Father's Gardening

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." (John 15: 1, 2 NIV)

Nearly every occupation a person can imagine, reveals, in some ways, the manifold works and various occupations of Lord God.

Is a man employed as a manager? Then so may Lord God also be viewed as a manager, yea, even as the manager of managers. Is a man employed as a builder or architect? Lord God is both. Wrote Paul in Hebrews - "whose builder (technitēs) and maker (dēmiourgos) is God." (11: 10 KJV)

Though the apostle Paul uses the term "masterbuilder" (architekton) in regard to himself, yet above him sits Lord God as the architect of the universe, or the architect of architects. (I Corinthians 3: 10 KJV)

Lord God is thus architect, and craftsman (technition), and actual maker, builder, or erecter.

Lord God is also a gardener of gardeners, and those who know the Lord know this about him. The bible speaks of many of the Lord's gardens, the "Garden of Eden" being of course the first mentioned in scripture.

If we are gardeners, it will perhaps be good to think about how Lord God is a gardener and delights in his plantings, just as we do, while we are doing our gardening.

Jesus knew that his Father was a "master gardener"! The Father is expert at all the various aspects of gardening, from tilling and preparing soil, to planting seed, to fertilizing and weeding the garden, to reaping, storing and enjoying the fruit of the harvest.

"Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day." (Genesis 1: 11-13 NIV)

The whole earth was a garden in the beginning! Beautiful and full of life, and color, and variety! Every flower on earth was the product of Lord God the Gardener. What a great Gardener is he!

Jesus said - "Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (Luke 12: 27 KJV)

"Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed." (Genesis 2: 8 NIV)

"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time." (Ecclesiastes 3: 11 KJV)

What a master gardener is the Lord! His many gardens! How lovely! All is beauty and glorious! What a delight it is to sit or walk in the gardens of Jehovah!

"And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar." (Genesis 13: 10 KJV)

Today we have only resemblances and likenesses of the "garden of the Lord," or a garden that is now "overgrown" and which has lost its splendour, beauty, magnificence, and now only showing glimpses of its former glory.

But, praise God, we are promised a full restoration of Eden and of the Garden of the Lord! When will that be? It is when Jesus returns from heaven, and then will occur the "restitution of all things." (Acts 3: 21 KJV)

"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees." (Ecclesiastes 2: 4-6 NIV)

Solomon was only being "god-like" in his royal gardening work. No doubt he was a student under Lord God, the master gardener.

Lord God also has his many "parks" and "gardens"! Some of those will be part of the "world to come," being places within the New Jerusalem, and along the banks of the river that will water the gardens of the Lord. Oh how delightful it will be to sit along the banks of this "pure river" and eat of the tree of life, and to delight ourselves with the sights and aromas of the various gardens of the Lord!

"You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land." (Psalm 80: 8, 9 NIV)

Notice how Lord God is pictured as a gardener and how he performs the various tasks involved in gardening. He "clears" the land, preparing the ground, and then he "plants." The nation Israel, metaphorically or spiritually speaking, was a "garden" of the Lord. Each Israelite was his "planting."

"I had planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock. How then did you turn against me into a corrupt, wild vine?" (Jeremiah 2: 21 NIV)

"I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?" (Isaiah 5: 1-4 NIV)

When Lord God asks questions, gardening questions, he is not doing it because he does not know the answers to the questions. Rather, like a good teacher, he is asking his students these questions so that he might elicit from them the answers. The questions above, being gardening questions, assume that Lord God is indeed the master gardener, and those to whom the questions are asked are students of gardening.

Adam was placed into the Garden of Eden as an employee, or "greenhand," in order that he might learn the art and skill of gardening, and so that he might "dress and keep" the garden for the Lord. (Genesis 2: 15 KJV)

"The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight." (Isaiah 5: 7 NIV)

The people of God, the church, or true Israel, they are a spiritual "garden of delight" for the Lord.

"For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody." (Isaiah 51: 3 KJV)

"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." (Isaiah 58: 11 KJV)

"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations." (Isaiah 61: 11 KJV)

"Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all." (Jeremiah 31: 12 KJV)

"The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him." (Psalm 92: 12-15 NIV)

"They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." (Isaiah 61: 3 NIV)

"You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain...You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon." (Song of Solomon 4: 12, 15 NIV)

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17: 7, 8 NIV)

All these verses describe the salvation experience of the believer in Jesus. In his regeneration he is inwardly transformed in heart, mind, and soul, and his inner being becomes "like a watered garden" for the Lord to delight in; but they also describe the eternal state after the resurrection of the bodies of the saints, in which what is initially experienced in regeneration is completed and reaches its zenith of perfection.

"Some (seed) fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear." (Matthew 13: 5-8 NIV)

Every time a person becomes a Christian he is then "planted" in Christ, in the vine, and grows in the spiritual vineyard of the Lord. However, not all those who become Christians in profession are actually so, or truly in possession of salvation. These are described in the parable above. Those plants that "sprang up quickly" from "shallow ground" were doomed to wither and die. Likewise the seed and plants "among the thorns." Only the seed sown on "good ground" is productive of spiritual fruit, the fruit of faith, repentance, confession, and other good works.

"Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?" He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit." (Matthew 15: 12-14 NIV)

Those plants that sprang from stony or shallow or thorny ground (hearts) were not the results that any gardener desires or intends. Neither does Lord God. Thus, like a good gardener, he will see to it that these doomed plants be quickly removed from his garden, together with all the "tares" and "weeds."

"See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant." (Jeremiah 1: 10 NIV)

Not only has Lord God a present gardening ministry for his servants to do the things mentioned above, spiritually in the preaching of the gospel, but he has also such a future ministry for the angels to do the same at the "end of the age," though in a more literal and physical way. (See Matthew 13 and the parable of the wheat and the tares)

"I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor." (I Corinthians 3: 6-8 NIV)

"God makes it to grow." How true! Nothing grows without the Lord giving life, or causing things to germinate and sprout. This is stated throughout the scriptures. What a simple truth and yet one not understood, or properly appreciated or recognized.

"At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid." (John 19: 41 NIV)

When one reads the four gospels he discovers that Jesus loved to visit the gardens wherever he happened to be! Was it not because he was, like his Father, a Master Gardener? How he loved to pray in the gardens! To sit and reflect there! To enjoy the beauty of the many plants, trees, and flowers, and to delight in his Father's handiwork! Oh how we ought to emulate Jesus in this!

He was buried in a garden! How fitting! How full of meaning! He was, in his body, "planted" in the earth! In a garden! Jesus had pre-spoken of this saying - "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John 12: 24 KJV)

"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." (John 20: 15 NIV)

He may not have been the regular gardener of that place of caves and tombs, but he surely was a "Gardener" like his Father!

Friend, are you a weed in God's garden, or a plant of his delight?