A garden is a field of promise.
For the promise of fruit to come, there must be good soil, rain, and sun.
This is Gardening 101.
When the gardener begins to clean up the land, he quickly finds, there’s an enemy in the sand.
If that enemy is allowed to stay, the whole area will decay.
Weeds and poisonous plants must go. If they are left to survive, the fruit simply won’t arrive.
Spot them quick. Pull them early, so they don’t take over and make the good seed sick!
These weeds have a plan to cause distress.
We must root them out, and tend to the plants of promise.
There are “weeds” of fear and discontent. Weeds of arrogance. Weeds of sin and hatred. Weeds of care-less-ness. All of God’s created people have sin in their heart. (1) We are weak, and unable to root it out.
God alone is able to take it from us and make our lives new. Only God, through Jesus His Son is able to bring change, and an everlasting one.
On our own, we become frustrated and discouraged. But God, the Master Gardener provided Jesus on the cross. He sends His Holy Spirit to remind us He’s able to cleanse us.
What is fruit? What are weeds? Can the Bible help us to grow to discern between good and bad seeds?
Here are Words from Galatians 5:19-21.ERV,
The wrong things the sinful self does are clear: committing sexual sin, being morally bad, doing all kinds of shameful things,
worshiping false gods, taking part in witchcraft, hating people, causing trouble, being jealous, angry or selfish, causing people to argue and divide into separate groups,
being filled with envy, getting drunk, having wild parties, and doing other things like this. I warn you now as I warned you before: The people who do these things will not have a part in God’s kingdom.
God’s Word is rough. Like pulling of poisonous plants. But they must go. Or, we are left with pain, and trouble wherever it continues to grow.
Can we find fruit? Not without God. We must first ask Him to cleanse us, then He provides for all good:
But the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person’s life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these kinds of things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their sinful self. They have given up their old selfish feelings and the evil things they wanted to do. Galatians 5:22-25.
We get our new life from the Spirit, so we should follow the Spirit. Galatians 5:26.
Fruit, through Him. God’s power within. He gives us His Spirit.
He does the work when we make Jesus, LORD.
Fruitful plants. Rejoicing lives. All because God, He’s able to do all things.
(1) Romans 3:23
Watercolor credit: Grace Rypkema