The Heart of a Gardener

I often ask Christians what their greatest desire is regarding their spiritual life. The majority of answers have to do with operating more fully in their calling or their gift or their talent. Only a small minority of answers pertain to improving their personal relationship with God.

It’s easy to get caught up in the doing of things for God or in the things of this life. We live in a culture that is performance-oriented. Better performance equals greater acceptance and recognition.

Being accepted and recognized is a need that all of us have. But gardeners focus on religious busyness that builds a person or a church rather than building a relationship with our loving Savior.

When that happens, we are drawn away from the purpose of man’s creation. Adam was not created to tend the garden. The purpose of our lives is not to be gardeners. We were created to walk with God.

As stated in the previous enewsletter, Martha was a gardener. Jesus came to visit and Martha allowed herself to become distracted with work (Luke 10:48–42). In fact, verse :38 says that she “opened her home to him.” Martha actually invited Jesus, but when He got there, she got busy. Additionally, she complained that her sister wasn’t working too. Martha did not understand that the purpose of her life was to have fellowship with God.

How often does God manifest His presence in our churches and the next thing we do is set up programs, classes, a new building fund, and so on, thinking that we need to do ‘things’ to maintain God’s presence and to attract larger crowds.

The church at Ephesus was filled with gardeners. Revelation 2:2–5 says:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

The church at Ephesus was very good at discerning good from evil and remaining faithful through difficult times. But they lost sight of the reason for doing their good works.

Losing our passion for fellowshipping with God greatly grieves His heart. While other churches mentioned in Revelation 2 and 3 were involved with false teaching, sexual immorality, idolatry, spiritual deadness, and being materialistic, the church at Ephesus was the only church of the seven that received the dire warning that Jesus would remove their lampstand. In affect, Jesus was saying, “If you do not return to loving Me, I will no longer allow you to stand in My presence.”

Performance without passion removes us from God’s presence.

Here are a couple popular misconceptions in the church that sound good, but are actually from the gardener’s heart:

“We are saved to serve God.” God does not save people because He needs help winning the lost or because without us, the devil might win. He saved us because He so loved us. He created man (and women!) to walk with Him.

“We are saved to forever worship God and give Him glory.” If that were true, then God is a self-centered egotistical dictator.

Yes, we are to serve and worship God, but we do those things because we love Him and have fellowship with Him. All the things that we do should happen as a result of our walking with Him. The greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

It is my prayer for you that Father will continue to help you to hear His voice, and more and more frequently.

With God’s grace and in His peace,

Gary

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