there too. Then we came back to New Zealand. We are New Zealanders by birth. We were in an apartment again until we went ahead, and by faith and by loans, we purchased this little house.

We had no money. We didn’t even have a cent! But back then in New Zealand, you could do that. Be paying it off. The bank really owned it. But we had this little house. As the children grew, God helped us to get a bigger house. We kept enlarging, and then, we went to Australia, because we moved. We were in full-time ministry. Colin was pastoring.

Then we went to Australia to plant a new church on the Gold Coast of Australia. There the Lord provided wonderful accommodation for us. We never owned anything there at all, but the Lord was good and provided.

And then, we came to the States eventually. For the first time, we were back in a little apartment again here in Tennessee in Antioch, a suburb of Nashville. It wasn’t really a great neighborhood, but we were there. I remember doing Above Rubies in that little apartment. I had a desk for Above Rubies, and there was about six inches between that desk and our table where we ate and where we opened our table to visitors when we first came here.

We thought, “Oh, the way to get to know people is to show hospitality.” So, in that little apartment we always invited people. Somehow, I managed to keep doing Above Rubies. As I said, about six inches between the desk and the table. In fact, I have never, ever taken Above Rubies out of our home. I’ve been doing it now for over 48 years.

We started it in New Zealand and then moved to Australia and began to get it out across that nation. Then we came here to the States. So, we’re still in the home. I’m still doing it in this little apartment. Then the Lord opened up the church where He wanted us to pastor at that time. It was out a little bit in the country, so we were pastoring there.

This church had an attic at the top. So, we thought, “Wow!” Colin thought, “Let’s make this into an apartment!” He and another guy made this attic into an apartment. Wow! We have such wonderful memories of that place. There was only one little window at the end. Our bedrooms (we made, I think, about three bedrooms in this attic up in this church). We called them “The Caves” because there was no light. Everything was dark until you turned the light on. They were our caves where we went to sleep at night.

But once again, we had wonderful times in that place, showing hospitality. All throughout our lives, we have never stopped showing hospitality, even if we’ve been in a little place. I think when God sees that you want to bless His people, and you want to invite them in, well, I think He wants to provide a bigger place for you.

But anyway, there was something special about this place, and that was, although we lived up in this dark attic and slept in our caves, downstairs, of course was the church sanctuary. And so, we began to use this, not just for our church on Sunday, but for all our functions. We were always having functions and inviting people. Of course, we would open it up downstairs. There was a kitchen downstairs. We could have many people there.

I remember putting on Serene’s 18^th birthday there. It was a wonderful occasion, because back in New Zealand, you come of age when you're 21. You have a very big party. So, we were used to doing that. But when we came here, we found out that OK, 18 is when you come of age here, so we did a big party for her there. Then we had her engagement party there. Then we had her wedding there and the wedding reception there. We put on a wedding for my sister there too.

We were always having different functions. After a while, we thought, “How can we ever, ever live again without a great big room to have so many people?” God was actually good, because we eventually came out here to where we are now, back in 2000. We’ve been here now for 25 years, out in the country. We came out here and purchased land. It was so cheap then. Wow! It’s really gone up now.

We began to build out here. So, of course, we first started with Above Rubies. We were going to do it as a go-down, basement under the earth, and have it under the earth, and get a mobile home. But it was so hard. The dirt was like concrete. They couldn't even dig it! So, we had to build this basement for Above Rubies, our office, our packing room, and our storage, above the ground.

And then, what are we going to do now? Because all we could afford, and get a loan for, was this mobile home. The people we were purchasing it from would have nothing to do with our trying to crane it up on top of this basement we had made for Above Rubies. Colin had to find out himself the engineering for putting all the steel and everything that would be required, to put a mobile home on top. They wiped their hands of it. They were scared that it wouldn’t work. Anyway, it did work.

I remember the day that they came and brought the mobile home in two halves and craned it up. Actually, I hardly looked. I was a bit scared myself. But here we are. We’re still living in it, 25 years later. But the amazing thing was, whoo, it was so incredible! Because we now had this great big room like we’ve had back in the church on Clovercroft Road in Franklin. We lived upstairs, but downstairs we had our big Above Rubies packaging room.

In those days, we were packaging it here in the home. When we sent out a new magazine, I would get in about 30 or so ladies for a whole week. We would work every day, packaging, parceling. Colin would take a trailer load to the post office every single day as we got them ready. Of course, eventually, it got too big even for that. So now, it is done by another packaging firm at the printer’s because it got bigger and bigger and bigger.

But still, we now have this room, which we have all our family functions in. Oh, it is such a blessing. God has blessed us in that we’ve been able to enlarge and live this lifestyle of having many, many people into our home, which is such a blessing. That’s how we love to live. We love to live, having people, always having people for meals, always having functions. We also have church in our big room downstairs.

Wow! How did I get onto that? Well, we’re enlarging along the way. I know, some of you are thinking, “Oh, wow, we could do with a bigger place.” Well, live what you are in TO THE FULL! Have whatever children God gives to you. Never hold back.

And don’t stop having hospitality because you haven’t got enough room. Goodness, in places where we didn’t have enough room, we still had hospitality. We squashed up and sat on boxes. We made do. I think when God sees that you're wanting to fill your place, and you can’t fill it anymore, He will bless you and give you a bigger place.

Oh, I remember those wonderful days. When we would have a function, we would always have (and we brought this from New Zealand and Australia, we had what we call “items.”). It’s a word that you don’t use for this here in the States. In fact, did you know that there is such a huge difference between the “English-English,” and the “American-English”?

When I was reading the book by Bill Bryson called Mother Tongue, he wrote this book on how the English language came to be. He wrote a statement in that book which I’ve never forgotten, because I’ve experienced it. He says that there are about 40,000 different words between English-English and the American-English. That is so true. We say so many things differently.

When someone came to sing a solo, or someone to sing a duet, or someone to put on a performance of something, a musical instrument, or even to give a poem, or something like that, we called it an “item.” I don’t know what you call it here. I really don’t even know. I think you call it like a “talent show.” It’s not that, because nobody did this to show off their talent. They did it to bless people.

Oh, we had, of course, many beautiful singers around us. Being in Franklin, you've always got great singers. But I remember our dear friends Derrick and Tara. We always asked them to sing together as husband and wife. They sang so beautifully together. Then we had other lovely friends, Brian and Sally. We always asked them to sing too, and they sang in beautiful harmony. They would always sing together.

In fact, when we had Serene and Sam’s wedding, Derrick and Tara sang at the wedding service. That’s another thing. In New Zealand, it was always the norm for the wedding service to not only have the service, but to have someone give a special item. I understand you don’t use that word, but we would ask someone to sing.

I remember at our wedding, we had a gentleman with a beautiful voice. He sang, not from the hymns that we sang on the day. But this was special solo He sang, “Take My Life and Let It Be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” But he sang the whole hymn, taking it as a prayer for us. “Take their lives, and let them be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” It was so beautiful.

Then, of course, at our wedding reception, you have more items, more people to sing specials, and it’s really wonderful. Then, of course, you have loads of speeches too. I remember when I was married, that’s nearly coming up . . . can you believe it? Nearly 63 years ago, we were married in 1963! Yes, we had those who sang, and then we had all the speeches. In fact, it was like a whole-day conference! It was so amazing.

But at all our children’s weddings, and all our friends’ weddings, there were always these beautiful specials of people singing. Then all the speeches. I remember when we came to the States. Wow! We couldn’t believe it! People didn’t do all this. In fact, the wedding got through pretty quickly, and that’s it, you just left!

I remember when we first arrived, I don’t know how I’m getting onto all this. But anyway, I’ll tell you some of our stories. We had just gotten to the States. Howard and Evangeline were going to be married. We drove to Minneapolis and got an apartment. We lived in a city we’d never been to before and put on a wedding! It was a great wedding, but I was devastated because we had the service, it was beautiful.

Then we had the reception planned. Of course, we had planned to have specials, items, people to sing, and then to have all the speeches. But once we had served everybody, we noticed them all disappearing! They just left, one by one. It was really just the immediate family who was left for the speeches. I could not believe it! They weren’t used to that, so they didn’t even stay for it!

When Serene was married, I made sure. I put a little notice on the invitation. “When we have the reception, we’ll be having speeches. We would love you to stay and be part of this.” I actually didn’t put the following on the invitation, but I really would have liked to, “And we will be locking the doors until it is over.” But I didn’t of course! But anyway, everybody did stay.

In fact, the night of the reception at Serene’s wedding, it was cold and raining outside. In this big, beautiful room, we had a great big fire going. It was so cozy. Everyone stayed for all the most amazing speeches and specials. It was so wonderful.

Of course, we’ve continued that with all our grandchildren’s weddings. We are all speech-making family. There are always speeches, speeches, speeches. We love that. And goodness me, how did I even get onto that? Wow! But always have a vision of enlarging. Enlarging in our personal lives, enlarging in our family lives, enlarging in our vision, because God tells us that is more honorable.  

No. 13. MORE FACE TO FACE FELLOWHIP

Let’s look at a few Scriptures here. As we do, we see Paul’s heart of love for his fellow believers. In 1 Thessalonians 2:17, he writes: “But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.” Wow! Do you get that? He is longing to see these new believers and to be with them. He has such a longing. He says: “We have more abundantly, we endeavored more abundantly to see your face with great desire.”

Then, in 1 Thessalonians 3:6, he says: “You were always desiring greatly to see us, and we also to see you.” Then down a few verses, in verses 9-10, he says: “For what thanks can we render to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before our God; night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face?”

Do you get that, ladies? There was such a desire and longing to have true face-to-face fellowship with the believers. Is that how you feel about the believers in your life? Maybe especially those who you haven’t seen for a while. How you long to see them.

That should be the heart that is in us, because, as it says in 1 John 3:16: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That’s a wonderful Scripture, but that’s actually not the one that I was looking for here. That’s a good one. But also in 1 John, it says somewhere . . . 3:14: “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren.” We love the believers. That’s one of the proofs that we are born again and belong to the family of God, that we love the brethren, and we long to see them.

Let’s look at one or two other Scriptures. Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:4: “I long night and day to see you again.”

Then we go to 2 John, where John is writing. He writes to the elect lady in 2 John 1:12: “I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our joy may be full.”

Then in 3 John 1:14, he’s writing to Gaius. “I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face.”

There’s something about the face. You know, when we fellowship, we’re looking at one another’s faces, aren’t we? That’s why, when we were going through that terrible time of covid, which was so wrong and so from the devil, they were getting everybody to wear masks, which was totally ridiculous because that did not stop anything.

It was against the Word of God, because what does it say in 2 Corinthians 3:18? “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” That’s speaking of how we behold the Lord. The more we behold Him, we are changed into His image. But it also means that we are to behold one another. We see the Lord in one another as we look at one another’s faces.

“That we all, with open face,” did you notice that? “Open face,” not veiled face, not masked face. Of course, we’re not doing that now, praise the Lord. But it was not the right thing because God wants us to have an open face. He wants us to fellowship with one another, face to face.

I believe in face-to-face table fellowship, starting in our own homes, with our own families, sitting around the table. That’s why we sit around the table. The table is a glory place that brings us together, where we fellowship, and we can look at one another, face to face. It’s important.

Watch, lovely mothers, to not get caught up in things where you are missing that family meal table. Instead, you're out somewhere. Maybe out on the sports field. You’re out doing something, and you’re coming home. There’s not even time to get home and cook a meal. You’re grabbing some fast food. You’re eating it in the car. The children are just looking at the back of the head of the one in front of them. That’s not fellowship. We’ve got to sit around to have fellowship. It’s to face-to-face table fellowship. Amen?

Now I notice, I’ve written down that Scripture, 1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.”

OUR FAITH IS A “YOU AND ME” FAITH

Now in Romans chapter one, Paul is writing to the Romans. What does he say to them? Romans 1:11: “For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

Did you get that? Our faith is not an isolated faith. It’s not just only a “me” faith. No, Paul is writing, and he says it is a “you and me” faith. You and me. Get it again. “That I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith.” That word “mutual” means “one another.” “By the one-another faith of you and me.” Therefore, we need to have more and more of this you-and-me faith, face-to-face fellowship where we long to see one another, and fellowship with one another.

Well, I see that time is going. It went too quickly. I started telling you stories, didn’t I? But I want to share a little more about this in the next session. I’ve got something else I want to tell you and then we’ll go on to our next point.

“Dear Father, we thank You so much for Your land, the land of the kingdom of God, this glorious kingdom you’ve brought us into. And Lord, one of these “more and mores” is this face-to-face fellowship together. Oh, Father, I pray that You will help us to be those who bless the brethren, bless them with hospitality, bless them with fellowship, for this is what it’s meant to be. This is the picture that you give. We thank You. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

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Transcribed by Darlene Norris

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