Imagine a lush garden with all of your favorite fruits and vegetables, the most fragrant flowers, the loveliest trees, and inviting places to gather with friends in both the sunshine and the shade. A place where people are nourished and enjoy peace, love, wisdom, and rejuvenation.
Our life can be this place—an extraordinary gift we both may have—and give—when we’re found living IN Christ Jesus!
But we must live in full surrender to Christ if we want to offer the welcome of His presence. We don’t like that thought because we think it will cause us to miss out on our best life. But my friend, surrender isn’t sacrifice when what you receive is better than what you give up. We need to get our spiritual night vision goggles on so we can see the world God’s way instead of being persuaded by our enemies that living for self is better than living for God. The enemy always makes sin seem appealing while also making God and His ways seem repugnant!
So I ask you—are you living in the garden of God?
When I speak of “God’s garden,” I mean having a strong sense of His presence in your life. It may seem shocking to you, but for the first 20 years of my born again Christian life, I never really experienced a strong, steady sense of God’s presence. So, of course, if you’ve never been in the garden of God, it makes sense that you wouldn’t know the benefits of planting one for yourself—right? But after God drew me back from the wreckage of hypocrisy and showed me life in the glorious garden of His presence—my life has never been the same!
By His Spirit and His Word, the Creator of all things wonderful, woos us into the wonders of His presence.
This verse takes on a personal meaning. It compels me each morning to begin my day in God’s glorious presence!
“And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
Isaiah 58:11
When we experience life God’s way, He creates in us a garden of welcome and we NEVER want to imagine life without Him. As we become spoiled by living in the joy of His will, the temptation of sin produces a repulsive reaction within us. We remember what it’s like to be thirsty and how horrible it was trying to quench our thirst with no water. We enjoy expanding our garden by planting the seeds of His Word all over our heart. And we allow the fruits of His Spirit to grow with wild abandon. People we meet desire to enter our garden and want to know how to plant their own. They want to meet our sweet Jesus!
Ah, my friend, if we want to live in the remarkable plan God made for us before the world began, we must make good choices. Each micro choice matters. The most important choice is deciding who we will serve—self or God. According to Jesus, we CANNOT serve both:
“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Matthew 6:22-24
We ALL serve someone or something—but there is only ONE Master who gave His life for us. There is only ONE Master who is the Father of all goodness. There is only ONE Master who thought your life was worth more than His! When we enter into the experience of complete surrender to God, we enter into HIS presence. His presence, His Word, and His Spirit work together to transform our wasteland into a delightful garden.
“As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”
Psalms 17:5
“I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”
Jeremiah 31:25
Our surrender to God plants a garden of Heaven in our life as a refuge for ourselves and a place where slaves of the enemy can come and find peace and rest in Christ Jesus.
We would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional. Did God speak to you or challenge your daily walk with him? Or is there a topic that you would like Kimberly to cover or expound on? Please share with us in the comments below.
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One Response
We must rest in the arms of Jesus. It is in him that we move and have our being.