Proverbs 31:31 (Knox translation), “Work such as hers claims its reward; let her life be spoken of with praise at the city gates.”

Perhaps you are feeling a little put out that the men are ordained to the city gates but you are commissioned to the home. Oh dear mother, don’t be deceived. Your work is just as important or even more important. As you fulfill your task on the home front, building strong gates in your home and training and preparing your children for God’s purposes, you are in the very perfect will of God. You have the opportunity to change your nation. You are the one who trains the men who will lead in the city gates. It is how you train them that will depend what happens in the city and in the nation! Yes, yours is the most important task of all.

As you embrace your God-given task, as you are faithful to it and give it all you’ve got, you will not be forgotten.  Your powerful influence and good works in your home can be spoken about in the city. The Proverbs 31 woman was faithful to her husband. She was a hard-worker. Her virtuous character was such a testimony that the men spoke about her in the gates. She was the talk of the town!

The heart of the Proverbs 31 woman was in her home. There are some who say that she was a working woman because she bought a field and planted a vineyard. Buying a field was not a nine-to-five job that took her away from the home every day. This was part of her home-making. She was responsible to feed her family. As the family grew, she needed more land to grow more food. Actually the Hebrew word for ‘buyeth’ means ‘to take’. She could have taken a field on her own property to plant the vineyard.

She also made linen garments and sashes which she sold. But this was a business in her home. This woman was not languishing in her home. She was productive. She was expanding. She was taking dominion. Everything she did was to strengthen the home. She continually built and repaired her gates.

Now let’s look at the second gate.

THE FISH GATE (Nehemiah 3:3)

The Fish Gate was so named because it was the entrance to the Fish Market. The Fish Gate speaks of Jesus calling us to “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:18-22) Once we have come through the Sheep Gate and received redemption through the blood of the cross, Jesus calls us to tell others about him.

“How can I be out witnessing when I’m in the home,” you ask? One of your tasks is to train your children to be “witnesses for Jesus” and to be “laborers for the harvest.” (Matthew 9:37-38) We named one of our daughters, “Evangeline”. From the time she was little I told her that her name means, “The bearer of the good news of the Gospel.” She understood that her name was her destiny and from a little tot until this day she has continued to be a fearless and constant witness for the Lord and His truth. She has proclaimed the gospel in many countries of the world and now as a mother of seven children in her home. In every shop she enters she talks to someone about the Lord.

Whenever you go to the supermarket or out and about, you are a witness. When people see your happy face and ask, “Are these all your children,” and you beam with joy and respond, “Oh yes, we love having children,” you are a witness for the Lord and His heart for children. You reveal God’s truth in a deceived world.  It is good to remind your children when you go out that how they act and everything they say will be a witness or a denial of Jesus.

But also, your home is a lighthouse to the lost. Your neighbors should see your strong marriage and your happy family life and be drawn to the light of Jesus shining through you. You can invite neighbors and needy people into your home. Everyone who comes in will see the light. Jesus says in Luke 8:16, “No one when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lamp stand, that those who enter may see the light.” (Luke 11:33)

How’s the Fish Gate in your home? Are you a witnessing family for Jesus? Or does this gate need some repairing?

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL

AFFIRMATION:

PRAYER:

“Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are the light of the world – and you live in me. Please show me anything that is clouding your light shining from my life and from our home. Lord Jesus, you have called us to fish men for you. Please make me and our whole family fishers of men.  Amen.”