He Gives Us Gardens

 

 (Enjoy some thoughts and lessons from my heart that my sister Bethany planted about gardens)

How wondrous and mind-boggling it is to realize that all we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell in creation around us ALL points to God. For the Lord did not aimlessly create things, but with exact precision and design created all he did to reveal his glory. Psalm 19:1 says that "the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." Again in Psalm 50:6, the psalmist exclaims that "the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge!" In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome and stated: "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. . ." (Roman 1:19-20). This shows us that just like the heavens and sky above, all of creation also testifies to God's power and glory as everything carries out his design in creation.

Wonder of wonders is that God made man and woman in his image. We not only declare God's glory by carrying out his design the way animals and plants do or even how the solar system does as each new day revolves into the next and God's order and plan seamlessly unfolds; but we have the great privilege of living in fellowship with God. We have the express joy of waking up each morning to behold and enjoy the beauty of God in Christ Jesus and then reflecting his beauty as we live out our lives. "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. . ." (2 Corinthians 3:18). We do this by beholding Christ in the Word of God. "For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). To do what God has created us to do, we must live in daily fellowship with him through his Word as we behold Christ's beauty in the Scriptures; as we open our hearts in prayer, sharing and fellowshipping with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and as we "GO" out into the world reflecting the beauty of the God we love---the beauty of the God who loves us in Christ. This relationship we have with God is so special, and truly it is the treasure of all treasures we could ever have in this life or in all eternity. This relationship is what the Lord Jesus went to the cross for---to take our sin and the punishment we deserved and to lavish us with his righteousness so we can be found in Christ. In Christ we have unlimited access to the Father. In Christ we have the joy of giving everyone around us and even our own hearts glimpses of what God is like just like clouds show us the beauty of the sun at the start and the end of the day or how raindrops demonstrate the beauty of a refracted ray of light in a rainbow. We are born broken, ruined image bearers and in Christ we are redeemed and transformed to shine like the moon in the darkness of this world. The moon has no light of its own, but merely reflects the sun's light. So we too have no light in and of ourselves, but we shine Christ. For "we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us" (2Corinthians 4:7). 

"Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give the glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!" (Psalm 115:1).

God created the first image bearers in the beginning, Adam and Eve, and they were perfect and in God's sight they were "good". For God is the judge of what "Good" is. He created them to enjoy him, to enjoy the wonders of his creation, to walk with him in fellowship, to learn from him what "Good" is as they learned to reflect God's beauty. They were to take charge of the earth, explore its beauties, subdue it and have dominion over it. God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with other image bearers. God gave that first man and woman a garden---the Garden of Eden. A beautiful place to know God, walk with God, and discover all the hidden beauties of God's character proclaimed by the creation. God gave them one command: eat from all the trees, but do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden---the tree of choosing what is good and bad in your own eyes. They were supposed to trust God to decide what was good and bad. They were supposed to live according to the Father's will. They were supposed to live in fellowship with the Lord.

Sin ruined everything. When Eve was deceived and Adam willfully choose to be the decider of good and evil (to be the judge) by eating from the forbidden tree, the whole human race fell with him. We plunged into darkness, and worst of all we were separated from the God who made us---the God we were supposed to behold and reflect. We became broken, ruined image bearers. Death would be our end: immediate spiritual separation as we would live no longer in fellowship with God; separation from all that points to God and gives us tastes of his beauty (created things) as our physical bodies would slowly decay and die over time; and ultimately eternal separation from God himself in the Lake of Fire.  Now every human born would declare himself and herself to be the judge of what is good and evil. Every human would sit supremely on the throne of their hearts weilding the sword of their words. The consequences of this is plain and evident. One glance back through history, one quick perusal of the news headlines, even one glimpse of our children fighting and arguing in their bedrooms or our own hearts seeking our own way, proves the disaster that followed that horrible day when humans decided to take God's place as the judge and doubt his goodness and love in his perfect plan unfolding. "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.' They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good" (Psalm 14:1). The psalmist goes on to say in this passage that God looks down on humankind to see if any of us broken, ruined, image bearers seeks him like we were designed to do from the beginning. The conclusion that the psalmist gives is chilling: "They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:2). 

The consequences of sin were horrifying for man and woman would no longer be able to come into God's presence or walk with him in the Garden. In there sin, they lost the garden that God had given them. In his mercy, he drove them out of it so they would not eat from the tree of life and live forever. Do we know what that means? There will be people in the end who do live forever separated from God because they are still in their sin. People who reject the salvation Christ offers will exist forever in Hell---the Lake of Fire---where they will experince the wrath of God because of their sin. They will never again taste the goodness of God because they rejected his goodness revealed to them in Christ. Yet here with the first man and woman, God shows mercy as he kills an animal in their place and clothes them even as he sends them away from his presence. They leave his presence and the way back is guarded by cherubim and a flaming sword, but they do not leave alone. They take with them the Word of God; the promise that one day he would send a rescuer to right their wrongs and bring them back to there true home. This rescuer would not choose what was good in his own eyes but rest in God's will, "And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear..." (Isaiah 11:3). In Psalm 40 David prophecied about the rescuer who would be sent by God to save his people. His heart would not delight in his own will like Adam and all the rest of us, but instead his delight would be in doing the will of God (Psalm 40:8).

As we trace God's story throughout Scripture and even when we look at our own lives, God continually and faithfully points us back to that first Garden where we lost our most precious treasure---our relationship with him, his glorious presence, his life and beauty, and our very purpose in this world---and he also points us forward to a coming day when all who are covered by the blood of the Lamb and led by the Good Shepherd will be brought to the River of Life in the paradise of God where the Tree of Life grows. We will take of its fruit and be healed by its leaves. Jesus is preparing a Garden for us to walk with him once again! However, till then he gives us gardens to whisper his promises to our souls, to remind us of what is true, and to walk with us and pursue us with his wondrous presence; though so often we know it not. God is all mercy and grace and love! He upholds his justice and his wrath is righteous. How long-suffering he is! How slow to anger our God is to sinners! How kind he is to not let our story end at the Fall, but to promise all humans the hope of a rescuer if they will only believe the Word of the rescuer he sends.  The rescuer would come to proclaim what is good in God's eyes, he would tell them how to get back to the Garden, the rescuer would be the way and the way would be through his death as he bowed to the will of his Father. He would trust what his Father said was good no matter what happened to his life. "Though he slay me, I will hope in him. . ." (Job 13:15). We can be sure of God's wondrous heart for sinners for Jesus prayed before he was arrested and crucified and he said, "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with where I am, to see your glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world"(John 17:24). Jesus Christ is the rescuer whom God sent to bring us back into the Garden---back to God. What is Jesus' heart for us? Jesus wants to bring us back! He deeply desires for us to return and to behold his glory like we were always supposed to before we ruined everything by our sin. Jesus willingly sacrificed his life so that we can go through him back to the Father. We left the garden through the sin of Adam, and every day we prove we would have made the same decision he did if we were in his place. In the end all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus shall return to the Garden through the Lord Jesus Christ. We will pass through his Word---through his judgement--- just as we left through Adam's.