Jesus is Your Gardener

Growing spiritually is like tending a well maintained garden. Jesus himself refers to planting seeds in good soil. When I first received Jesus as my Savior at the age of 31, I had years of weeds, thorns, and stones that needed to be removed from the garden of my heart before I could do any significant growing. These things were all just symptoms of the real issues that were tormenting my life. I felt ashamed, unworthy, rejected, angry, bitter, self-dependent, crazy, depressed and the list could go on and on.  In order to experience the fullness of the cross, I had to let Jesus be the gardener of my heart and till the soil to expose the things that were hindering my garden from producing fruit. Thank God, Jesus isn’t just interested in making the garden look good.  He wants to dig to the roots. I had numerous bad seeds that had been planted in my garden.  These seeds shaped my thinking and my response to the situations of life circumstances. These seeds were planted by people who sometimes weren’t intentional trying to hurt me, but nevertheless the damage still remained.  Seeds of physical/emotional neglect and abuse can cause walls of distrust and torment that only Jesus can heal. The emotional side effects can cause us to abuse ourselves while we are trying to fill a void and numb the pain with alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, sex, food, etc. Digging to the roots is not an easy process.  It takes work but it doesn’t have to take long! Jesus can heal the pain quickly if you surrender it to Him.  Ask Him to take it. The Holy Spirit will show you where and when the seed was planted and how to remove it once and for all.  It begins with surrender, but then by prayer and obedience, Jesus can seal that place with His blood and create good ground for His good seed to be planted. Forgive others and forgive yourself.  Jesus does as soon as you ask.  He wants you to be free and produce fruit in your garden that will last throughout generations.

 

Father, we thank you that You are the gardener of our hearts.  Tend our hearts and dig up everything that won’t produce good fruit.  Help us to forgive and see ourselves as You see us. We surrender our pains and ask you to remove the seeds so that the bad fruit may also be removed.  Show us how to plant seeds in our lives that will be good to eat and multiply for the generations to come. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen!

Prov.25:2  It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

Read Matthew 13 and ask God to show you how to be good soil for His Word.