WHAT A LOVELY HOME
Part 5

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant:
thou hast been faithful over a few things,
I will make thee ruler over many things:
enter thou into the joy of thy lord”
(Matthew 25:21-25). Read also Luke 16:10.

We continue the characteristics of a faithful and enduring marriage.

d) Cedars Resist Decay and Repel Pests

This is another wonderful feature of the cedar. This quality is an important part of our marriage too. Perhaps you are having a self-pity trip and dreaming that you deserve someone better than your husband. Resist this evil thought in the name of Jesus! Perhaps you think you could do better on your own. Repel this deceiving thought in Jesus name! Resist and repel all resentment and all negative thoughts about your union. The devil roams about seeking to devour your marriage. Don’t be deceived by his seducing temptations.

A true marriage resists all evil. Hebrews 13:4 (NET) says: “Marriage must be honored among all and the marriage bed kept undefiled.” Refuse all flirtations with other men. Refuse all kinky sex. Keep the marriage bed pure and holy. 

e) Cedars are Fragrant

The cedar exudes a gum which gives off fragrance. Does your marriage exude fragrance like the cedar? Fruitfulness and fragrance are the theme of each description God paints of our homes.

FAITHFUL MOTHERING

God also wants your mothering to be like the cedar tree. What does the word “faithfulness” really mean? The Hebrew for “faithfulness” in the Bible is aman which means “to stand firm, to be enduring, of long continuance, to be reliable, trusty.”

Faithfulness is not a flashy thing. It is not always exciting. It’s part of the drudgery of life. As we mother in our homes, we often to do the same thing day after day. Life may feel boring compared to the exciting life that others are leading outside the home. But dear mother, you are fulfilling the most far-reaching and influential career in the nation!

Can I encourage you to be faithful? Even in the drudgery? Even doing the menial tasks? Yes, even when you do the same old thing every day. Hang in there. Endure. This is where God has placed you. You are in His very perfect will. Rejoice in it. And remember, your daily moments of faithfulness add up. They add up to a life of faithfulness. They add up to the reward of those wonderful words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:21).

I think of the most beloved men of the Bible—Abraham, Moses, David, and Daniel. God chose each one of these men because of one special character trait–faithfulness.

            God blessed Abraham because “he found his heart faithful before Him” (Nehemiah 9:8).

            Moses was faithful serving the Lord in God’s house (Numbers 12:7).

            David was faithful and honorable as he served in Saul’s house” (1 Samuel 22:14)

            Daniel’s enemies could find no fault in him because he was faithful (Daniel 6:4).

Catherine Booth (wife of William Booth who founded the Salvation Army) challenged me as a young mother when she wrote: “I intend to make myself fit to be a mother, and being that in every sense, I shall be ready for any destiny God has for me.” Be faithful to your career as a mother first. Before everything else. Be faithful in the little things. Be faithful in the daily grind of life. This is your greatest training for life and eternity.

Paul wrote to his dear friend, Gaius, and said: “Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for the strangers” (3 John 5) Could these words be written of you? “Whatever you do in your home, you do faithfully.”

What do you have to do today, dear mother? Laundry, cleaning, teaching and training the children, etc.? Do each task faithfully. Do it as unto the Lord. Do it to the best of your ability. Do it with a good attitude.

I received an email recently from an Above Rubies reader. She wrote: “Since reading your magazine I have begun to establish several new life-mottos (which have been replacing my old sub-conscious thoughts like ‘I’m so stressed,’ “I can’t do this,’ and ‘I’ve had enough’ all because I was trying to be a whirlwind perfectionist.) Now, when it all seems out of control, I to say to myself: ‘Plod on. One step at a time. Keep going, and you will get there.’”

That’s the way to go, dear mother. Often people say to me, “How do you do everything, Nancy?”

“I just keep plodding on!” I answer. I’m not a great efficiency person. I have many weak points. But I have a vision, I am faithful to it, and I keep plodding on.

BESIDE THE WATERS

Let’s also remember the rest of our Scripture in Numbers 24:6: “As cedar trees beside the waters.” All these beautiful attributes in our lives that are likened to the cedar can only happen when we live beside the waters. It’s the cedar that is by the waters that grows tall and strong.

We notice the emphasis on the water as we read the allegory of the cedar tree in Ezekiel 31:3-7 (ESV): “Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and forest shade . . . The waters nourished it; the deep made it grow tall, making its rivers flow around the place of its planting, sending forth its streams to all the trees of the field . . . its boughs grew large and its branches long from abundant water in its shoots . . . It was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its roots went down to abundant waters.”

Let’s wash ourselves daily with the water of God’s Word (Psalm 1:1-3; Jeremiah 217:8; and Ephesians 5:26).

PRAYER:

“Oh God, I thank You that You are a faithful God. I can depend upon you totally. Help me to be faithful in my home and even in the mundane things I need to do each day. May my children be able to depend on me as I am able to depend on You. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION: 

In the face of monotony, hardship, and sacrifice, I will be faithful to my high calling of motherhood!

WHAT A LOVELY HOME
Part 4

“I will refresh Israel like the dew from heaven;
she will blossom as the lily and root deeply in the soil like cedars in Lebanon.
Her branches will spread out as beautiful as olive trees, fragrant as the forests of Lebanon”
(Hosea 14:5-6 TLB).

Today we continue the descriptive picture of our “lovely homes” in Numbers 24:5-7.

FAITHFUL AND ENDURING HOME

Our home life begins with our marriage. God wants your marriage to be a . . .

FAITHFUL MARRIAGE

God wants our marriages to be like the cedar tree. Numbers 24:6 says: “like cedar trees beside the waters.” The cedars speak of majesty, beauty, and faithfulness. They are called “excellent” trees in Song of Solomon 5:15. As we learn more about the cedar tree, we understand why God likens our marriages to the cedar.

a) Cedars are Strong and Rooted

Cedars are strong and firmly rooted. In Psalm 80:10 (TLB) God likens His people to the “mighty” cedar trees. The word “mighty” is el in the Hebrew and means “strong,” a word that is also used of God. Psalm 92:12 (MLB) tells us that the “righteous . . . shall become mighty like the cedar of Lebanon.”

The Hebrew word for cedar is erez and means “from the tenacity of its roots.” I read that for every 10 feet of height above the ground, the roots go down 30 feet under the ground. Amazingly, the tips of the roots have a substance that allows them to drill through the toughest rocks as they go down deep into the earth. God wants our marriages to be rooted like this. He wants them to be strongly rooted in God’s principles and the covenant we made on our wedding day. He wants them to be strongly knitted together in commitment, faithfulness, morality, unity, and love. Nothing stopping them.

However, they don’t become strong without our proactively strengthening them. We must do something to build and strengthen our marriages each new day. With our words and our actions.

Are you doing something tangible to strengthen your marriage today?

b) Cedars Grow Tall

Because the cedars are strongly rooted they can grow to 120 feet high and 30 to 40 feet in girth. They grow slow and steady. That’s like our marriages. We constantly build into them and they gradually grow more beautiful, tall, and powerful in our influence as a couple. Notice again Psalm 92:10: “The righteous . . . shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.” We must not stay in the same rut. Cedar marriages don’t stay in a rut; they grow

Ezekiel 31:3-7 (NET) is an allegory about Assyria, likening it to a cedar in Lebanon: “Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches and forest shade, and of towering height, its top among the clouds . . . the deep made it grow tall . . . it towered high above all the trees of the field.”

We can either stunt our marriage or make it grow. We stunt our marriage by curbing each other. We must release each other into God’s wondrous plan. We let our husbands be men. We don’t expect them to be like us or even think like us. They don’t think like us. Forget it! They are different.

Let your husband be who he is. Let him take the responsibility of his role seriously to provide, protect, and lead you in God’s ways. Don’t take that from him. Many women think they help their husbands by going out to work. That doesn’t help them. It weakens the home and the husband’s mandate from God.

Let’s get it straight. When we embrace our high calling of motherhood and homemaking and release our husbands to their calling, our marriage can grow tall. Neither of us were created to do the job of the other. God made male and female with their own specific purpose. We accomplish far more for God and this world when we do it God’s way.

c) Cedars are Durable and Lasting

Cedars have remarkable lasting qualities and are noted for their durability. In fact, there are some cedar trees that are estimated to be two thousand years old! This is how God sees marriage--durable and lasting. When we make the covenant of marriage before God and witnesses, we are in for the long haul! It is “forsaking all others . . . until death do us part.”

We live in an unprecedented hour in history when divorce is as rampart in the church as it is in the world. How God’s heart must grieve as the beautiful institution of marriage, which He ordained, is attacked and torn apart by the devil. This is not the vision of “lovely homes” which God designed.

How can our marriages last? Only by doing it God’s way. Our selfish flesh continually puts a wrench in the works! “Self” and “selfishness” are the root of all problems in marriage. We need to lay down our own rights and embrace the same attitude of Jesus who did not cling to His rights as God. Instead, He made himself of no reputation. He became a servant, humbled Himself, and was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:6-8). The outworking of this truth in our lives is sufficient to keep a marriage to the end.

Too many people think that love is a feeling. When the feeling dies, they think love has finished. Love is a commitment. It goes beyond feeling. It goes beyond circumstances. Even when we have no vestige of love left within us, God’s inexhaustible love is still available to us. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (MLB) describes the kind of love we need to survive marriage. It is agape love, which starts with: “Love endures long” and ends with “love endures without limit.”

King Solomon used cedar timber to build God’s temple as well as his own palace because of the durability of the wood. God wants our marriages to be built of cedar too, not poplar or untreated pine that does not stand the tests of time.

PRAYER:

“Oh God, sometimes I feel as though I don’t love my husband, but I know that my love is deceptive. Please fill me with Your agape love that loves even when it does not feel like loving. Help me to realize that my marriage is a commitment to a covenant that goes beyond my feelings and desires. Save me from being a chopped-off cedar tree, but one that grows to full height. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am growing a marriage like the cedar tree, enduring and faithful to the end.

WHAT A LOVELY HOME
Part 3

“Thanks be to God who leads us, wherever we are, on his own triumphant way
and makes our knowledge of Him spread throughout the world like a lovely perfume!
We Christians have the unmistakable “scent” of Christ,
discernible alike to those who are being saved and to those who are heading for death”
(2 Corinthians 2:14 JBP).

God wants your home to be a . . .

FRAGRANT HOME

Our homes should be “like aloes planted by the Lord” (Numbers 24:6). In the Bible,

aloes are associated with incense, scent, or perfume. God wants our lives and our homes to be filled with worship and overflowing with the fragrances of Christ. Do you remember when Mary anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair? The whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Along with spikenard, aloes would have been one of the ingredients used in that anointing oil.

In Bible times, the oriental women perfumed their clothes with oils and spices so that even their slightest movement would release sweet odors to everyone around. Wouldn’t it be nice to duplicate this in the spiritual realm? Oh, that every word, every movement, and every look would be like lovely perfume to the Lord and to everyone in the house.

Psalm 45:8 gives us a beautiful picture of our Messiah coming forth from the heavenly “ivory palaces” with His garments scented with “myrrh, and aloes, and cassia.” He wants us to be filled with His heavenly scent too.

Solomon 4:13-14 describes the bride of Christ emanating the beautiful fragrances of Christ, aloes being one of them.

This Scripture reminds us that God plants the aloes. It is only what God plants that gives off a lovely fragrance. It is only as we walk in the Spirit that we will have about us the “unmistakable scent of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14 J BP). We cannot give off any fragrance of our own flesh. In fact, our flesh stinks.

What kind of aromas do you have in your home? Does your family inhale the sweet fragrances of the fruit of the Spirit or the bad smells of the flesh? I’m sure we don’t want the testimony of God’s people in Isaiah 3:24 where it says: “Instead of sweet smell there shall be stink.”

Tension and strife give off bad smells, as do unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, bickering, arguing, and bad moods. Self pity is a stinky one too. Everyone in the home is affected. Gloom, despair, and negativity fill the house with bad odors. Ungratefulness and unthankfulness give off awful smells. And what about the “silent treatment” when a husband and wife will not talk to one another? The children hate that stench! It’s the worst of all.

Are any of these bad smells lurking in your home? Perhaps it’s time to have a clean out. Let go your fleshly “rights” and ask the Holy Spirit to come in and do His work in your heart. Abide in Him and let Him abide in every area of your life. As you do, He will plant His beautiful attributes in your life and your home with be filled with the fruit of heavenly fragrances.

PRAYER:

“Father, please convict me of anything in my life that is making a bad smell in my home. Sometimes I get so used to my own bad smells that I don’t realize how offensive they are and how they affect my husband and my children. Dear Father, I yield my life to the working of Your Holy Spirit within me. Plant in me the beautiful fruits of Your life so that my home will be filled with heavenly fragrance. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I want to have about me “the unmistakable scent of Christ.”

FURTHER SCRIPTURES ABOUT ALOES.

Numbers 24:6; Psalm 45:8; Proverbs 7:17; Song of Solomon 4:14; and John 19:39.

WHAT A LOVELY HOME
Part 2

“The tabernacle of the upright shall flourish”
(Proverbs 14:11).

We continue God’s description of our homes. He wants your home to be a . . .

FLOURISHING AND FRUITFUL HOME

Our homes should be “like gardens by the riverside” (Numbers 24:6). God wants us individually, and as a family, to be “like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:11).

There is nothing more delightful to the eye than a beautiful flower garden. There is nothing more satisfying to the soul than a flourishing vegetable garden. A garden gives pleasure, but it also provides sustenance. God wants our homes to be a delightful place to live, a wholesome place for our children to grow, and a welcoming home for our husbands to return each evening. Who is the one who makes it delightful? You, as the mother, of course.

In Ezekiel 19:10 (NLT) God likens mothers to “a vine planted by the water’s edge,” with “lush, green foliage because of the abundant water.”

Psalm 128:3 (NLT) gives us the same picture when it says: “Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table.” What is the good of a plant that grows prolifically and yet produces no fruit?

Can you see God’s picture for your home? A garden where the fruits of the Holy Spirit grow in abundance— love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). A life-giving garden, not only to those in the home, but also providing nourishment and healing to those outside the home. A garden where the fruit of the womb is received with joy—new olive shoots sprouting up to bring more life and blessing to the home.

Isaiah 44:4 promises that our children will “spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses.” The allegory in Ezekiel 19:10-14 tells us that we should have a funeral dirge when the fruit “dries up.”

This all sounds like a nice dream. But let’s get to reality. How can we produce this fruitful garden? God gives the secret. We must live close to the water! It’s the water that produces a flourishing garden. You can have the best soil and the best plants. You can be the most industrious gardener, but without water the garden dies.

My big garden flourishes, but it takes a lot of watering. It used to take me over an hour to water my garden each evening until my husband put in soaker hoses. We have also planted some fruit trees on our land, but there is one tree that is bigger and greener than all the others. I wondered why until I realized that this tree is planted near the dripping water tap.

In God’s Word, He likens water to two different things:

a) The cleansing power of God’s Word (John 15:3, 17:17; Ephesians 5:26; and 1 Peter 1:22).

b) The power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives (Isaiah 44:3-4; John 4:14; John 7:38-39; and Acts 2:17.)

We can’t make our homes flourish by our own strength or our own intelligence. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit. To keep our home flourishing, we must daily soak ourselves in the Word and in the Holy Spirit. You may not have time to have long Quiet Times when you have little children around, but you can read a few verses when you are nursing the baby. Put your Bible on your windowsill. Open it at Psalms or Proverbs to read a verse here and there as you prepare the meal or wash dishes. Put a Bible on the table and one in the bathroom. These moments will keep you nourished and cleansed.

When we receive Jesus Christ into our lives, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us. Don’t quench the Holy Spirit. Allow Him free reign in your heart, in every area of your marriage, and in every room of your home. As you keep a soft and yielding heart, He will come like the dew to refresh you each morning. As you cry out to Him with a thirsty heart, He will come to you like the rain, bringing cleansing and new growth.

Keep the garden of your home well-watered.

PRAYER:

“Father, I don’t want my home to be a dried-up garden. I want it to flourish with fruitfulness. Open my heart to fruitfulness. I know it can only happen as I live by the water. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Fill me to overflowing. Teach me how to live in the Holy Spirit instead of living in the flesh. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am turning on the spiritual soaker hoses to my heart and home.