I AM THE GARDEN OF GOD

“I planted, Apollos watered, but  God gave the  increase. So  then neither  he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.  Now  he who plants and  he who waters are one, and each  one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers;  you are  God's field…”  1Cor3:6-9

Our hearts are  the field,  garden, soil  where God plants His  seed.  
The seed is  Jesus  the Word of God. God expects  a harvest of the seed, not a harvest of the soil. What God wants  is for Christ  the seed to grow in our hearts  unto  a harvest of Christ and not  us growing unto a harvest of us. God wants Christ reproduced and  multiplied  in many.
The harvest  is not  souls, the harvest is Jesus reproduced in many unto the glory of God.

Over and over  again throughout the scriptures we  see God using the picture of  a garden or a  field or a  tree in  reference to  man. In 1Cor3:9 we are referred to as  ‘God’s husbandry’.

This word ‘husbandry’  (geōrgion)  means a  cultivated field,  tillage, a farm, cultivable land or more  precisely a garden.   This more  than anything  is a  picture  of purpose and of destiny. By it we see  what God’s intention is in us and  how He will  go about it.  

The creation  story in  the beginning chapters  of Genesis  is filled with the  language of  increase and of purpose and of identity.  It  is filled with  the concept  of seed and harvest.   God speaks His  Word (the seed) into  the earth (the ground) and from  the earth (the ground) comes the whole of creation (the fruit).

He then implants into  whatever  He creates  the ability to reproduce (increase) itself  according  to its kind by having seed within itself which will  bring forth  a harvest of that kind. Moreover He places  all  of this in a  particular garden which  we know as the Garden of Eden.  

In Genesis chapter  one alone the word seed is used 6 times, the word kind  (as  in of same nature) 10 times, the word yielding (as  in reproduction)  5 times. It is  clear that God intends  to  plant  a seed, to have that  seed reproduce of  the same kind and to have that  seed multiply and  fill  the earth.   He then makes Adam  (the word Adam  means man) in His own image and places  him  in the garden and commands him  in a certain way;  

“So God created man in  his own image, in the  image of God created he him; male  and female created he them. And God blessed  them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and  subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the  sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that  moveth upon the earth.” Gen1:27-28  

What we need to grasp  is that  all  of these are types and shadows. They are God’s  way of illustrating  His plan and  purpose to us through natural things  that  we could understand. They weren’t  the real  deal. They were just  images. Yes  they existed, yes they happened, but  they were earthly shadows of  a heavenly reality. The substance was yet  to come.  

God’s intention from  the  beginning of creation was to have Jesus (The Word)  reproduced and multiplied in the earth through man  being fruitful, multiplying and having dominion in the garden and extending  the garden to  the whole earth.   The Garden  of Eden represents man and Adam  (the  first man)  represents Jesus (the second Adam the last man 1Cor15:45-48).  

God intends for Jesus  (The Word) to fill,  multiply, replenish, subdue  and have dominion in man as the  man also subdues and  has dominion in the earth to the glory of  God.   God’s intention for establishing  us as His garden  or field is so  that  He can  plant  His Seed in us, have a crop growing in us and receive a harvest of that Seed.

A  garden is  not a garden  unless there  is seed  being planted in it, crop growing in  it  and a harvest coming out of that  crop. Without these it  is just land.  Without these three  the garden is  not fulfilling its purpose. This is God’s purpose for us, to  be God’s garden, His field.  We need  to understand that we  are not functioning  properly until we are functioning  as the field  of God,  the  garden of God, His husbandry.  

“Blessed is the man that  trusteth in  the LORD, and whose hope  the LORD  is. For  he shall  be as a tree planted by the  waters, and that  spreadeth out her roots  by the  river,  and shall not see when heat  cometh, but her leaf shall  be green;  and shall not be careful in  the year  of drought, neither shall  cease  from  yielding fruit.” Jer17:7-8  

“And the LORD shall  guide  thee continually, and satisfy thy  soul  in drought, and make fat  thy bones:  and thou shalt  be  like a watered garden, and like a  spring of  water,  whose waters  fail not.” Isa58:11  

Comments