DO YOU EAT TOGETHER AT YOUR TABLE?

“Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:
and he shall hear my voice”
(Psalm 55:17).

In a day when many families eat on the run, around the TV, or at different times, why is it important to come together as a family and SIT AT THE TABLE FOR FAMILY MEALTIMES? This is what I believe

1. The table is a GATHERING PLACE

There is nothing like food to gather the family together. Everybody loves food! And when we come together, we relate to each other. And when we relate together, it binds us closer together.

2. The table is a COMMUNICATING HUB

It's where we interact with our children and talk heart to heart and soul to soul. Food and fellowship go together. They are twins. It’s “face-to-face table fellowship.” God didn't intend us to eat on the run. When Jesus fed the 5,000 plus, He made them first sit down in groups before He fed them.3. The table is an ENQUIRING CENTER

When we are seated together and not rushing here and there, we have more time for the children to ask us questions and for us to ask them questions. We become part of one another's lives.4. The table is a DISCUSSION ASSEMBLY

I believe it is as important to prepare what you are going to talk about at the table as what you are going to eat. Think about topics you can discuss when you sit down for your evening meal—biblical, spiritual, geographical, or political, etc. Ask fun questions and get everyone involved. Or you can ask each person to come to the table prepared to talk about a book they have been reading recently. Or share about a person who has impacted this world. Sometimes, we have a general knowledge quiz at the table. Use your imagination to make your family table fun and exciting.5. The table is a RELAXING OASIS

Ooops. I know that it's not often like that when you are still training little ones. However, be diligent to keep training for you will eventually reap wonderful blessings. Food releases oxytocin, which is a calming hormone. Therefore as you come together as a family to eat and share together, you relax. Isn't that great?6. The table is a SPIRIT-NOURISHING PLACE

We must change our mindset. The table is not only a place to feed our children's hungry tummies, but a place to feed the whole man—body, soul, and spirit. If we let our children leave the table before we feed their spirit, they leave half fed. The physical food fills us up, relaxes us, and prepares us for the most important feeding, the feeding of the spirit—the reading of God’s Word which feeds the inner man. It is even more important than the outer man. We call it Family Devotions in our home, but you may use a different name. Christian families in The Netherlands call it "Finishing up the Meal." They don’t leave the table only half fed, but finish up their meal by feeding their spirit, the most important part of our being. Never be neglectful of starving the inner man of your children.

7. The table is a PRAYER ALTAR

After the reading of God’s Word we love to pray and worship with a hymn or worship song. It is a great time to pray as the whole family gathers together. You can understand why the enemy tries his hardest to stop families from getting together at the table. He knows we’ll most probably miss praying together and he doesn’t want prayer! It’s prayer that destroys his works and enhances God’s kingdom. Don’t let the devil win in your home.Blessings from Nancy Campbell
www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, I thank You that You have tables in Your heavenly kingdom and when we sit around the table together we picture the heavenly kingdom. Help me to faithful to gather my family every day to the table. Show me how to make our table a very special place, an anointed place, and to establish a heavenly atmosphere.

AFFIRMATION:

The favorite time in our home is when we sit around the table together.

IT’S NOT AN OPTION

“’As for Me, this is My covenant with them,’ says the Lord. ‘
My Spirit will not depart from you, and My words that I have put in your mouth
will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children and grandchildren,
from now on and forevermore,’ says the Lord”
(Isaiah 59:21 BSB).

Dearest ladies, would you mind if I reminded you about two things as we venture into this New Year? We need to remind one another, don’t we? And I know I am always reminding you about these two things, but I believe they are so important. Peter reminded the believers in 2 Peter 1:12: “Therefore, I will always remind you about these things—even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth.”

Are you faithfully imparting God’s Word to your children each day? Are you consistently conducting Family Devotions (or whatever you call it in your home) with your family each day?

It is not enough to have faith for yourself; you must impart it to your children. Deuteronomy 6:6-8 (AMP) says: “You shall teach them diligently to your children (impressing God’s precepts on their minds and penetrating their hearts with His truths) and shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”

The NLT says: “Repeat them again and again to your children.”

God’s Word is clear that we must pass on His truth to our children. He has shown us the way in His Word that He intends us to gather as a family morning and evening. You can read more about it in the following link: http://aboverubies.org/morning-evening-principle.

It’s not something we do haphazardly, but diligently. The word “diligently” in Deuteronomy 6:7 is the Hebrew word shanan and means “to point, to pierce it into their hearts, to prick, to sharpen, to do it intensively, to whet (to sharpen by grinding).”

Can you establish this as a habit in your family life this year? It’s not just a good idea. It is imperative for the saving of our nation. It is crucial for the preservation of future generations—our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Now for the second reminder. You’ve guessed it of course. It is praying together as a family. I believe this is one of the greatest things that we can do together as a family. Prayer brings God on the scene! Prayer touches the heart of God. Prayer changes the world. Praying families are world-changing families.

But the devil hates prayer! He will do everything in his power to stop you praying. He’ll even use good things to stop you. Mostly good things because he knows he can’t tempt you with evil things. He’ll use busyness and getting involved in too many outside activities. He’ll get you running your children around to so many good things that you don’t have time to pray together as a family every morning and evening.

Dearest mothers, praying together doesn’t just happen. I have found by experience that we must MAKE IT HAPPEN! We must make praying together twice a day the most important agenda on our daily calendar. Everything else fits into this biblical and most powerful thing we can do as a family. We don’t hope it will fit in with our plans because it never will. We must prepare, plan, and purpose it to happen.

God revealed a principle of prayer in the tabernacle of the wilderness through the golden table of incense. As you know, incense speaks of prayer, intercession, praise, and prayer. Read the following Scriptures: Exodus 30:6-8; Psalm 141:2; Revelation 5:8; and 8:3-5.

How often were they commanded to light the incense? God commanded them to light it every morning and every evening. That was God’s plan to keep the sweet aroma filling the holy place continually. It was to be a perpetual incense, never to go out.

These basic foundations of daily reading God’s word and praying together will keep the presence of God filling your home. The enemy of our souls is on the prowl to stop your home from being filled with God’s love and His presence. But you know the answer. Make it a habit in your family.

It’s a great way to begin this New Year.

Many blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Dear Father God, I confess that I want You to be God in our family. I don’t want to serve any other gods, even the god of busyness that keeps us from Your presence. Help me to organize our home so we can gather our family morning and evening into Your presence, to hear You speak to us from Your Word and to cry out to You for this nation and the needs of those around us. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am no longer allowing the lesser things of this life to crowd out that which is the most important.

WHY DO THEY HATE IT?

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh”
(Genesis 2:24).

Fatherhood is the very essence of God and He wants His fatherhood represented to the world through man. God reveals His plan for fathering and mothering in the very beginning of the Bible. Genesis 2:24 is the first Scripture to use the word father, before anyone had ever seen a father and mother!

We go over to the New Testament and Paul prays: “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14). Every family finds its source in the fatherhood of God.

The Greek word for family in this passage is patria from the root word pater which is the word for father. Everything that is called after the Father belongs to, or springs from Him. Oh, how the feminists hate this! They hate the word patriarchy which comes from pater.

This is the ridiculous deception of feminism. They hate their origin. They hate who they are because they hate God who is their source. They hate their femininity and motherhood which is their highest destiny. And yet they could not be in this world without a natural father, and of course, their Heavenly Father who is the only One who gives conception and who planned their gender and destiny.

When I have been interviewed by secular TV, I notice that they always gravitate to the so-called evils of patriarchy. Sadly, they see it from a distorted view rather than the heart of God for the blessing of the world.

We know that many harbor this hatred because of hurts they have received from their own fathers or from other men in their lives. This is all the work of the enemy. Satan hates fathering and mothering because it is how God wants to reveal Himself on this earth and he hates every plan of God. Therefore, he constantly attacks these powerful roles to distort them and tread them down.

That’s why we must continually pray the promise of Malachi 4:5 that “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.” God’s ultimate plan is that fathers reveal His beautiful Father heart to their families and the world, just as God wants His female creation to reveal His maternal heart to their children and to the world.

Jesus was one with the Father. He was the Beloved Son of His Father, and the Father was His Beloved Father. And yet in His most amazing mercy He wants to share His Beloved Father with us. That’s why He left the glory of Heaven to come to this earth, shed His blood, and pour out His life for us—to save us and share His Father with us for eternity.

After Jesus had risen from the dead, He said to Mary: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). Have you ever read anything so incredible? Jesus tells us that He wants His Father to be our Father. He wants to share His glorious and eternal Father with us.

Would you like to share your father? Maybe we would be too selfish to do that. And yet Jesus wants us to experience His Father. When we know Him, we understand what fatherhood is all about.

While Satan and all his cohorts are pulling down fatherhood and motherhood, let’s raise up these roles to be mighty in the nation. When we do this, we reveal God in the earth and we bring God’s blessing to the nation.

Be encouraged. Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Thank you, dear Father, that it was Your plan to create fatherhood and motherhood. It is Your plan for the way we are to live in this world, and You do not have an alternative plan. Please help my husband and me to show forth Your divine fathering and mothering to our families. Help us to exalt these roles in the midst of this distorted world. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I love what God loves and therefore I embrace and love the roles of fatherhood and motherhood.

THE ONE TENTH COMPANY

“In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”
(1 Thessalonians 5:18).

When Jesus came into a village between Galilee and Samaria, he met ten people with leprosy. They stood at a distance, as all lepers had to do, and cried out to Jesus to have mercy on them. Of course, Jesus responded with compassion and said to them: “Go and show yourselves to the priests and as they went they were healed!” How amazing this must have been—to suddenly look down and see all their leprosy disappearing.

But what is even more amazing is that only one bothered to return to Jesus and thank Him. When this man saw that he was healed, he “turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks.” But then Jesus asked: “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Read the whole story in Luke 17:11-19.

I wonder how often Jesus still asks this question today? “Where are the nine? This story has always challenged me. I certainly don’t want to belong to the nine tenths company, do you?

It’s important to regularly check that we belong to the right company. Do we belong to this company who are constantly grateful and thankful for all God’s goodness to us? Not just the big things, but even the little things? Or do we belong to the nine tenths company who take all the blessings and forget to thank Him?

Let’s cultivate being thankful—thankful for the provision of a home, for our husbands, for the children God has given us, and for all the little things that happen all around us every moment of the day, especially if we look for them.

I love to make it my habit to thank my Savior, Jesus Christ, every day, for His great salvation and for the sacrifice He made to leave the glory of eternity to come to this world to die for me. How can I ever thank Him enough? I don’t want to miss one day. Every sacrifice on the altar in the Old Testament looked toward Calvary, when Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, took away the sins of the world. There is no longer any need for sacrifices to be made, but now I love to look back to Calvary and never be guilty of unthankfulness for my great redemption.

Let’s also cultivate this habit in our children too. Encourage a lifestyle of thankfulness. Never forgetting to say “Yes, thank you” and “No, thank you.” Do they thank you for cooking your meal each night? That’s a good habit for them too, especially as sons grow up to be husbands. My husband reminds everyone each evening to thank me for preparing the meal.

Are you teaching your children to be grateful when you, or their siblings or anyone else, does some little thing for them and to immediately respond with thanks? Are you creating a lifestyle of thankfulness in your home?

Colossians 2:6, 7 says: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him and established in the faith . . . abounding therein with thanksgiving.” Most versions of the Bible translate this Scripture “overflowing in thankfulness (or gratitude).” The word abounding in the Greek is perisseuo. It literally means “superabounding, excessively, abundantly, enough and to spare, over and above.” It’s a word that means far above the normal. Over the top. Are you an “over the top” family in thankfulness?

I wonder how many times you say Thank You throughout the day. Is your home filled with each one thanking one another?

If course, not everything is always going to be going our way. Everyone of us face challenging and difficult times. Do we still keep thanking. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 tell us: “In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” Do you want to e in the will of God? Then we must thank God in every circumstance.

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, You are worthy of my thanks. Help me to be a thankful person and to teach my famiily to be thankful. May it become the habit of our lives and please save us from being a family that belongs to the “nine tenths company.” Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I now belong to the one-tenth company who daily overflow with thankfulness!