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Barbara Rainey mentors women in their most important relationships. She loves encouraging women to believe God and experience Him in every area of their lives.
Samantha Keller: There’s something incredibly inspiring about remembering Who you belong to. Barbara Rainey provides perspective for our mundane tasks.
Barbara Rainey: I think we forget—when we go out on a day-to-day basis—that we’re on the business of the King. I think we are so prone to get caught up in my “to do” list, or the things I’ve got to check off, or all the errands I have to run, or whatever it might be that we forget that we have been called to live for the King and for His business and not my own.
Samantha: Welcome to the Barbara Rainey Podcast from Ever Thine Home. We’re dedicated to helping you experience God in your home. Thanks for listening!
Have you thought about who you represent? You know…
Lawmakers get elected to represent the interests of the people who live in their districts.
If you work for a company, then, as an employee of that company, at least in some senses you represent them. For example, people have gotten fired from their job because of things they’ve posted on social media. So you do act like a representative of your employer.
The different hats we wear all have different meanings and areas where we act as representatives, as well.
In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, the Apostle Paul tells us that all true followers of Jesus are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. That is, we help people get right with God. Then Paul writes, “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us…” and he goes on, saying, “Be reconciled to God.”
Do you think of yourself as an ambassador? Barbara remembers seeing something that woke her up to that reality.
Barbara: Well, I found a video, maybe five minutes long, maybe, six-minutes long, about this individual who lived in an Eastern European country, described as a very atheistic country. This individual had a plaque on the outside of the entrance to their home—the plaque said, “Embassy of the King of Heaven.” The story goes about how this person lived in this Communist country and has lived through multiple regime changes. Yet, one constant has remained the same; that is that the country in which this person lives is not really his home. This person really belongs to the kingdom of heaven.
Samantha: This person has requested that we keep the story anonymous. So we’re not naming their country or even their gender. For discussion purposes here, we’ll refer to him as a man.
He sees his home as set apart. Different. When he walks out his front door, he’s going into a different place…
Barbara: —into a foreign country because he believes that his home belongs to the kingdom of heaven. He even says on the video: “My home represents the King that I serve; and so I want my home to reflect the King. I have things on my wall. The way I conduct myself all represents my King.”
The video shows him going to the market—buying things, bringing things back—so that he can entertain guests. Some of them have called for an appointment to visit with him. He considers himself an ambassador—these people have called and want to come and talk. There are others who see the sign next to his front door and just knock.
He says the Holy Spirit brings these people. People come and want to talk about troubles in their lives; or things that they’re going through; or they want to know, “Who is this King of heaven that you serve and that you belong to?”
Samantha: Seeing that video made an impression on Barbara.
Barbara: It just was so powerful to watch this person and to hear this person, who is an elderly person, who has lived almost 80 years of life. I was just inspired by the story because I realized that’s true for all of us, who are believers in Christ: I am an ambassador. Our children are ambassadors.
That means the home that I live in, the home that we live in should be an embassy of the King. Therefore: “How can I”--especially me, as a woman—“How can I make my home—which I’m always conscious of and aware of… I’m always trying to improve our home—how do I make our home represent the King, the King that I belong to?” My home is not really the property that we live on. My home is really in heaven. We’re here temporarily, and God has us here about His plan and about His purposes. So: “How can I be more connected with what He wants me to do? And how can my home be more of a representative of Him, the King?”
Samantha: That’s relevant in a day when so many Christians feel confused or even fearful. They see basic words and concepts being redefined. They rub shoulders with friends and coworkers whose value systems are contrary to what God’s Word teaches. It can actually be a great comfort, to remember, as the old gospel song says,
SONG: This world is not my home. I’m just a passin’ through,
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue…
Barbara: I think, for the most part, we’ve forgotten that this isn’t our home.
It is a little bit of a paradox to live in this land and yet to be mindful that this isn’t our home. But it’s a good reminder. I think that would be a great hymn for us to start singing in church again because I don’t think we think about that enough. I think our roots have gone down too deep into the soil of this land; and we’ve forgotten that we really belong to another place, another time, and another King—and that’s whom we serve.
SONG: …And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore
(“This World Is Not My Home,” Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys, The Old Country Church ℗ Originally released 1964, Sony Music Entertainment)
Samantha: If you visit Embassy Row in Washington, D. C., you’ll see a series of houses. They’re the various embassies of different countries. Barbara explains.
Barbara: One of the things that you would find interesting—anybody who visits an embassy—if you went down Embassy Row: The houses are all slightly different. They’re not the same. They have a sign outside that’s different. Usually, there’s a flag representing that country; but if you walk in the front door of that embassy, you’re going to be greeted with sights and sounds and probably even smells from that home country.
If you went into the American Embassy in Africa—in some African nation—or the American Embassy in Beijing, it would not look like China when you walked in the door. It would not look like Uganda when you walked in the door. When you walk in the door of the American Embassy, you see framed pictures of our national heroes—George Washington and Abraham Lincoln would be on the wall. You would see the American flag. The embassies have kitchens. You would probably smell American food cooking. There would be air-conditioning, carpeting—it would feel like being home in America.
The embassy is a piece of that country on foreign soil. For instance, the soil that the American Embassy sits on—in whatever country we have an embassy—that soil literally belongs to the United States.
If you’re in another country—we were traveling, say, in China—and we had some kind of problem, some kind of trouble—we, because we’re American citizens, would go to the American Embassy for help. The staff of the American Embassy are there to help American citizens, who are traveling, or working, or serving in that country.
They’re also there to engage with local citizens, too, because there are people who come to the American Embassy to get a visa to travel to the United States. They serve lots of different purposes.
Samantha: So the home of this unnamed person in an unnamed country had a plaque by the front door. It said, “Embassy of the King of Heaven.” Barbara loves that concept because it affects our perception of our mission.
Barbara: When we all leave home, we’re going into enemy territory. And if my home really belongs to the King, then when I’m home I’m in His presence. Not that His presence doesn’t go with me, because it does. But when we’re out in the world, when we’re in school or we’re dealing with people, sometimes we have really hard days. And I just imagine coming home to my home and seeing that on the door as I come in, reminding myself, I’m going home to a place of refuge. My home needs to be a place of safety and refuge, and because it belongs to the King, it’s good for me to go back home to the embassy of the King.
I think we forget—when we go out on a day-to-day basis—that we’re on the business of the King. I think we are so prone to get caught up in my “to do” list, or the things I’ve got to check off, or all the errands I have to run, or whatever it might be that we forget that we have been called to live for the King. So, when we leave our front door every day, or get in our car to go to school, or get on the bus, or whatever, I think it’s very easy to forget that “I’ve been called today to live for the King and for His business and not my own.”
Samantha: You may want to make your own sign or even have it engraved on a plaque as a reminder to guests who visit and to your own family: We’re ambassadors. We represent the King of Heaven. Barbara’s own design is something you could hang up in your home. I’ll tell you how to do that in a moment.
Another way to keep that idea in the forefront is to get a copy of a book Barbara wrote along with her friend Janel Breitenstein (BRIGHT-en-stine). It’s titled Your Home His Embassy. They wrote it to help you explore why your home matters. It’s structured around four conversations you can have as a family, or you can reflect on personally.
Barbara: Yes; we’ve got four discussions, for lack of a better word, that you can do with your kids—a couple of stories to read and then some things to talk about that will help you communicate to your kids: “What does it mean to be an ambassador? What does it mean to represent Christ?” It just gives you an opportunity, as a family, to talk about: “How can we make our home be a better embassy? How can we better represent Christ?” I think they’re good discussions for parents to have with their kids.
Samantha: And even if you don’t have children, they’re helpful questions to think through as you work on being intentional with how your home is used as an embassy of the King. It really is a mindset thing.
The book Your Home His Embassy is available in electronic form for $5.99, or if you’re one of Barbara's Friends & Family, it’s included in your subscription. You can subscribe today for $5 a month and not only get Your Home His Embassy, but also other content she creates, like Barbara's five-part Bible study Cultivating Hope, AND the upcoming podcast season called “Disappointment with God,” which will be out in just a few weeks. In addition, you’ll have access to other new devotionals and podcast episodes. That’s all included when you sign up as one of Barbara’s Friends & Family.
And don’t forget about the sign that I mentioned earlier. It says, in bold lettering, “Embassy of the King.” You can download and print your own, or order a stencil and do it yourself.
All the information about the ebook Your Home His Embassy, information on subscribing to Barbara’s Friends and Family, and a link to the different design options for the “Embassy of the King” sign can be found at this web address: EverThineHome.com/Embassy. Again, it’s EverThineHome.com/Embassy.
I’m Samantha, thanking you for listening today, and inviting you back next time, for the Barbara Rainey Podcast, from Ever Thine Home.