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.

WHAT A LOVELY HOME
Part 1

“How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!”
(Numbers 24:5).

“What a lovely home,” people may remark when they enter a well-built home with lovely décor. Beauty and exquisite furnishings always inspire me, but there is something greater than the outward appearance. God is more interested in the atmosphere of the home than the decorations. He is more interested in the sweetness of His presence than the surroundings. He is more interested in our home being dedicated to His glory than to be filled with expensive décor.

Do you remember when King Balak of Moab called for Balaam to curse Israel? Balaam came, but instead of cursing, every time he opened his mouth, He prophesied blessing over Israel. In his third prophecy, as he looked out over the tents of Israel, he exclaimed: “How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob: how lovely are your homes, O Israel” (Number 24:5 NLT).

These words were prophetic, for the children of Israel did not live in spacious mansions–they lived in tents! These words described God’s heart and His vision for the families of Israel. They also portray God’s vision for our homes. He wants them to be filled with the beauty of His peace, the loveliness of His presence, and the joy and laughter of family togetherness. Listen to the beautiful imagery in verse six as He continues to describe what He wants our homes to be like: “Like valleys that stretch out, like gardens by the river, like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters” (AMP).         

Have you ever read such a beautiful description? Let’s look at it more closely. God wants your home be a . . .

1. FAR REACHING HOME

They are to be “Like valleys that stretch out.” God has a big vision for our families. He has an on-going vision. He wants to enlarge our vision to see like He sees. He wants to take us from our selfish vision of “me, my husband, our two children, and we are quite happy like we are thank you” to the vision of Isaiah 54:2, 3 (MLB): “Stretch out the curtains of your dwelling; do not hesitate, but lengthen your cords and make secure your tent pegs! For to the right and to the left you will expand abroad, until your descendants shall possess the nations and populate desolate cities.”

God wants godly families to fill the streets, fill the neighborhoods, fill the nations, and fill the earth with His glory. Rather than being the minority, God wants His people to increase and overtake the world.

Valleys usually encompass a river and continue to spread out to the sea or to a lake. They are the watercourses of the mountains which is the Hebrew meaning of this phrase in the Scripture. Because of this they are always green and fertile. I think of the longest river on our continent, the Mississippi, which is 2,348 miles long. It starts from little Lake Itasca in Minnesota—a small stream winding its way through lakes and marshes. But it continues to enlarge. From St. Paul to the mouth of the Missouri River, it grows in force to become a powerful dominating river. After being joined with the Missouri and Ohio rivers, it swells to full might and grandeur—often 1½ miles from bank to bank.

We are all interested in our family trees. What about a family river? Each new marriage starts as a little stream. Gradually children are added to the family. The children grow in the ways of the Lord and touch many lives for God’s kingdom and the river flows with life and vitality.

The children marry, and grandchildren come along. The river widens and influences more and more people for the kingdom of God.  Great-grandchildren are born and the ever-widening and deepening river becomes a mighty torrent, flowing with salvation, truth, love, joy, and healing to a hurting and barren world. Ezekiel 47:9 tells us that everything lives where the river flows.  

Sadly, there are many streams that die out before they become a mighty river. They start with a name, but the name may not continue down the generations. We found that it’s not as easy as you think to pass on the family name. Currently, we have 47 grandchildren, but we had to wait for our 15th grandbaby to have a grandson to carry on the Campbell family name!     

Do you have God’s vision for your family? Are you only thinking of the present or do you have a vision for the future? When God spoke to the patriarchs of old, He also spoke to their children and the children who were yet to be born. He saw the future generations in their loins. You can read of one example in Genesis 17:7-10. When   speaking to Abraham, God says these words: “you and your descendants after you . . .” He didn’t say them only once. He repeated them five times to make sure Abraham understood the message that God’s vision was not only for him but for the continuing generations.   

Dear mother, enlarge your vision. Don’t limit your family to a trickling stream. See your family becoming a mighty, flowing river, taking life and healing to the nations and down the generations.

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, save me from my narrow vision. When I become inward looking, remind me of Your great vision to fill the earth with your glory. Help me to see our family becoming a mighty river, flowing through the nation with your light, joy, love and salvation. I cannot do this in my own strength. Please, pour Your Spirit upon me. Pour Your Spirit upon our children. Pour Your Spirit upon our home so that we can pour out Your love to the world. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION: 

By God’s grace, our family will not become a dried-up creek bed, but a mighty, flowing and ever-enlarging river to bring life and healing to the nations