Are there any spiritual types to gardening in raised beds? Maybe. Out of all the people on the earth, God chose Abraham, plucked him up and planted him in a special place, a very fruitful place. (Genesis 12:1) Did Abraham deserve it? No. God just picked him out to be a recipient of his blessings because He wanted a special people. God has always wanted a special people, a chosen people. God took special care of Abraham's children because He had a plan. All of mankind had become hybridized with sin, and God wanted to bring at least some of them back to original Word children. Through the planting and the tending of His special little garden, He finally brought forth Jesus Christ. The Seed had come to perfection. Now He planted the perfect Seed, but instead of planting It in the earth, He planted It in heaven. It did go into the earth, but the earth couldn't hold It. He is risen! Instead of planting the Seed in geographical Canaan, He plants It in spiritual Canaan, which is human hearts that have been prepared to receive Him. As the physical seed of Abraham entered Canaan by faith in the promises of God, so does the spiritual Seed of Abraham enter your heart by faith. Then, as the Israelites went forth to conquer and to cleanse the land, so does Jesus Christ come in and take out the giants of sin and wickedness in your heart. And finally, when you have come to full maturity, then you are counted as pure-bred seed! If you have received the Life of Christ, you are Abraham’s Seed as He is the Seed of Abraham, and children of the promise. (Romans 9: 7-8 and Gal. 3: 26-29) And God has a special place to plant you and nourish you! If you are a child, maybe God has given you Christian parents to give you special care and attention. Maybe you are blessed to have a good church you can go to for Christian fellowship and good Sunday School teaching. But even if you don't have any of this, there is a special place for you! And that is in the arms of Jesus! You get there by spending time in prayer and in reading the Bible. Whenever any kind of trouble touches your life, just talk to Jesus about it! No matter what happens in your life, whether good or bad, talk to Jesus about it. Take Him with you everywhere you go! That is your special privilege. That is your 'raised bed' (sitting in heavenly places).
God bless you!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
The Garden Of God
Just like there are three essential elements to any good garden, there are three things that every Christian must have in order to bear fruit that is pleasing to God. A good vegetable garden needs light, water, and good soil.
Let's talk about light first. The Bible establishes the fact that Jesus is the Light of the world. (John 1:4-9; John 8:12; John 9:5) How is He that Light, or how can you make use of that Light in your life? In this example, Jesus Christ is the Word. (John 1:14) Just like a plant needs a certain amount of sunlight each day, a Christian needs to spend a certain amount of time in the Word. This can happen in different ways. Reading the Bible, listening to a sermon, talking about Scripture with other people, meditating on the Word, or even spending time in prayer is like basking in the Son. This is absolutely vital. The plants in your garden can not live very long, and certainly not bear fruit without sunlight. So does a Christian get weak and malnourished when he goes too long without spending time in the Word. On the other hand, if you abide in Him, and He abides in you, then you become the light of the world as well. (Matthew 5:14)
The water represents the Holy Spirit. As a seed cannot even sprout without moisture, so no one can even begin the Christian life without the working of the Holy Spirit. (John 6:44) As a plant must be watered regularly in order to grow well and bear fruit, so must a Christian be watered with the Holy Spirit. As a plant can never grow to maturity and bear fruit with only sunlight and no water, so can a Christian never fulfill his God-ordained purpose by having only the Word and not the Spirit that uttered the Word in the first place. You might read the Bible and listen to a sermon every day; you might be able to quote whole chapters from the Bible; you might be in church every time the doors are open; you might know all the major doctrines and understand church order, and still not have the Holy Ghost. You might understand all spiritual mysteries, and have all spiritual knowledge, and faith to remove mountains, and still not be filled with the Holy Ghost. (I Cor. 13:2) And until you are filled with the Holy Ghost, you cannot properly fill your place in the garden of God. A Christian can grow some and even bear some fruit simply by being in the presence of the Holy Spirit, either by being under the preaching of the Word or taking part in anointed worship, but once he gets filled and sealed by the Holy Ghost by a personal experience, THEN he is like a tree that is planted by the river of God. (Psalm 1) Now he himself becomes a fountain of Living Water. That doesn't mean he can now do away with Christian fellowship, the Word, or any of that. It simply means that instead of just enjoying the blessings of God, he now becomes a source of It! (John 7:38)
So how do you get planted by this River? Only God can do that. But there are a few things that you can do. You must die to yourself and die to the world. Let that Word and the Spirit do it's work on you. You can saturate yourself with it. Let it mellow you, break you up. In this example, we could say the soil is your heart (Mark 4:15, Luke 8:15). Your heart is what needs to be prepared to receive the Word seeds and the Holy Ghost water. In the old days they would use a plow, turning it upside down (symbolizing repentance). Now they use a tiller, which chops and cuts and sifts through the soil (like taking correction from the Master Gardener). This soil needs to be cultivated, broken up, rocks and trash taken out (sanctification). I find it very striking, too, that the most fertile soil is that which has large amounts of organic matter, or compost in it (dead stuff), which shows that the more you can die to yourself and the world, the better the Seed of God's Word can grow in you and bear fruit that pleases Him.
And this is only the beginning. It only gets better as we go along. God bless you until next time!
Let's talk about light first. The Bible establishes the fact that Jesus is the Light of the world. (John 1:4-9; John 8:12; John 9:5) How is He that Light, or how can you make use of that Light in your life? In this example, Jesus Christ is the Word. (John 1:14) Just like a plant needs a certain amount of sunlight each day, a Christian needs to spend a certain amount of time in the Word. This can happen in different ways. Reading the Bible, listening to a sermon, talking about Scripture with other people, meditating on the Word, or even spending time in prayer is like basking in the Son. This is absolutely vital. The plants in your garden can not live very long, and certainly not bear fruit without sunlight. So does a Christian get weak and malnourished when he goes too long without spending time in the Word. On the other hand, if you abide in Him, and He abides in you, then you become the light of the world as well. (Matthew 5:14)
The water represents the Holy Spirit. As a seed cannot even sprout without moisture, so no one can even begin the Christian life without the working of the Holy Spirit. (John 6:44) As a plant must be watered regularly in order to grow well and bear fruit, so must a Christian be watered with the Holy Spirit. As a plant can never grow to maturity and bear fruit with only sunlight and no water, so can a Christian never fulfill his God-ordained purpose by having only the Word and not the Spirit that uttered the Word in the first place. You might read the Bible and listen to a sermon every day; you might be able to quote whole chapters from the Bible; you might be in church every time the doors are open; you might know all the major doctrines and understand church order, and still not have the Holy Ghost. You might understand all spiritual mysteries, and have all spiritual knowledge, and faith to remove mountains, and still not be filled with the Holy Ghost. (I Cor. 13:2) And until you are filled with the Holy Ghost, you cannot properly fill your place in the garden of God. A Christian can grow some and even bear some fruit simply by being in the presence of the Holy Spirit, either by being under the preaching of the Word or taking part in anointed worship, but once he gets filled and sealed by the Holy Ghost by a personal experience, THEN he is like a tree that is planted by the river of God. (Psalm 1) Now he himself becomes a fountain of Living Water. That doesn't mean he can now do away with Christian fellowship, the Word, or any of that. It simply means that instead of just enjoying the blessings of God, he now becomes a source of It! (John 7:38)
So how do you get planted by this River? Only God can do that. But there are a few things that you can do. You must die to yourself and die to the world. Let that Word and the Spirit do it's work on you. You can saturate yourself with it. Let it mellow you, break you up. In this example, we could say the soil is your heart (Mark 4:15, Luke 8:15). Your heart is what needs to be prepared to receive the Word seeds and the Holy Ghost water. In the old days they would use a plow, turning it upside down (symbolizing repentance). Now they use a tiller, which chops and cuts and sifts through the soil (like taking correction from the Master Gardener). This soil needs to be cultivated, broken up, rocks and trash taken out (sanctification). I find it very striking, too, that the most fertile soil is that which has large amounts of organic matter, or compost in it (dead stuff), which shows that the more you can die to yourself and the world, the better the Seed of God's Word can grow in you and bear fruit that pleases Him.
And this is only the beginning. It only gets better as we go along. God bless you until next time!
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Trial of Your Faith
It’s normal for me to be positive and upbeat, and it’s not uncommon for people to ask me why I’m so perky all the time. But what about when trials come? What about the dark times? It’s true, I’m not perfect. But I know that the God of the sunshine is also God of the storm. Here is a testimony of something I experienced recently.
On Nov. 6, 2011, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I’m a strong believer in letting a woman rest for a few weeks after childbirth. Studies show that they are much less susceptible to postpartum depression, among other things, if they are given sufficient time to rest up and heal. So I took it upon myself to serve her breakfast in bed, and take care of the older children and keep house for several days, plus work at my regular job. Anyone who has tried that knows how tiring and stressful that can be. It was during this time of weakness that the devil struck (isn’t he a coward, though!)
Two or three days after the baby arrived, I went out in the morning to milk our faithful goat when I found her dead in the pasture. Her young one, just over a year old, was tied in the barn and had met the same fate. A careful search turned up a few bear tracks just outside the barn. This was a real shock, as we’d never had any trouble with bears at all. A few days later, I crushed the tip of my finger in an accident at work. A sudden, forceful impact split my fingernail clean through from side to side and split my finger open halfway across. Before that had time to heal, a serious staph infection developed on my side (completely unrelated to the accident). This came to a climax on Thanksgiving Day, which I spent mostly lying down with compresses on my side. The following day I went to have it surgically removed. During that same time my wife was dealing with some trials of her own, and that with the baby being obviously miserable continued taking up most of her resources. The week after Thanksgiving, my finger which had been crushed, which by the way was hardly even sore anymore, developed a VERY painful swelling on the FRONT SIDE of the finger (starting about a week after it got crushed). Apparently there was an infection in there that needed to come out. I actually had to slit the front of my finger with a razor blade to relieve some of the pain and pressure in order to sleep at night.
In the midst of all this, certain thoughts kept coming to me. Like “boy, the devil sure is fighting me hard. He’s trying to get me down. He’s trying to kill me!” I never doubted that the Lord would see me through just fine. I never doubted His love, His kindness and grace toward me, or His power and willingness to heal, or to deliver me from whatever else the devil could throw at me. But with these negative thoughts coming at me, it created a constant feeling of “something else is about to happen. I wonder what it’s going to be next.”
After a few days, a new Thought broke in on these thoughts, like this: “Wait a minute! Where are these thoughts coming from? Would my precious Lord Jesus keep reminding me that the devil is fighting me? Would the Lord want me to dwell on thoughts like this? Certainly not! He wants us to dwell on the Word! So praise the Lord, I am going to listen to the Word!”
And you know what? It created a different atmosphere! I still feel like something else is going to happen, but now I feel that Something Good Is About To Happen!! So I’m singing Victory!
Do I still feel pain? Sure, but the Word says, ‘I am the Lord that healeth thee.’ And ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.’ Do I still have other handicaps and difficulties? Yes, but the Word says, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ and ‘All power in heaven and in earth is given unto me.’ Do I still suffer loss? Certainly, but ‘My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,’ and He promises: ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ And I don’t care if the devil puts me in the grave; I already have the down payment for a resurrection!! ...YE ARE ALSO RISEN WITH HIM THROUGH THE FAITH OF THE OPERATION OF GOD, WHO HAS RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD. (Col. 2: 12b) So I’m singing in the devil's face! The devil is a loser and he knows it; he’s just hoping we won’t figure it out. For all I care, he might as well not exist! I’m singing Victory because I’m identified with Him Who has already secured the Victory, Jesus Christ!! BUT THANKS BE TO GOD, WHICH GIVETH US THE VICTORY THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. (I Cor. 15: 57)
Somebody always asks, “If God really loves us, why does He let things like that happen to us?” First I want to make it clear that God’s Love is not the only force at work in the universe. Then too, how can you show love to somebody without blessing them in some way? And how can you bless someone when everything is already perfect? Let me give you an example:
Imagine a young man that is very much in love with a certain young lady. He tries different ways to show her his love, trying to get her to spend time with him. She acknowledges him, but doesn’t pursue the relationship. One day he sees some pranksters letting the air out of the tires of her car. He is perfectly capable of intervening and preventing their mischief, but decides not to. He stays in the shadows and watches. When she comes out, and realizes she needs help, he steps up and offers his assistance. He is hoping that by these gestures she will warm up to him and show some love in return. And usually the more desperate the situation, the greater the response will be. How does the story end up? That depends on your response, for YOU are the young lady in the story and He is the Lord Jesus!
Now, what if you have already accepted His proposal? You love Him and serve Him. Somebody lets the air out of your tires and He doesn’t show up to help you. What then? Maturity. You see, there’s no limit to the heights and the depths that He wants you to experience. We tend to get comfortable with our “status quo”. We get settled in, and think “this is it!” If you have been loving Him and serving Him and the trials come, or it seems as if he’s left you, then that’s an invitation to stretch. He may have moved a “stone’s throw” beyond where you have been before, inviting you to move out of your comfort zone. He wants to take you to a whole new level. BUT SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, (THAT WE) MAY GROW UP INTO HIM IN ALL THINGS, WHICH IS THE HEAD, EVEN CHRIST. (Eph. 4: 15)
Many times we find it scary to enter unfamiliar territory, but He invites us to throw ourselves wholly upon Him, trusting Him completely to carry us through. CASTING ALL YOUR CARE UPON HIM, FOR HE CARETH FOR YOU. (I Peter 5: 7) And instead of trying to see your way through from your present position, instead of looking for the “light at the end of the tunnel” focus on the Light that is around you. For in His Presence there is peace, and comfort, and joy, NOW. Don’t forget that you are under His Divine protection. You are the “apple” of His eye. He is ever present, even when it doesn’t seem like it. He promised it. LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD. (Matt. 28: 20b) Concentrate on living in the present. It is God’s gift to you. Tomorrow is in His hands; it is not ours to hold.
So remember, the more you trust and commit your current situation to the Lord, the better you will be able to face whatever tomorrow may bring. TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL THINE HEART, AND LEAN NOT ON THINE OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS. (Proverbs 3: 5-6) So how do we keep our victory when the trials come? We don’t; His victory keeps us! What is it? Faith in the Word, believing what He said, knowing that It is backed up by His Love! COMMIT THY WAY UNTO THE LORD; TRUST ALSO IN HIM, AND HE SHALL BRING IT TO PASS. (Psalm 37 :5)
On Nov. 6, 2011, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I’m a strong believer in letting a woman rest for a few weeks after childbirth. Studies show that they are much less susceptible to postpartum depression, among other things, if they are given sufficient time to rest up and heal. So I took it upon myself to serve her breakfast in bed, and take care of the older children and keep house for several days, plus work at my regular job. Anyone who has tried that knows how tiring and stressful that can be. It was during this time of weakness that the devil struck (isn’t he a coward, though!)
Two or three days after the baby arrived, I went out in the morning to milk our faithful goat when I found her dead in the pasture. Her young one, just over a year old, was tied in the barn and had met the same fate. A careful search turned up a few bear tracks just outside the barn. This was a real shock, as we’d never had any trouble with bears at all. A few days later, I crushed the tip of my finger in an accident at work. A sudden, forceful impact split my fingernail clean through from side to side and split my finger open halfway across. Before that had time to heal, a serious staph infection developed on my side (completely unrelated to the accident). This came to a climax on Thanksgiving Day, which I spent mostly lying down with compresses on my side. The following day I went to have it surgically removed. During that same time my wife was dealing with some trials of her own, and that with the baby being obviously miserable continued taking up most of her resources. The week after Thanksgiving, my finger which had been crushed, which by the way was hardly even sore anymore, developed a VERY painful swelling on the FRONT SIDE of the finger (starting about a week after it got crushed). Apparently there was an infection in there that needed to come out. I actually had to slit the front of my finger with a razor blade to relieve some of the pain and pressure in order to sleep at night.
In the midst of all this, certain thoughts kept coming to me. Like “boy, the devil sure is fighting me hard. He’s trying to get me down. He’s trying to kill me!” I never doubted that the Lord would see me through just fine. I never doubted His love, His kindness and grace toward me, or His power and willingness to heal, or to deliver me from whatever else the devil could throw at me. But with these negative thoughts coming at me, it created a constant feeling of “something else is about to happen. I wonder what it’s going to be next.”
After a few days, a new Thought broke in on these thoughts, like this: “Wait a minute! Where are these thoughts coming from? Would my precious Lord Jesus keep reminding me that the devil is fighting me? Would the Lord want me to dwell on thoughts like this? Certainly not! He wants us to dwell on the Word! So praise the Lord, I am going to listen to the Word!”
And you know what? It created a different atmosphere! I still feel like something else is going to happen, but now I feel that Something Good Is About To Happen!! So I’m singing Victory!
Do I still feel pain? Sure, but the Word says, ‘I am the Lord that healeth thee.’ And ‘Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.’ Do I still have other handicaps and difficulties? Yes, but the Word says, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ and ‘All power in heaven and in earth is given unto me.’ Do I still suffer loss? Certainly, but ‘My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,’ and He promises: ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.’ And I don’t care if the devil puts me in the grave; I already have the down payment for a resurrection!! ...YE ARE ALSO RISEN WITH HIM THROUGH THE FAITH OF THE OPERATION OF GOD, WHO HAS RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD. (Col. 2: 12b) So I’m singing in the devil's face! The devil is a loser and he knows it; he’s just hoping we won’t figure it out. For all I care, he might as well not exist! I’m singing Victory because I’m identified with Him Who has already secured the Victory, Jesus Christ!! BUT THANKS BE TO GOD, WHICH GIVETH US THE VICTORY THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. (I Cor. 15: 57)
Somebody always asks, “If God really loves us, why does He let things like that happen to us?” First I want to make it clear that God’s Love is not the only force at work in the universe. Then too, how can you show love to somebody without blessing them in some way? And how can you bless someone when everything is already perfect? Let me give you an example:
Imagine a young man that is very much in love with a certain young lady. He tries different ways to show her his love, trying to get her to spend time with him. She acknowledges him, but doesn’t pursue the relationship. One day he sees some pranksters letting the air out of the tires of her car. He is perfectly capable of intervening and preventing their mischief, but decides not to. He stays in the shadows and watches. When she comes out, and realizes she needs help, he steps up and offers his assistance. He is hoping that by these gestures she will warm up to him and show some love in return. And usually the more desperate the situation, the greater the response will be. How does the story end up? That depends on your response, for YOU are the young lady in the story and He is the Lord Jesus!
Now, what if you have already accepted His proposal? You love Him and serve Him. Somebody lets the air out of your tires and He doesn’t show up to help you. What then? Maturity. You see, there’s no limit to the heights and the depths that He wants you to experience. We tend to get comfortable with our “status quo”. We get settled in, and think “this is it!” If you have been loving Him and serving Him and the trials come, or it seems as if he’s left you, then that’s an invitation to stretch. He may have moved a “stone’s throw” beyond where you have been before, inviting you to move out of your comfort zone. He wants to take you to a whole new level. BUT SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, (THAT WE) MAY GROW UP INTO HIM IN ALL THINGS, WHICH IS THE HEAD, EVEN CHRIST. (Eph. 4: 15)
Many times we find it scary to enter unfamiliar territory, but He invites us to throw ourselves wholly upon Him, trusting Him completely to carry us through. CASTING ALL YOUR CARE UPON HIM, FOR HE CARETH FOR YOU. (I Peter 5: 7) And instead of trying to see your way through from your present position, instead of looking for the “light at the end of the tunnel” focus on the Light that is around you. For in His Presence there is peace, and comfort, and joy, NOW. Don’t forget that you are under His Divine protection. You are the “apple” of His eye. He is ever present, even when it doesn’t seem like it. He promised it. LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD. (Matt. 28: 20b) Concentrate on living in the present. It is God’s gift to you. Tomorrow is in His hands; it is not ours to hold.
So remember, the more you trust and commit your current situation to the Lord, the better you will be able to face whatever tomorrow may bring. TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL THINE HEART, AND LEAN NOT ON THINE OWN UNDERSTANDING. IN ALL THY WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HE SHALL DIRECT THY PATHS. (Proverbs 3: 5-6) So how do we keep our victory when the trials come? We don’t; His victory keeps us! What is it? Faith in the Word, believing what He said, knowing that It is backed up by His Love! COMMIT THY WAY UNTO THE LORD; TRUST ALSO IN HIM, AND HE SHALL BRING IT TO PASS. (Psalm 37 :5)
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