The Gardens

In May 2017, my son and I took one of our road trips. We went to Cincinnati for a conference. I couldn’t get used to all the trees and vegetation.  It was like living in a garden. I felt at times that it was closing in on me. I have lived a long time in the wide up land of New Mexico. And all that green made me nervous. I truly love the desert.

But in God’s Word, gardens play a very important part in what God has done.

When God created Adam, He placed Him in a garden, the Garden of Eden. God brought Adam into the garden on the sixth day. 

God’s first act toward His human creation was to place him a place of life, fruitfulness and blessing.

In the garden, humanity was given all they needed to live in perfection, experiencing the presence of God. They knew God in an intimate, loving relationship.

All of that ended when Adam and Eve chose their own desire over God’s will and disobeyed God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Their disobedience brought darkness to not only the garden but to all of creation.

James says in James 1:15 that when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. That is what happened in the Garden of Eden: life led to death.

On the sixth day of the week, Jesus died on the cross.

In John 19:41-42 we are told what happened to Jesus’ body after His death. It says, “Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.”

On the sixth day, man brought God into a garden, into a garden tomb.

A garden is a place of life, but a garden tomb is a place of death.

God brought man into a place of life.

Man brought God into a place of death.

The Garden of Eden was a place of blessing.

The Garden Tomb was a place of sorrow.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about receiving God’s blessing.

The Garden of Eden was a place of God’s creation.

The Garden Tomb was a place of man’s creation.

The Garden of Eden was a place of grace.

The Garden Tomb was a place of judgment.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about grace.

The Garden of Eden was a place where God showed His love for humanity.

The Garden Tomb was a place where man showed his hatred for God.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about love.

Why did God allow Himself to be taken in the Garden Tomb?

He allowed Himself to be brought to the place of our curse to give us the power to leave that place. Jesus suffered the punishment because of our disobedience so that we could experience the blessing of His obedience.

Jesus did it so He could bring us to a place of life and blessing.

Satan has convinced us that either we are too bad for God or He is too good for us.

We believe that our sin has disqualified us from knowing God, experiencing His forgiveness, and living in a loving relationship with Him.

We believe that God wants nothing to do with us because we have sinned.

Romans 3:23-24 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

All have sinned. We are sinners by nature and choice. We have been given the opportunity to be justified by God’s grace through Jesus’ death on the cross.

God shows that He is willing and able to forgive us.

God shows that He is willing and able to love us and relate to us as His beloved children.

Romans 5:8 says, “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing we are undeserving and liking it that way.

God shows it is not about us getting our life together and deserving for Jesus to give Himself for us, but that He did it before we even knew we had a need.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about God providing before we knew we had a need.

With Jesus in the Garden, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                  Joe