“If Jesus preached the same message ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”~ Leonard Ravenhill
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Above Rubies Daily Encouragement Blogs
Through the weekly and daily devotionals you can be constantly encouraged in your great role of parenting, the highest career in the nation. You can also stay updated on what's happening with the Above Rubies ministry.
The vision for Meat for Men — UNCOMPROMISING MANHOOD blog is to encourage husbands, fathers and single men in Biblical manhood.
“If Jesus preached the same message ministers preach today, He would never have been crucified.”
I don’t believe Christian couples should be like hedgehogs to one another. I mentioned this when speaking at the Above Rubies Family Retreat in Florida recently. A woman approached me and said that she and her husband were Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog and could they both receive counsel about the matter.
Some Americans may not understand what I am getting at when I talk about hedgehogs as they are rare to USA. They are cute, nocturnal, little animals found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and in our land of origin, New Zealand. Although they may look innocent enough, you need to be very careful around them because they are covered with spines that are very sharp indeed. When defending itself, a hedgehog rolls up in a ball, exposing its 5,000 to 7,000 sharp spines! And they can do it so quickly, within a second!
You may be tempted to pick it up or even kick it out of the way, but you had better make sure your hands and feet are protected. Growing up as a boy in New Zealand I was sometimes tempted to give hedgehogs a hard time because boys are naturally challenged by defiance.
Prickly people are difficult to be around and hard to live with. If you happen to say the wrong word, even sometimes by accident, they will quickly roll up into a ball of defiance and challenge you with their sharp words.
Who would want to be married to a hedgehog? Not me. Who would want to live in a family of hedgehogs?
All true Christians are blessed to have a new nature, the life of Jesus Christ living inside of them. Sad to say, many still allow the old prickly nature, inspired by the old serpent, the devil, to usurp itself. The new nature that we have through Christ has absolute authority to resist, deny, and crucify the old prickly nature from rising up and hurting the ones to whom we should be loving and gracious.
This “hedgehog nature” is destructive. It is probably one of the main reasons why so many marriages are destroyed, and families break up. No one should feel they have to walk around their spouse on eggshells! Just one wrong word and it’s another world war! May God have mercy on us. This is insane.
Is their new nature locked up in a closet somewhere?
Most Christians would say, “I would never deny Christ, not even if I was placed before a firing squad.” And yet, in everyday life, they lock Him up and hold Him back from manifesting His life to those around them. What hypocrisy.
Colossians 1:27 speaks of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It is high time for us to shut down the prickly, grouchy, old nature and release the glory of the new nature, which is Christ in you! What miracles it will bring about in your marriage and family life.
Matthew 10:33 says: “Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”
When we deny Jesus Christ the right to reign in our lives and reveal His nature to those closest to us, our spouse and family members, we deny Him. When we deny His right to speak kindly and lovingly through us, we deny Him before our family members.
Do not feed the hedgehog spirit in your life anymore. Do not make it your pet. It will destroy you and everyone around you.
Be encouraged.
COLIN CAMPBELL
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“For the truth’s sake, and because the true God is on our side, let us in these modern days of warfare emulate the warriors of Israel, and unfurl our banners to the breeze with confident joy. Dark signs of present or coming ill must not dishearten us; if the Lord had meant to destroy us, He would not have given us the gospel.”
~ Charles Spurgeon
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"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to partake in the lie. One word of Truth outweighs the world."
~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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Have you heard about the Isaiah62 prayer and fasting for Israel. It began yesterday, 7th May and will continue until 28th May.If you have not heard about it, we would encourage you to check it out at the following link:
There are now 500 million Christians worldwide who have committed to pray for Israel for the next three weeks. This is an incredible thing and could only be orchestrated by the hand of God. It would be sad to not be part of what God is doing in this hour.
We would encourage you and your family to become part of this prayer commitment which obviously God has ordained. Check out the link, learn more, and also how you can effectively pray for Israel.
It is called Isaiah 62, coming from Isaiah 62:6, 7: “I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, And give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”
Colin and Nancy Campbell
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"Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."~ C. S. Lewis
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"The goverment you elect is the government you deserve."
~ Thomas Jefferson
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"The evangelical church has largely failed to be the Church Militant. We are in a war. If you don't understand this, when the bullets start flying, you will say 'we've got to be nicer,' 'we've got to be more relevant.' That's simply wrong-headed. This world is not our friend.~ Tom Ascol
"Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God"
(James 4:4).
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"I'd rather have 10 people that want God, than 10,000 people who want to play church."~ Leonard Ravenhill
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It's wrong for men to sit back and let their wife take all, or most of the family responsibilities. Men should help when needed. They should give godly advice and discipline when needed. They should also take their responsibility to lead the family in daily Family Devotions.
~ Colin Campbell
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"The credibility of the Bible has never been at this level."
~ Tommy Waller, speaking of the fulfilment of Bible prophecy in Israel.
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“We believe that the Bible, as written in the original Hebrew and Greek languages, is the very word of the only wise and the only true God, with whom one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day, who saw the end from the beginning, and not only the end, but every stage of the way.We therefore hold it to be nothing short of a positive blasphemy to assert that we have arrived at a stage of our career in which the Bible is not sufficient, or that we are compelled to travel outside of its covers to find ample guidance and instruction for the present moment, and for every moment of our earthly pilgrimage.
The Bible is a perfect chart in which every urgent need of the Christian mariner has been anticipated. Every rock, every sandbank, every shoal, every strand, every island, has been carefully noted down. All the need of the Church of God, its members, and its ministers, has been most fully provided for.
How could it be otherwise if we admit the Bible to be the Word of God? Could the mind of God have devised, or His finger sketched an imperfect chart? Impossible. We must either deny the divinity or admit the sufficiency of The Book.”
~ Charles Henry Mackintosh (1820 – 18906).
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“We cannot listen for a moment to men, however profound in their reading and thinking, who dare to treat God’s book as though it were man’s book, and speak of those pages that were penned by the All wise, Almighty, and Eternal God, as though they were the production of a shallow and short-sighted mortal.”~ Charles Henry Mackintosh (1820 – 1896).
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Amid the cares of married strife
In spite of toil and business life
If you value your dear wife—
Tell her so!
When days are dark and deeply blue
She has her troubles, same as you
Show her that your love is true
Tell her so!
Don’t act as if she’s past her prime
As tho’ to please her were a crime
If ever you loved her, now’s the time—
Tell her so!
She’ll return for each caress
A hundred-fold of tenderness,
Hearts like hers were made to bless;
Tell her so!
You are hers and hers alone;
Well you know she’s all your own;
Don’t wait to carve it on a stone—
Tell her so!
Never let her heart grow cold
Richer beauties will unfold
She is worth her weight in gold
Tell her so!
~ Unknown
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“We are not commanded to agree with one another but only to love one another.”~ Colin Campbell
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"He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (Malachi 4:6).
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“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”~ Edmund Burke
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Prayer has the power to change the world. Without it the world has the power to change us!~ Colin Campbell
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“Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act”
-Dietrich Boenhoffer
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