A TREASURE IN YOUR GARDEN

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I love the beauty of gardens, and walking through them gives me that sense of joy.  Our lives can be like a garden.  So your life is your own garden and you’re the farmer. There is a hidden treasure (seed of faith) in your garden, and guess what, a lot of people don’t know it. When I realised it I started digging!  How?  I looked up to God and looked deep into my own life, and realised the mistakes I was doing. And after praying I realised the treasure has always been around me (the Bible) and the seed which was planted in me when I heard the message about Jesus, needed to grow into a health plant.

A Christian garden is an eye opener.  After humbling myself before God, I started reading the Bible and set my heart on repenting of my sins and obedience.  I then got baptised.  God opened my mind and I received the Holy Spirit.  I now have to work on my self, and do what is necessary to please God.  Nowadays, the first thing I do in the morning is to pray, and then read the scriptures.   When I choose a praise song to sing to the Lord,  I have to like it.

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There was a time in my life when I was eating bad fruits which were draining and unproductive, so I decided that I’m not going to waste time on bad fruits (bad decisions), so I try my best to avoid them as much as I can.  And I know that, for my rehabilitation I need the word of God, so that I can plant good seeds as well as eating good fruits, and in the end to reap a harvest (Salvation).

When I was young and living in the village, we had a routine of planting food crops. We would cultivate the plantations by digging out the weeds first, in order for the crops to grow properly.

I relate this to my Christian garden (life), bearing in mind that I can’t do it without God’s help.  But at the same time, I have to do my part with the tools He has given me.  So I eat the fruit of that comes from the Bible.  I decided that I need the food every day which requires me to read and meditate on it.  And then I realised that for me to grow in the way God wants me to, I needed to put it into practice. When I get little weeds in my garden which I know Satan is responsible, I make decision to pull them out before they ruin my precious garden, which requires me to repent of my sins and confess.

I then realised that in the Christian garden, Jesus is the tree of life, so He is my saviour, my leader, my best friend, my teacher/preacher and when it comes to Yahweh God, He has the final say.  Guess what, once I planted this in my heart, I found myself changing from inside out.  In the end my little garden blossomed with fruits of joy, fruits of courage, fruits of hope, fruits of peace and love.

I realise that by planting seeds of love I can help, and encourage someone else, not only in Christian meetings, but in other areas of communication. I’m pretty sure we all need fruits of love, such as joy, giving, kind-heartedness, forgiveness, good communication and peacefulness;

– To strengthen Christian congregations

– To strengthen a marriage

– To strengthen family networks

– To cultivate good friendships

– To develop good working relationships

In my own garden, I also realise that every little thing matters; an encouraging word and a good action go a long way.  So when I get the drought days, I remind myself of the little things I need to do to help me get back on the joy track.

And a daily prayer is my way of eating that delicious meal, which I need to give me the strength to fight some of my battles.  I keep reminding myself, now that I have Jesus in my life; I have to do my best to keep life simple, by focusing on his wisdom, and putting it into practice, so no worries.

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LOVING GOD

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Have you ever been in love? When your heart is devoted to someone; most of us have.  It all begins when we are very young. Little children normally love their parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends a lot.  Doing that makes them  happy.

Loving someone deeply as you know, makes us  happy.  We end up praising them by talking about them and stating how wonderful they are.  The process, begins by admiring their qualities, and then we get to know them by spending time with them, i.e. by talking and listening.  Subsequently, we end up doing what pleases them, by saying, ‘I love you’.  And eventually, we end up with a relationship which is based on submission (obedience).  Just like a loving relationship in a marriage between a husband and wife, where being faithful to each other is at heart.  According to the Bible, this is synonymous with the relationship between God and a believer in Christ.

Loving God, begins when we admire his qualities, and acknowledge who he is as the Creator.  Recognising the beauty of all his creations and how wonderfully we are made, makes us praise him.  God made it in a way, that we cannot escape him.  His creations are all around us, to help us  think about him.  This brings me to a saying, ‘a person can run away from anyone, but cannot run away from God’. The secret to happiness is to love God and Jesus.  How do we do it?  One may ask!  Jesus gave us  tips, when he said, ‘love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength’. (Do what pleases him).

When he mentions loving God with all your  mind and heart, I used to struggle to understand the difference. It is only recently when it all became clear to me.  For example, as you know, we put all kinds of thoughts in our minds.  For what we put in our minds affects the way we feel.  So the heart is where all our desires, and feelings are stored.  Jesus said, out of the overflow of the heart your mouth speaks.  And also what comes out of our thoughts will determine our actions.

He also explained, in John 14 &15.  And in John 14:21, he says, whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father in heaven, and I too will love him/her and show myself to them.

When Jesus says, love God with all your heart; it  means to be sincere and humble when it comes to obedience.  Also another way of putting it , we shouldn’t doubt our faith in God.  So in the end, we respect and honour him by putting his thoughts (Biblical scriptures) into our minds through faith.  Jesus says, we have to do what pleases him to show our love.  As mentioned in the Bible, to focus on God through Jesus and  do what is good.

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