LOVE IN YOUR HOME
Part 3

Isn’t it amazing how many adjectives it takes to describe God’s love? One word is not adequate. I have found 35 different words to adequately describe it.

7. COMFORTING AND CONSOLING Love (Philippians 2;1, 2).

Oh, the bliss of comforting love.       

       8. CONQUERING Love (Romans 8:37-39).

Agape love can conquer all situations.

9. DISCIPLINARY Love (1 Peter 1:22).

This Scripture in the Knox translation says: “Purify our souls with the discipline of love.”

It’s important to understand that love takes discipline. To live in an undisciplined life is selfish. It’s not thinking of others but only one’s self. To sleep late, let the household chores pile up, and allow the home to become disorderly because you are undisciplined is not love. Disciplinary love makes sure meals are ready on time. Ii delights to make them delicious and nutritious. It makes sure the home runs smoothly so everyone can relax and enjoy life. To manage a home that’s filled with peace and love takes discipline.

10. EDIFYING Love (1 Corinthians 8:1 and Ephesians 4:16).

Love edifies. It builds up rather than pulls down. When we truly love, we build up those we live amongst. We build up our husband each day with loving, positive, affirming, and encouraging words. We do the same with our children.

Encourage each child in your family to only say words that will build up their siblings. No negative words allowed!

11. ENDURING Love (Romans 8:37-39 and 1 Corinthians 13:7).

Love endures all things, no matter how difficult. The AMPC translation says: “Love . . . endures everything without weakening.”

12. FERVENT Love (1 Peter 1:22 and 1 Peter 4:8).

“Love one another fervently with a pure heart.” Other translations use the words “earnestly, deeply, heartily, intensely, passionately, unselfishly, and wholeheartedly.” What a challenge! Each word helps us to understand further how we are to love one another. Teach your children what this kind of love means.

13. FORBEARING Love (1 Corinthians 13:4 and Ephesians 4:2).

“Forbearing one another in love.” Forbearing means to endure and put up with those who are difficult to put up with. It means to bear patiently with idiosyncrasies that annoy us. Agape love bears lovingly with the weaknesses of those in our homes. I love the Way’s translation of 1 Corinthians 13:4: “Love is long-forbearing.” That simply means to put up with for a long time.

14. FORGIVING Love (Ephesians 4:32 and Luke 23:34).

“Be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Love is not love if it does not forgive. Even when Jesus faced the greatest abuse that any human could endure, He said: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

15. GENUINE AND SINCERE Love (2 Corinthians 6:6 and 1 Peter 1:22).

Romans 12:9 (NASB): “Let love be without hypocrisy.”

The NLT states it plainly: “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them.”

2 Corinthians 8:8: “Prove the sincerity of your love.”

16. HOPEFUL Love (1 Corinthians 13:7).

“Love . . . hopes all things (remaining steadfast during difficult times)” (AMP). Hopeful love hangs on while it looks expectantly to God to do good things.

17. HUMBLE Love (1 Corinthians 13:4-5 and Philippians 2:7-8).

“Love does not brag, it is not puffed up (NET).”

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, how can I show this kind of love to others? It is so foreign to me. Please come and flood me with Your Holy Spirit and pour out Your love through me. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

Love is the atmosphere of our home.

P.S. Are you sharing these love adjectives with your children?

Did you know, I am now doing a podcast for you each week called FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell? I know you will be blessed and encouraged. Go to www.aboverubies.org and you’ll see the icon. Or go to http://ARPoddy.buzzsprout.com

LOVE IN YOUR HOME
Part 2

“You yourselves are taught of God to love one another”
(1 Thessalonians 4:9).

More adjectives about agape love for you today.

1. AFFECTIONATE Love (Titus 2:4).

The Bible gives us two different words for affectionate love in this Scripture, one for wives and one for mothers—a special word for each role. The wifely love is philandros and the motherly love is philoteknos. They both come from the root word philos which means “to be friendly and affectionate.” In other words, we physically show our love by touching, hugging, and kissing.

Do you tangibly show love to your husband each day? Caressing him? Touching him? Kissing him? Cuddling him?

Our children need this tangible love too. It’s easy to show this cuddly love when our children are little, but we must keep on showing it physically even as they grow older.

2. BELIEVING Love (1 Corinthians 13:7 and Galatians 5:6).

“Love believeth all things.” The AMPC translation says: “Love . . . is ever ready to believe the best of every person.”

3. BEARING UP Love (1 Corinthians 13:7).

“Love bears up under anything and everything that comes” (AMPC).

4. CHASTENING Love (Hebrews 12:6).

Forgive me, ladies. I made a huge oversight. I had completed this beautiful study of  the adjectives the Bible uses to describe agape love, when all of a sudden, I realize I had missed one! How could I miss Chastening Love when its theme runs through the Old and New Testaments?

I am placing it in alphabetical order here for you even though I didn’t remember it until the end. I am glad the Holy Spirit prompted me before I closed this study (you will now discover 35 different adjectives describing agape love in the coming devotions).

            Hebrews 12:5, 6: “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” Strong language. We don’t like to associate love with chastening, do we? However, God’s love chastens us for or blessing. For our good. To conform us to divine truth.

God uses this same word for the love He has for His Beloved Son and for us His adopted children. Paul often referred to the saints as “beloved.” Therefore, let’s not get into a tizzy when God corrects us. His discipline reveals His love for us.

Even more, it reveals that we truly belong to Him. If we do not receive any correction or discipline from the Lord, are we truly His children? The Bible says No. Let’s read verse 7 and 8 from the NLT: “As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.”

How does God discipline us? Many times, it comes through other people and sometimes members of our own family. We find this hard to receive, but it is actually God’s discipline.

Job 5:17: “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.”

Psalm 94:12: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law.”

Proverbs 3:11, 12: “My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction. For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”

Revelation 3:19: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

Because God, as a loving Father, deals with us this way, we also chasten our children. We don’t parent haphazardly. We don’t yell at our children when they do crazy things. We parent intentionally because we passionately them. We want them to grow into maturity and live god-fearing lives. Therefore, we discipline and chasten them with godly love.

To be recipients of God’s great agape love, we must also receive His correcting and chastening.

PRAYER:

Dear Father, I thank You for Your love which is so overwhelming. I thank You that I can bask in Your love for me. Please help me to also embrace the correcting anointing of Your love. Help me to receive instead of resist. I know You do it for my good, to change me from glory to glory and to conform me into the image of your dear Son. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

Without the chastening of the Lord I am not a true child of God.

Did you know, I am now doing a podcast for you each week called FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell? I know you will be blessed and encouraged. Go to www.aboverubies.org and you’ll see the icon. Or go to http://ARPoddy.buzzsprout.com

LOVE IN YOUR HOME
Part 1

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit
in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart.”
(1 Peter 1:22 NKJV).

It’s easy to love when someone loves you, isn’t it? Reciprocal love is sweet and special. But how do you love when someone does not like you? How about when they throw abuse in your face? Hate you? Disrespect you? Misuse you? What do you do then? Maybe you can cope with it when it is someone outside the home. It’s not so personal but how do you survive when they are members of your own family?

I am sure you are familiar with the different Greek words for love. One is eros which is sexual love. It gives pleasure to the senses. It is a God-given love, but this love is not enough to hold a marriage together. It takes other kinds of love.

The word phileo is tender, affectionate love. It is friendship love. It is a maternal love. It is the love we feel with our emotions. Titus 2:4 speaks of phileo love when it exhorts the young women to “love their husbands . . . to love their children.” Couples can live very happily together when both show phileo love to one another. But when phileo love turns off in either the husband or wife, what happens then? This is when we need agape love.

In 1 Peter 1:22 Peter encourages the saints in their “love of the brethren,” translated from philadelphia, meaning brotherly/friendship love. But he urges them to move on to agape love as he writes: “see that ye love (agape) one another with a pure heart fervently.”

Peter writes again in 2 Peter 1:7: “Add to godliness brotherly kindness (philadelphia); and to brother kindness love (agape).”

In 1 Thessalonians 4:9 Paul also urges the saints on to greater love. “But as touching brotherly love (philadelphia), we need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love (agape) one another.”

Agape love is God’s love. It reveals the character of God. It goes beyond natural feelings. It keeps loving even when abused and hated. It keeps loving even when the person is ugly and horrible.

Agape loves because it wills to love whereas phileo loves according to how we feel.

Agape loves indiscriminately, whereas phileo discriminates.

Agape loves unconditionally whereas phileo is conditional.

Agape loves in spite of whereas phileo loves because of.

Agape love never fails whereas phileo love can fail.

Agape love is not naturally in you or me. It is only in Christ. 1 Timothy 1:14 and 2 Timothy 1:13 speak of “the love which is in Christ Jesus.” The amazing revelation is that Jesus Christ lives in me. Because He lives in me by His Holy Spirit, agape love is in me. Romans 5:5 says: “The love (agape) of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

In Christ, I can love with agape love. This is miraculous. This is supernatural. As we believe it, affirm it, confess it, and walk in it by faith, we can love the unlovely, love when abused, love when rejected, and love when despitefully used. This is the glorious power of Christ’s redemption. He not only redeems us from our sin but comes to indwell us by His Holy Spirit with all His love, joy, peace, and longsuffering.

Agape is described by many different words in the New Testament. Each one of these words are a challenge to me. I am sure they will be to you too. You may also like go through these adjectives with your children, teaching them the way God wants us to love each another. You could take one adjective a day, or a week, and seek to develop this aspect of love in your family life. And please don’t forget to look up the Scripture or Scriptures.

1. ABIDING Love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

This kind of love remains through thick and thin.

2. ABOUNDING Love (2 Corinthians 8:7; Philippians 1:9; and 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9-10; and 2 Thessalonians 1:3.

This is God’s way. Never average. Never normal. Always ABOUNDING. The Greek word for “abound” is perisseuo and occurs frequently in the New Testament. God wants us to abound in so many qualities, including love. We’ve discovered it before in this devotional, but let’s check it again. It means “to superabound, to excel, to be abundant, enough and to spare, exceed, increase, over and above.” This reminds me of something I read years ago: “If a little bit of love isn’t effective, increase the dose.” A little bit of love is not enough for some situations. To be effective, you need to pile it on.

The Way’s translation of 2 Corinthians 8:7 says: “Full you are to overflowing . . . of the love that leaps from your hearts to mine.” What an exciting description of love. I think of a frog jumping from one rock to another. Can you get the picture of love leaping from one heart to another in your family? Love is not stagnant love. Leaping love is vibrant, pulsating, and overflowing. It doesn’t stay in the heart, but leaps from one member to another within the home.

Imagine if every member in the family tried to love this way, even for one day! What miracles could happen! What about a week? What about a month? Are you going to try this in your home? Could you encourage each member to do at least one ABOUNDING act of love each day? That means something that is out of the ordinary. What an exciting way to live.

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, please teach me what it truly means to love with Your love. My love is so shallow and I long to experience the deepness and fullness of Your love. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m releasing the graces of  forbearing and forgiving love in my home today.

Did you know, I am now doing a podcast for you each week called FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell? I know you will be blessed and encouraged. Go to www.aboverubies.org and you’ll see the icon. Or go to http://ARPoddy.buzzsprout.com

QUINTESSENTIALLY FEMININE
Part 2

“Let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible,
even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price”
(1 Peter 3:4).

The ultimate quintessence of motherhood is the
revelation of God’s maternal heart to the world.

Nursing a baby is very much part of our femaleness. There are some mothers who deny themselves the privilege and joy of nursing their own baby, and yet this is primal and quintessential to being female. ¹ The Bible tells us that “Even jackals offer the breast, they nurse their young; but the daughter of my people has become cruel like ostriches in the wilderness” (Lamentations 4:3).²

Our little daughters naturally behave femininely. They haven’t yet been conditioned by society. They love to mother. That’s all they want to be when they grow up until society re-programs their brains. They love babies. They love to dress like princesses, which is another area of our femininity we have lost. As we look around today we see most women in the uniform of the day—jeans and top. I don’t say you should not wear the “uniform,” but does it really convey who we are? Nor do I say you can’t wear pants. The men in biblical days didn’t wear pants but wore long flowing robes. The important thing is to make whatever you wear look feminine.

When my little granddaughters go to my dress-up box, what do they want to wear? Each one of them wants to be a princess. They look for the princess dresses, and if there are not enough to go around, they create them out of sheets and old curtains! I have never noticed that they want to dress up in a business suit!

One of my Above Rubies helpers shared with me that she and her sister sewed civil war time dresses with hooped skirts for a historical fair they were attending. They had to run some errands, and rather than changing into street clothes, decided to wear their dresses. They were amazed that in every store, both workers and shoppers, stopped to exclaim, “Oh you look so beautiful!” or “What beautiful dresses!”

I was thinking about this when traveling some time back. Delayed in a long line at an airport, I decided to look around for beautiful women. Every woman wore the “uniform,” but I spotted one lady who stood out from everyone else. She was dressed in a flowing apricot-colored sari with scarves flowing around her. She looked gloriously feminine and I feasted my eyes upon her as I waited. How sad that we have degenerated so far from our intrinsic femininity that we can only wear a dress that makes us feel like a princess or a queen if we “dress up in a costume!”

I believe a woman also reveals her femininity in her home. This is the domain God planned for women—to make her home a restful place where God’s presence dwells, to raise and nurture her children, to create a delightful atmosphere her children will remember into the next generation, and to be a successful home-maker and gardener. Proverbs 24:15 calls the home a “resting place.” Hosea 11:11 (KNOX) says, “In their own home, says the Lord, I will give them rest.” When we lose the anointing of rest upon our lives, we need to get back into the home.

In the home a woman can bask in the provision and leadership of her husband. She loses her femininity, her grace, and her peace when she rules her husband. A truly feminine woman trusts in her husband’s provision and authority. This does not mean she is a doormat. God has given women a sphere of leadership, not to rule over her husband, but to govern the affairs of her home (1 Timothy 5:14). It is her prerogative to efficiently administrate her home and garden. This is not an insignificant task. It is a full-time career, especially as God blesses the couple with more children.

It is not just loving our children,
but loving and embracing the role of motherhood
that releases us into the joy and glory of our divine career.

Gentleness and meekness are also the inner essence of being female. 1 Peter 3:3-4 (Williams) says, “Your adornments . . . must be of an internal nature, the character concealed in the heart, in the imperishable quality of a quiet and gentle spirit, which is of great value in the sight of God.” These qualities in a female are very precious to the heart of God, and to husbands. In fact, they are a woman’s charm. They are called an “unfading charm” in the Amplified Version.

Is it weak to have a gentle and quiet spirit? No. It is a woman of strength who keeps a gentle spirit in the face of harshness and rebuke. It is a strong woman who keeps an even temper when she feels overwhelmed and angry. Have you tried being meek for a week?

The anointing of gentleness on a mother is beautiful to behold. Motherhood is equated with gentleness. And yet it is more. Just as Jesus was revealed as both a Lamb and a Lion, so too, God has put within the woman a gentle anointing, but also a “lion-like” spirit which rises up to protect her children, or to resist the enemy that comes to attack her marriage or home (Revelation 5:2-6). 

This “quiet and gentle” spirit is also revealed in our speech. Soft and gentle words exemplify femininity. Sweet words are becoming to a woman. If I start to get on my “high horse” my husband says to me, “Nancy, you’ve got to be sweet to me.” Oh my! I don’t have a chance to get harsh! Sweet words endear us to our husband. Sweet words bless our children. Sweet words personify our femaleness. Shakespeare’s famous words are apt for us:

 "Her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman."

Solomon, speaking to his bride in Song of Songs 4:11 says: “Your lips, my bride, drip honey; honey and milk are under your tongue.” Could your husband testify that every time you open your mouth sweet words drip from your lips?

In Song of Songs chapter 7 (The Message), the Bridegroom is overcome as he admires every part of his bride. And then he exclaims that she is “quintessentially feminine.” He cannot think of greater praise.

We have come so far from God’s original intent for us, His female creation. Can we allow God to work in our lives to bring us back, little by little, to the original glory He planned for us? Let’s stop measuring our lives by the world around us but by God’s original design?

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, You have given so many amazing aspects to femininity. Help me to fully embrace each one of them. Help me to show to my family and to the world around me what it means to be female. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m tired of the “blur” in society today. I will seek to be truly feminine.

NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

Footnotes:

1. To read more about the blessings of embracing motherhood and femininity go to: http://tinyurl.com/FullFemale
2. See also Job 39:14-17 and Isaiah 49:15.