Deuteronomy 20:5, “What man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it.” 

We have been talking about dedicating our children to the Lord. God also wants us to dedicate our homes to Him.

When King Solomon spoke to King Huram of Tyre about materials for building a temple for the living God, he confessed, “Behold, I build an house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to Him…” (2 Chronicles 2:4) He was speaking of building a temple for God to dwell. There is no temple left today but God now wants to dwell in our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Spirit. He also wants to dwell in our homes. He wants our homes to be set apart to Him.

Have you dedicated the house you live in to the Lord? It may be a new home, or a home you have purchased from someone else. Either way, you need to dedicate it to the Lord. It is especially important to cleanse and dedicate a home that has had previous owners. You cannot know what has taken place in the home and you don’t want to give the slightest opportunity for Satan to take a foothold in your home.

The owner of every new house in Israel made a celebration and dedicated it to the Lord. Speaking of the Israelites dedicating their homes, Samuel Chandler writes, “It was common when any person had finished a house and entered into it, to celebrate it with great rejoicing, and keep a festival, to which his friends are invited, and to perform some religious ceremonies, to secure the protection of Heaven.” John Calvin writes, “By consecrating their houses to God, they declared that they were God’s tenants, confessing that they were strangers, and that it was He who lodged, and gave them a  habitation.”

If you haven’t already set apart your home, don’t wait any longer. Put on a feast, gather in some friends, and ask them to pray with you over your home. Walk into every room and ask God to cleanse it and for His power to flow into the room. Invoke God’s blessing over every inch of your home and set it apart for His presence and His purposes.

Or, when your friends move into a new or used home, give them a surprise celebration. Gather friends, take food for a feast, gifts for their new home, and then pray and bless their home with them. When I was young, growing up in New Zealand, people gave a Tin Canning to a new married couple when they moved into their home. They called it a Tin Canning because people took jars of food they had canned and loaded the young couple with food for the coming year.

In parts of USA, they call the same celebration a Pounding. I guess this was because everyone took a pound of something to the new couple, e.g. a pound of sugar, flour, butter, cake or whatever. This is a wonderful way to bless a new married couple, but more importantly to take the opportunity to dedicate and set apart the home.

If you are a songwriter, you could write a song for your new home, or you could write a song for someone else as they go into their new or used home. King David, the Psalmist of Israel, wrote a song of thanks and praise when he moved into his new home in Jerusalem. The title of Psalm 30 says, “A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David.”

When King Solomon and the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord, Solomon put on a great feast that lasted for 14 days! (1 Kings 8:62-66)  Set apart your home with feasting, singing and prayers of dedication.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Lord, please help me to be aware each new day that my home belongs to You. Help me to see it as a holy shrine for your presence. Amen.”

 

AFFIRMATION:

Nehemiah 12:43, “Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced; so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.”

We continue to talk about how they dedicated the temple and how it relates to dedicating and training our children.

4. With joy and gladness.

Training our children is a solemn responsibility, but God wants us to do it with joy.

In Ezra 6:16 they “kept the dedication of this house of God with joy.”

In Nehemiah 12:27,42-43 they celebrated “the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries and with harps.”

At the dedication of Solomon’s temple there was “one sound to be heard in thanking and praising the Lord. “ (2 Chronicles 5:13)

In the same way that God rejoices and sings over us, His children, so we should rejoice over our children. (Zephaniah 3:17) We should take great joy in training our children to be separated unto the Lord. We should rejoice in the privilege of motherhood and co-working with God to fulfill this great task. (Psalm 113:9; 3 John 4)

God wants our homes to be homes of joy. In Isaiah 32:13 he calls them “the houses of joy.” Joy is the atmosphere in which He wants us to train our children. He wants you, the mother, to be filled with joy – and consequently the children to be happy and joyful.

Isaiah 51:3 gives a description of Zion. “For the Lord shall comfort Zion… joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” This is also a description of God’s people, and personally, of our homes. Do you notice that we are to have two sets of twins in our homes?

The first set of twins is “joy and gladness”. The MLB translation says, “Joy and gladness shall abound in her.” It’s not enough to have a bit of joy from time to time. Our homes should constantly abound with joy and gladness. This is the kind of atmosphere that will cause our children to hanker after God, to love His will, and to desire to fulfill His purposes. 

The second set of twins is “thanksgiving and voice of melody.” The NLT translates it, “Lovely songs of thanksgiving will fill the air.” Does thanksgiving fill the atmosphere of your home? Are your children filled with thanksgiving and songs of praises? If you have a thankful spirit, your children will be thankful. If you are filled with the praises of the Lord, your children will have the spirit of praise. You set the tone, mother.

Hang on a minute. Here is a third set of twins. Psalm 118:15 says, “The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous; the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” Most other translations call them “joy and victory.” Do joy and victory live at your home? What is the song of joy and victory? The right hand of the Lord does valiantly! Our confession and our song should proclaim that the Lord is in control!  His right arm does valiantly! We believe that He will work deliverance for us. The homes of the righteous should be temples of praise. Name your doors Praise! Call your walls Salvation that carry the words and songs that fill your home. (Isaiah 60:18)

Is your home filled with joy and thanksgiving? If not, cast out the evil twins of gloom and despair, negativity and unbelief and self-pity and bitterness. Instead, welcome in joy and gladness, thankfulness and melodious song.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Oh God, help me to raise my children with joy. Help me to fill my home with thanksgiving all day long. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  

This evening is the end of the Chanukkah, the Feast of Dedication. I thought I would therefore share something with you about the meaning of dedication. “Chanukkah”, a noun, means “dedication.”

The interesting thing is that the word to “train” our children in Proverbs 22:6 is actually the Hebrew verb, “chanakh” which means “to teach, to dedicate, to consecrate, to inaugurate”. Apart from Proverbs 22:6, here are the examples where it is used.

1. Dedication of a house. (Deuteronomy 20:5)

2. Dedication of the altar of Moses’ tabernacle. (Numbers 7:10-11,84,88)

3. Dedication of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 8:63; 2 Chronicles 7:4-9)

4. Dedication of Zerubbabel’s temple. (Ezra 6: 16-18)

5. Dedication of the walls of Jerusalem. (Nehemiah 12:27)

6. Dedication of Nebuchadnezzar’s image. (Daniel 3:2-3)

7. Dedication and cleansing of the temple in 165 BC (from which we now celebrate Chanukkah) after it had been desecrated with the abomination of Antiochus Ephiphanes who sacrificed a pig on the altar of the temple. This is recorded in the Apocrypha in 1 Maccabees 4:54, “It was dedicated anew, with singing of hymns, and music of harp, zither and cymbals.”

This certainly gives us a new light on the meaning of training our children, doesn’t it? The word “dedicate” means “to consecrate to a sacred purpose.” We train our children for the specific purpose of setting them apart for God’s service and the purpose that He has destined for them. Each of our children is born with a destiny that God has planned for them before the foundation of this world. We do not train them according to our ideas. We do not train them by society’s standards. Our whole purpose in training is to dedicate them to the purposes of God.

How did they dedicate in the Old Testament examples?

1. With Purity.

Ezra 6:20-21 tells us that the priests and Levites who were involved in dedicating the temple “were purified together, all of them were pure.”  The people too – “All such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land.”

When they dedicated the walls that were rebuilt in Nehemiah’s time, “The priests and the Levites purified themselves, and purified the people, and the gates, and the wall.” (Nehemiah 12:30)

To train dedicated children, we must first be dedicated ourselves. Every temple in the Old Testament was dedicated. God no longer has a temple of wood and stone. He now has temples of flesh and blood. I am a temple of the living God to be filled with His glory. You are a temple of God to be pure and holy for His dwelling. Your children are temples waiting to be dedicated to His purposes.

We must keep our hearts pure from all contamination of sin, rebellion, bitterness and anger. If there is iniquity and rebellion in our hearts, it will cause rebellion in our children’s hearts. (Exodus 20:5) We must be purified mothers to raise holy and set apart children.

2. With sacrifice.

They always sacrificed offerings at the dedication of the temple. At the dedication of Solomon’s temple he personally offered up 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. This was worth $9,550,000.00! And this was apart from the rest of the offerings of the children of Israel. (1 Kings 8:63)

It takes sacrifice to train children to be set apart for God’s service. It takes forgetting our own agenda and laying down our own lives. But it is for God and it comes with His reward. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” (Mark 8:35)

We cannot forget that in purifying and sacrificing, the blood was shed. It is only through the power of the blood of Jesus that we can keep pure and cleansed from the contamination that will blight our lives and our children’s lives.

3. With prayer.

Read 2 Chronicles 6:14-42. We cannot successfully set apart our children for God without much prayer. One of the most important aspects of parenting, and yet the least observed, is prayer. Are you finding parenting a challenge? Prayer is your answer. Are you having difficulties with one of your children? Prayer is your answer. Are you concerned about the direction of your children? Prayer is your answer. Prayer will release your children into their destiny.

If you don’t pray for your children, who will?

We will look at one more point next week.

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Dear Lord, help me to keep my mind and heart pure before you so that I can raise pure and holy children. Cleanse me with your precious blood from all sin.”

 

AFFIRMATION:

I am set apart for God’s purposes and I am raising children to be set apart for God. 

Isaiah 2:5,  “Come and let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

This evening is the beginning of Hanukkah, which is known in the New Testament as the Feast of Dedication. Hanukkah is not one of the feasts of the Lord but was instituted during the time of the Maccabees who won the victory over the Syrian Greeks and re-occupied the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC. The Talmud records the story that when they captured the Temple, they only had one day’s supply of oil, but the oil miraculously burned for eight days until fresh oil could be obtained. It is also called the Festival of Lights and is celebrated by lighting the eight-branched menorah for eight days. John 10:22-23 records that Jesus celebrated this feast, which is celebrated in late December.

Because it speaks of light, I thought I would share with you a devotion about light. God is light and He wants us to walk in His light.

We were created to walk in light. The light God wants us to walk in is the Hebrew word “or” and it means “illumination, brightness, daylight, sunlight.”

We have been called into light. 1 Peter 2:9 admonishes us to “show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous (amazing and wonderful) light.”

When we are born again into the kingdom of God, we are translated out of the kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of wonderful light. The darkness flees. Deception disintegrates. We leave the path of destruction behind to pursue a life of light. The light is amazing. But although it is such a contrast from the darkness we have lived in, we do not always experience the fullness of His light immediately. We come out of darkness into the light of dawn.

Oh how I love the dawn. I love to look out of the window each morning and watch the dawn appearing. I can go to bed tired but wake up refreshed at the light of dawn. I can go to bed with a sore throat and wake up healed at the light of dawn. The dawn awakens the excitement of a new day and all its possibilities. It reminds us of God’s faithfulness that day and night will not cease. But the dawn is not the full light. There is more. It lightens more and more as the hours go by.

In the same way, we should experience more and more of God’s light.  Our Christian life is to be a “more and more” walk.  As we seek after God, He continues to expose more deceptions and dark places in our lives. As we repent of them and continue seeking, He leads us into more light. As we live in His Word, He pours more and more of the light of His truth into our darkened minds. Little by little, we walk more and more in the light of the Lord until it is like the midday sun.

I have always loved Proverbs 4:18 RSV which says, “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.”

David confessed, “that I might live, ever mindful of God, in the sunshine of life.” (Psalm 56:13, Moffat) Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t be content to live in the light of the dawn, as wonderful as that is. There is more! Live in the full midday sun of God’s marvelous light.

We have also been commissioned to shine our light. Jesus is the light of the world and amazingly He tells us that we also are the light of the world. “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

PRAYER:

“Oh God, I thank you that I was destined to live in light. Please expose every bit of darkness in my life so that I can walk in the fullness of your marvelous light. Help me to walk in the light with my husband, my family and my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me to shine my light to all I meet today. Amen.”

 

AFFIRMATION:

I am a light-shiner to the world because the Light of the world lives in me!