PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 368: LIVING THE BLISSFUL LIFE, No. 2 - A LIFE OF CONTINUED THANFULNESS
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 368: LIVING THE BLISSFUL LIFE, No. 2
A LIFE OF CONTINUED THANFULNESS
How can you live a life of overflowing thankfulness when you have so many things to concentrate on each day? The Bible gives us the answer.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, lovely ladies! It’s just so good to be with you today. We’ve had a little bit of a delay in our recording, so I got a little bit behind for a week or so. That’s the first time I’ve ever done this, but anyway, we’re all back on again. So, here we are, looking forward to sharing this podcast with you.
Our last podcast I did with our daughter Pearl—Pearlie, of Trim Healthy Mama. We did a podcast called “How Do You Smile When You Don’t Feel Like Smiling?” Well, if you didn’t hear that podcast, do go back and listen to it, because it was so good. We were talking about having a thankful attitude, and an “attitude of gratitude.” Now, I’m going to continue this today. It’s really part of a series that I’m starting called “Living the Blissful Life.”
Well, everybody wants to live a blissful life, don’t they? But life is not always blissful. Circumstances are not always blissful. We have challenges. We have difficulties. We have things that we have to face. So, how can we live this blissful life in the midst of difficulties and challenges? Well, I’m going to give you quite a lot of points as we go along. But we’re continuing to talk about this point we started last week about thankfulness.
But before I go on with it, I have a couple of things to share with you. I wanted to remind you that we have another Above Rubies Family Camp coming up. This time, it's in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It will be next month, August 22nd to the 25th. It’s going to be in a mountain village in the Smoky Mountains, near Gatlinburg.
The people who are running this retreat, Connie and Les Lanford, have been doing Above Rubies retreats for us for so many years. Oh, I think about 20 years! First of all, we used to do them down in Louisiana. Then they were doing some for us in Mississippi. This time, they planned one in Gatlinburg.
I’m looking forward to that, because I haven’t been to the Smokey Mountains myself for so long. It’s going to be wonderful to get up in that beautiful place. But not only in a beautiful place, but a place where we can have great fellowship together. We can encourage you in your wonderful, wonderful vision of parenting. So, make a note of that. The phone number for the Lanford’s is 225-335-3959. You can call them, or you can look up the webpage and get the information and contact them. OK, put it on your calendar!
The other thing I wanted to tell you is that I’m now starting to prepare the new issue of Above Rubies, # 103. I’m looking forward to doing that. I always love it when I can get out another issue of Above Rubies. I don’t have all the money yet, because it costs over $80,000 to print and send out a magazine. But I feel it’s time to start. As I start in faith, I believe God will bring that in.
I’m sharing that with you because I always have lots of material on hand to print, but I always love fresh stories and fresh testimonies. So, if you have something you would love to share, you are welcome to write in. Email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
This time, I would love to have some articles about practical homemaking. I’m sure many of you have found some wonderful secrets of managing your home. If you've got something wonderful to share that’s revolutionized your homemaking, do feel free to write and share with me so I can then share it with all the mothers of the world.
If you have a marriage restoration testimony, oh, that would be wonderful. Or even pointers of how God has helped you in your marriage. It’s so important to keep reminding one another of how to make a beautiful marriage. I do believe, with all my heart, that we make our marriages what we want them to be. You can have a boring marriage if you want to be boring. You can have a glorious marriage if you really want to and you put the work into it.
Anyway, many of you, I’m sure, have also found wonderful secrets along the way. I’d love you to share them, too. I will look forward to hearing from you, all across the world. You don’t have to be in the USA. Above Rubies is for the mothers and wives of the world. You can write to me from any country that you are listening to me, where you are listening now. It won’t take long to get it to me because you can email it straightaway. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
LIVING A THANKFUL l LIFE
Now, back to our subject, “Living the Blissful Life.” Our first point, which we started last podcast, is LIVING A THANKFUL LIFE. Of course, we talked a lot about smiling in the last podcast, because that’s part of thankfulness. When you are a thankful person, you’re always smiling. When you get into the habit of smiling, you become more thankful.
Let’s get into the Word, shall we? Psalm 50:14 and 23 say, in the New Living Translation: “Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God. And keep the vows you made to the Most High. Giving of thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors Me.” In these Scriptures, thankfulness is associated with sacrifice. That’s the Old Testament.
But let’s go over to the New Testament. In Hebrews 13:15, we read the same thing: “By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His Name.” Now, ladies, that Scripture is in the New Testament, but if you understand it, it’s actually going back to the Old Testament. Going back to the type, because it says here: “The sacrifice of praise.”
THE CONTINUAL SACRIFICE
Back in the Old Testament, what was their sacrifice? Every morning and every evening they sacrificed a lamb upon the altar, upon the brazen altar, which was in the outer court of the tabernacle, and then later when it became the temple. That was their sacrifice. They had many other sacrifices too, but this was the basic sacrifice, the morning and evening sacrifice. It was called “THE CONTINUAL SACRIFICE.”
We read this over and over again in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word is tamiyd, and this is what is means: “continuously, perpetually, continually, constant, daily; elliptically for the regular daily sacrifice.” The regular daily sacrifice was the sacrifice they did morning and evening. As I said, it was called the “continual daily sacrifice.” You see that right there in Hebrews in the New Testament.
It’s amazing, ladies. Some people think, “Oh, well, I just like to read the New Testament. The Old Testament doesn’t relate to me.” But the Old Testament contains the foundation. It contains the type. It contains the principle of everything we read in the New Testament.
When we read the New Testament, we have greater understanding to understand the Old Testament. We can’t have one without the other. They both fit together. That is why it’s so important to not only read the New Testament, which of course we love to do, but to feed upon the Old, so that we have our grounding, our foundation, and we know what it’s really talking about.
Because here, this is what Hebrew 13:15 is talking about. It says: “The sacrifice of praise to God continually.” So now, of course, ladies, we don’t do an animal sacrifice of a lamb on an altar. We don’t do that today. Of course we don’t, because every lamb that is sacrificed upon the altar was only a type. It was pointing to Jesus, “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.” It pointed to His final, one-time sacrifice upon the altar, when Jesus died once and for all.
So, there is no need for any more sacrifices again. And yet, here we read in the New Testament that God still wants a sacrifice of praise. Not an animal sacrifice but now it’s a different one. It’s a sacrifice of praise. And how often does He want us to do it? Continually. It should become part of our lives.
But let’s be real. OK, we can have a heart that is continually thankful to the Lord and to those around us. But we can’t actually physically be thanking every moment, because we’ve got things to do and people to talk to about this and that. So, the continual sacrifice God is talking about here is that principle of the morning and evening.
Then again, other people will say, “Well, I don’t have to have set times when I thank and praise the Lord because I do it when my heart is overflowing and when I feel like doing it. It should be spontaneous from my heart.” Well, I do believe you've got a point there. I do believe that we should have spontaneous praise coming forth from our mouths at any time of the day.
We should also have spontaneous thankfulness coming out of our mouths to the people who are around us. Firstly, those in our home—our husband and our children. We should spontaneously thank them when they do something for us when we want to bless them and praise them.
OVERFLOWING THANKFULNESS
But here, once again, God knows that we’re not always overflowing in thankfulness, although that’s what He actually wants us to be. That’s really the greatest lifestyle we can live, a life that’s overflowing with thankfulness. Maybe I could give you a Scripture about that now, before we move on. We go to Colossians 2:7.
At the end of verse seven, Paul is praying that we will be “Abounding with thanksgiving.” A lot of newer translations say: “Overflowing with thanksgiving.” The meaning is that it’s more than the normal. The Greek word is perisseuo. This is what it means: “to exceed, over and above, overflowing, abundantly, to superabound, in excess, nothing to spare.” All those meanings mean that it’s more than the average. It’s more than normal. It’s not just “Well, thank you” every now and then. No, it’s overflowing.
I remember years and years ago, when I was reading that Scripture one morning in my quiet time, and it was in the days when I had my children around me. I thought to myself, “Well, how can I abound? How can I be overflowing with thanksgiving? I mean, I get taken up in the day with everything I have to do. What can I do?”
And I was talking to the Lord about it and this idea came to me. I thought of our kitchen timer. Well, we don’t use those much today because we have all our digital timers and our iPhones. But back then, I used to use a kitchen timer. I love a good old kitchen timer. I thought, “Wow! I know what I can do! I can turn that kitchen timer on for every hour. At the end of that hour, when it goes Ding! I can remember, Oh, it’s time to praise the Lord!” And so, I’m reminded, because we do need reminders.
That’s my wonderful idea. You can do that in your home, lovely mothers, because I know that many times you just get overwhelmed with everything you have to do, and everything that’s happening. All the little children around you and big children. Everybody wants Mom all at once. How do you remember to be overflowing with thankfulness in all of that? But if you've got your timer on, Ding! Oh, you stop to say, “Thank You, Lord.”
Well, maybe you're in the midst of just about screaming at the children about something. Oh, goodness me! Instead of screaming, you say, “Oh, thank You, Lord! Thank You that You are with me. You are with me in the midst of all that’s going on. I thank You.” And include your children. “Children! It’s the timer! It’s time to thank the Lord! Come, come!” And all get together and thank Jesus. Get each one of your children just to say, “Thank You, Jesus,” for something.
Just imagine how that can change the whole attitude of your home as we get into this overflowing and abounding attitude of thanksgiving. But, as I was saying, if you're not using your timer, you're most probably forgetting. The day goes by, and you think, “Wow, did I really? How much did I thank the Lord today? How much did I even thank anybody in the home today?”
MORNING AND EVENING PRINCIPLE
But God understands us. He understands our lives. And that’s why, back in the foundational Old Testament that gave us the foundation, it gave us the grounding, and it gave us the principles. It gave us the types. God established the principle of the morning and evening. That morning and evening was called the continual sacrifice. So, even if you're not doing it all day, and you're not overflowing all day, at least you're going to keep to those set times of the morning and the evening.
GOD ESTABLISHED SET TIMES FOR US
I am a great believer in set times. Why am a believer in set times? Because God established set times for us. Yes, God established them for us. He knows our frame. He knows our circumstances. He knows that we need these set times. And He established the morning and the evening.
Actually, as we read on in the Word of God, we see that He also established the weekly time to be with Him. He established the Sabbath day, and then he established the monthly time. We don’t celebrate that today, but back in Bible times, God’s people celebrated the New Moon. It was also a day they put aside to worship God, and to sacrifice, and to listen to God for what He had to say to them for this next month. Then He established the feasts of the yearly sacrifices. God established these things because God knows that they are important for us.
I was just thinking about this, and I thought of a question that I never asked myself. In all my years of living, I can’t believe that I never asked myself this question. I thought, “Wow! Did they do that daily morning and evening sacrifice on the Sabbath day?” Now, on the Sabbath day, they were to do no work. It was their day of rest. So, did they? Did they sacrifice on the Sabbath day?
Well, I had to check it out. And yes, I found that yes, they did sacrifice on the Sabbath day. They were never, ever, ever to forgo that daily sacrifice. Let me read one of these Scriptures for you. I’m actually going to give you here, ladies, because this point number one is LIVING A THANKFUL LIFE, and now we’re finding that this thankfulness goes back to the sacrifice of praise, which goes back to the continual daily sacrifice. I found 15 different points about the things God wants us to do continually. So, we’re going to look at them. We’ll see how far we go today.
But this first one . . .
No. 1. CONTINUAL DAILY SACRIFICE
Exodus 29:38: “Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year” (that means they were to be one year old) day by day continually.” And so, they were never, ever to stop, even for one day. I thought, “Wow! Well, what happens on the Sabbath?”
Guess what, ladies? I just learned this. I can’t believe that, once again, I didn’t even notice. But I found that on the Sabbath day, not only were they to continue that continual daily sacrifice, but God gave them extra sacrifices. They had to, on the Sabbath, they had to sacrifice two lambs in the morning and two lambs in the evening. So, it was extra. Wow, isn’t that amazing? How come it took me so long to find that out?
But what I realized from that, because these sacrifices in the New Testament are a sacrifice and praise and thanksgiving unto the Lord, when we come to the Sabbath, we not only continue that which we are doing throughout the week but we have to add to it. We give more unto God on the Sabbath than even the other days.
So, whether we worship God on Sunday or Saturday, the Sabbath (some of God’s people worship Sunday, and some worship Saturday). Whatever day that you keep a Sabbath to the Lord, the type is that we should give the Lord extra on that day. I have said before that I notice that Sabbath keepers on the Saturday usually treat this day more like God wants us to treat it than Sunday Sabbath keepers.
There are many Sunday worshippers who like to keep Sunday as a Sabbath. Well, they used to. I remember when I grew up, we worshipped the Lord on Sunday, but we kept it like a Sabbath. We didn’t go out to entertainment. We didn’t do all the secular things and entertainment things that everybody does today.
It seems that many Christians today go to church on Sunday morning, and they get out of church. “Wow! OK! What are we going to do now? Let’s go for a picnic! Let’s go out and do something! Let’s come home and watch football.” And OK, they went to church. But they’ve forgotten God for the rest of the day. No, a Sabbath, whether it’s Saturday (which is the literal Sabbath), but even if you're taking Sunday, make it a Sabbath. It’s unto God, and the type is that we give more to God, extra to God, on that Sabbath day.
Well, I found out even more. I found that when it came to the New Moon, if the New Moon (that was the beginning of the month), if it happened to come on the Sabbath, then they could never, ever forgo the original continual daily sacrifice. That was the one lamb, morning and evening. They had to do that. Then they would have to do the Sabbath sacrifice, so that was two lambs, morning and evening.
But then, they would have to do the New Moon sacrifices which were even more. They had to sacrifice two young bullocks, one ram, seven lambs, and one baby goat: “Besides the continual burnt offering.” That’s in Numbers 28:15. Then it goes on.
In fact, in the next chapter, Numbers 29, you can check it out for yourself sometime. But it goes on to talk about all the other sacrifices on the different set times that God gave. Ten times in that one chapter it says these words: “Besides the continual burnt offering.”
The New English Translation says: “In addition to the continual burnt offering.”
They were never to forgo that daily morning and evening sacrifice. If other sacrifices happened to be on that day, or the Sabbath day, or whatever, they had to do that first, and then the other sacrifices besides the continual burnt offering. You will see that in Numbers 29. Here’s the verse about the Sabbath day. I’ll give you that Scripture.
That is in Number 28:9: “On the Sabbath day, two lambs of the first year, without spot. This is the burnt offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering,” or in addition to the continual burnt offering.
Isn’t that amazing, ladies, that the continual burnt offering is so important to God? Of course, it was because it pointed to Jesus, the Lamb of God. It pointed to Calvary. But God was also establishing this principle, this continual principle, so that we never waver away from God, not even for a day. God doesn’t want us to get away from Him in our thoughts, and in our hearts, even for a day.
So, He established that every morning and every evening we would come into His Presence. That’s why we have our family devotions every morning and every evening. Some people say, “Help! How do you fit that in with every day? Life’s too busy! We’ve just got too much going on!” Well, lovely ladies, you’d better cut out a lot of what you're doing, because these are the two most important things.
And that’s what I’ve found, in my experience, is that I have to make them happen. Everything else has to fit around them. I could have one hundred excuses every day not to do it. But we make it happen. It doesn’t matter what is happening. I will not forgo one thing, because I will have that, because it’s a principle established by God. He doesn’t want us to let it go, ever. And even when there are other sacrifices of the feasts, or even of the Sabbath and the New Moon, we still can’t forgo that one. We add to them.
Now you notice that for these sacrifices, the lamb had to be one year old. And it had to be without spot, and without blemish. They had to bring the lambs in, and they had to check them for four days before they could go to the altar, to make sure that there was nothing wrong with them at all. Of course, that was speaking of Christ, who was sinless, who was spotless.
We remember that Jesus fulfilled that type as He came into Jerusalem on that donkey. They were laying the palm branches in front of Him and crying out: “Hosannah! Blessed is He who cometh in the Name of the Lord!” And yet, it was four days later they crucified Him. Pilate said these words to fulfill that prophecy: “I find no fault in Him.”
And so, even when we come with our praise, and our worship, and our thanksgiving, may we come without spot and without wrinkle. Oh, I think we often do have so many spots and wrinkles, don’t we?
And that’s why we have to continually thank God for the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanseth us from all sins. Oh, how we have to continually plunge ourselves in that blood! Oh yes, we can be saved through the blood of Jesus, but I think we don’t live perfect lives. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us about something, well then, we come, and we just plunge again into that precious blood again.
All right, lovely ladies. Number one is a continual burnt offering.
No. 2. CONTINUAL FIRE UPON THE ALTAR
The Bible talks about a continual fire upon the altar, the altar where they did the burnt offerings. The Bible says because God said it. It’s written in the Bible that God came to Moses and said, in Leviticus 6:8-13, you can read it later.
It’s all about the fire upon the altar. God said: “This fire shall ever be burning upon the altar. It shall never go out.” And the word, “the fire shall ever be burning,” that’s tamiyd again, meaning “the continual.”
The New English Translation says: “A continual fire must be kept burning on the altar. It must not be extinguished.”
God showed them how to keep the fire going. Once again, they had to tend to it every morning and every evening, and take out all the ashes, and put on more wood. I think that speaks to us of putting the wood on the fire, putting the Word into our lives to strengthen us again, and keep that fire burning in our lives. The only way we can keep the fire burning continually is to have that morning and evening principle. So, we see that again there in Leviticus chapter six. It was never to go out.
Now, I see our time has already come to an end. But ladies, we will continue next week, to find out more of the things that God revealed in His Word that He wants us to do continually. We’re going to find them out from the Old Testament but remember Hebrews 13:15 is New Testament. It’s taking us right back to the Old Testament to understand what this writer to the Hebrews is saying, that we are to now give unto God a sacrifice of praise continually.
May the Lord bless you.
“I pray, dear Father, that You will bless, bless every home. Oh, God, bless every wife and mother. Bless every husband. Bless all the children who are listening to this podcast. I pray that You will pour out Your Spirit all over them, and that You will give them Your peace, and You will bring peace into their homes.
“I pray, Lord God, that You will bless them abundantly, and You will give them, Lord, a vision of understanding, and how You have set times for us, and how You wait for us every morning, and You wait for us every evening at the close of the day, for us to come into Your Presence and meet with You. Lord, this is the desire of Your heart because You love us. We thank You, Lord God, and we praise You. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.”
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris
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AUGUST 22 – 25, TENNESSEE
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3610 East Parkway, Gatlinburg TN 37738
For all enquiries contact:
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