God is a God of justice. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne,” the psalmist writes in Psalm 89:14. God orders the world with justice and it is the way He wants our homes and nations to be ordered. God commands us to raise our children with justice. If they don’t know justice growing up, they won’t understand how the world works. And they won’t understand who God is.

In fact, we see an interesting understanding from In the book, Surveying the Evidence, where the authors state: “If atheism is not normal, why do certain people become unbelievers? First of all, it is well known that the seeds of atheism can be planted early in life. One of the most dangerous contributions a parent can make toward the spiritual delinquency of his child is a failure to instill within him a wholesome respect for authority. If the parent neglects to set the proper example as an authority figure, or refuses to exercise discipline with love, he might well be rejected as an authority-figure by his child, and thus, by transference, the child ultimately may come to disdain all authority, including the Supreme Authority, God.” *

What does Genesis 18:19 say about Abraham, the pattern father? “For I know him, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT . . . “Abraham didn’t hope things would work out in his family the way he wanted. He COMMANDED his children after him to do justice and judgment.” This should also be our pattern.

How do we exercise justice? We learn 10 principles from a wonderful passage in

2 Chronicles 19:4-11 where King Jehoshaphat went through the land to bring the people back to God. He then set judges throughout all the cities and told them how God wanted them to judge. Take time to read this passage.

We must embrace these biblical principles in our parenting. We must also pray for every judge in our nation that they will learn to judge by these principles. Here are the principles:

1. You must take heed to judge according to God’s judgment, not man’s (verse 6).
2. God is involved with you in judging for God is a God of justice and judgement (verses 6 and 11).
3. You must judge in the fear of God (verses 7 and 9). Do you notice that God repeats this principle of the fear of the Lord two times?
4. You must take action on the verdict, not let it slide. “Take heed and do it” (verses 7, 10, and 11).
5.  You must not have respect of persons in judgment (verse 7).
6. You must not take bribes. “The LORD our God DOES NOT TOLERATE perverted justice, partiality, or the taking of bribes” (verse 9, NLT).
7. You must judge faithfully (verse 9).
8. You must judge with a perfect (undivided) heart (verse 9).
9. You must warn the guilty not to sin against the LORD. If you fail to do this God will be angry with you (verse 10).
10. You must judge COURAGEOUSLY. Verse 11 says: “Deal COURAGEOUSLY.” The Hebrew for this phrase is “asah chazaq.” “Asah” means “to take action.” “Chazaq” means “to be strong, courageous, valiant, to make firm.”

May God help us to parent with God’s justice and judgment. His justice is not legality, but perfect and fair. And let’s pray for God’s justice to return to our nation.

Be blessed, Nancy Campbell

PRAYER:

“Dear Father God, I have a difficult time knowing when to implement mercy and justice. I know you are 100 percent merciful and yet 100 percent a God of justice and Your mercy and judgment is perfect. Please help me to understand Your justice and mercy. I want to reveal Your justice and mercy to my children and to those around me. Please give me Your wisdom and understanding. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am continually seeking God’s way of showing mercy and justice.

* Surveying the Evidence by Wayne Jackson, Eric Lyons and Kyle Butt (Apologetics Press, Inc.)

You will find the following an interesting article to read:

http://tinyurl.com/PermissionToJudge

I am sure you are aware that the liberals removed the word “mother” from their health programs for the phrase “birthing people.”

Because they do not want God to be part of their agenda, they keep taking out words from the Bible that have belonged to generations since the beginning of time. They want nothing to do with God and His ultimate plan.

Yes, a mother is someone who births a baby into this world, one of the most beautiful and powerful experiences a woman can have. But birthing a baby is only the beginning of motherhood. A mother also nurses and nurtures her baby.

Motherhood is a lifestyle. Motherhood is lifetime work. We don’t stop becoming a mother when our last child leaves home. Our mothering heart broods upon that child until the end of their days. Scientific studies reveal that the mother carries something of every baby she has birthed in her body. And when our children leave home, we become older mothers who teach the younger mothers, continuing to show by example and word the anointing of motherhood.

Motherhood is the innate and God-given instinct that God has put in every female. We were born and created to nurture. Motherhood is nurturing, loving, praying, and agonizing over every child. It is training, teaching, feeding the body, the soul, and the spirit. It never stops.

Motherhood is the highest career God gives to women. She may enjoy other careers but they are secondary to motherhood. Every other career will be left behind when we meet God face to face, but motherhood continues into eternity. Every child God gives us is an eternal soul that has the privilege to inherit eternal life and to answer the call to eternal glory forever and ever.

God chose the word mother! And I’m not giving it up. God used the word “mother” before there was ever a mother on the earth. Read Genesis 2:24 and 3:20! He ordained mothers before there were mothers. Mothers are His plan for the world. He created motherhood to reveal His maternal heart to the world. To bring softness and tenderness to the knocks and the hardships of this world. To keep this world going and to birth, nurture, and train great men and women who will bless the world.

In this world of ridiculous deception, embrace your motherhood anointing in a greater way than you ever have before. Know that you are walking in the perfect will of God. Lift your head high and be proud of the calling God has given you. You have been named “mother” by God. You have been created for this purpose. Never be intimidated by those who are deceived.

It’s time for mothers to rise!

From one mother heart to another, NANCY CAMPBELL

www.aboverubies.org

PRAYER:

“I thank You Father God for creating me to be a mother. I thank You for the privilege of revealing Your maternal heart to this world. Please help me to be the mother You ordained me to be, to my precious children and to the hurting and suffering around me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I’m not giving up the word mother and I’m not giving up my highest career of motherhood!

Oh, how I love God’s Word. It is new every morning. It is so practical and relating to life. I read recently about the different functions of the priests and Levites in 1 Chronicles chapter 9. We often think of the priests continually praying and blessing God’s people. So spiritual and religious. But the Bible also  talks about their mundane tasks which they had to do from day to day.

YOU HAVE WORK TO DO

First of all, in v.13 it gives the description of the kind of men they should be: “Very able men for the work of the service of the house of God.” Do you notice they were chosen to work and to serve. They had practical tasks to tend to. They weren’t sitting around praying all day. Dear mother, your home is also a house of God. And God gives you work to do in your home. You are in the perfect will of God as you serve in your home.

YOU ARE A GATE-KEEPER

Verses 19 – 26 tell us about the work of the gatekeepers. You are also a gatekeeper of your home as you protect and guard it from evil and the inroads of the enemy. 

YOU MUST KEEP COUNT OF YOUR HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS

Verses 28 -32 tells us about more practical tasks God gave to His priests and Levites. Some were in charge of the vessels and instruments of the sanctuary which they had to count when they were brought out and count when they were brought back in.

YOU ARE A COOK AND BREADBAKER

Certain priests were in charge of the fine flour, the wine, the oil, and all the spices. Others were in charge of mixing the spices. Mattithiah was appointed to take charge of baking the bread for the offerings. Other priests were in charge of making the showbread to put upon the Table of Shewbread each week.

Baking bread? Yes, God looked upon it as a priestly duty! What attitude do you have about baking bread in your home? Have you thought of it being a priestly duty? Of course, you can purchase bread from the supermarket, but there’s something about homemade bread. So much healthier for your family.

Here’s a little story. When my children were young, I began to make bread. But then I met a wonderful mother of 12 children (at that time of my life I had never met anyone with that many children!). She told me that she noticed an immediate improvement in the life of all her children, not when she began baking bread, but when she began griding the wheat freshly to bake the bread. I took account of this and began to find a way to do this. It wasn’t easy in those days when we didn’t have the household wheat grinders we have today.

The first thing I found available was a farmer friend who had a great big contraption that they used for griding stuff for their pigs! I used to go out to their farm every three weeks and grind my wheat in this big contraption! I’m still grinding my spelt and rye each time I bake my bread but praise the Lord I now have a wheat grinder on my counter!

YOU ARE A DISHWASHER

And what do you do when you’ve baked bread? You have to wash the pans and all the utensils you used. These priests did a lot of washing dishes too!

But there’s more yet. God’s Word states that all these people were ordained “in their set office” (verses 22, 26, and 31). The word “office” in the Hebrew means “faithfulness, firmness, fidelity, stability, truth.” It is translated “faithfulness” 26 times in the King James Version. These men were faithful to their tasks, even though many of these tasks were menial.

Dear lovely mother, you have also been ordained to a “set office” by God. As you manage your home—preparing meals, baking, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning floors and toilets, and caring for your precious children, God sees each task as a priestly duty. You are doing these things in His presence. He sees these duties as powerful and anointed as a minister preaching his sermon on Sunday. Please, do not ever see them as insignificant. Everything you do in the presence of God is sacred and therefore powerful.

Embrace every practical task in your home today. Rejoice in it. Be faithful to it.

Oh yes, one more thing to encourage you. This attribute of faithfulness God wants us to have toward our homely duties is the very same word that is used 20 times to describe God’s faithfulness! When you are faithful, with joy, to fulfil your daily tasks, you reveal the character of God! Wow! That is powerful.

Have a wonderful day, Nancy Campbell

PRAYER:

“Dear God and Father, thank You for showing me that the mundane daily duties I must do in my home are priestly duties. You see them as sacred as I fulfil them in Your presence. Help me to rejoice greatly in all my homemaking tasks. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

I am a queen and a priest in my home as I fulfil all my daily tasks.

Every now and then I like to get on my “band wagon” or my “soap box.” I have quite a few soap boxes! Which one am I on today?

I wonder why people are forgetting about their Bibles. Yes, I know most people read their Bibles on their iPhones today and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. But I feel sad that they are discarding their Bible they can hold in their hands. There’s something about holding the written Word of God. I love to hold it in my hands. I love to even caress it. I love to underline my Bible. I love my well-used Bible, and I constantly wear out my Bibles.

In my personal devotions, I use my iPhone to check Hebrew and Greek words and sometimes another translation, but I love to read my printed Bible. Far less side-tracking. Oh yes. It is so easy to get side-tracked. Even though I am a disciplined person, I find I have to be extra disciplined if using my iPhone. I can be checking a Hebrew word and in comes a message, DING! It is so tempting to check that message. But I mustn’t! That’s why it is much healthier to read the printed Bible in your hand.

It is rare to see people bring their Bible to church today. This really saddens me. Even the preachers preach from their iPhones. Oh my, I think there is so much more authority about them holding God’s Word in their hand as they preach!

And the congregation. There are those who are diligent to read along on their iPhones when the Scriptures are being read, but oh my (oh my again!) I know that most are not doing it. And many are checking their messages—in church! Can you believe it? I think it is sacrilege. Oh yes, they are just too tempting and distracting! I’d like to ban iPhones from church! Wow, this won’t be a popular devotion!

I think it’s time we brought our Bibles back to church. What a wonderful thing it is to see a whole congregation with their Bibles open and a notebook ready to write down what God is saying to them. When people bring their Bibles to church you know they mean business with God. You know they are a student of God’s Word (2 Timothy 2:15). You know they are a Berean, those who search the Scriptures daily “to see if those things were so” (Acts 17:11). It’s good to check out the preacher.

Here’s a good challenge. Why not make it a new project to go to church this coming weekend, making sure everyone in the family is carrying their Bible! It will give your children a renewed encouragement of the importance of the Bible. It’s not any ordinary book. It contains the eternal living words of God. And when other families see you all with your Bibles, hopefully they will be encouraged to do the same thing. Encourage your children to look up the Scriptures the preacher is referring to (and even to have a notebook to write them down). They will become far more involved in church.

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

What about when you are reading the Bible in public, perhaps on an airplane or waiting room. You may love to do it on your iPhone, but that doesn’t scare anyone. Get out your Bible and you’ll get some reaction or even avoidance! The literal Bible has power to convict people even without reading the words.

It’s time the Bible came back into the open! Anyone with me?

Blessings from Nancy Campbell

PRAYER:

“Dear Father, I love Your Word. It is my life and my sustenance. Help me to be a true student of Your living Word, reading my Bible where I will not be distracted by my iPhone. Amen.”

AFFIRMATION:

“I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99).