Focus: Spiritual Horticulture (Pt.2)

Text: Song of Sol.5:1

"I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse."

Beyond the physical, Christ is married to the church. He is our head, and we are His body. Paul makes that point very clear in Eph.5. 

Revelation 19 deals with the marriage supper of the Lamb, and in Revelation 21, we see the new Jerusalem "coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." As the bride of Christ, the church is God's garden. Paul says, "You are God's husbandry" (1Cor.3:9). J. B. Phillips says, "You are a field under God's cultivation." The Berkeley Version says, "You are God's farmland." Literally, the Greek says, "You are God's tillage." The New English Bible says, "You are God's garden." Finally, I love the rendering of The Passion Translation, "You are God's cultivated garden." The essential point is that you are God's garden, and He wants you to be abundantly fruitful.

God wants to find fruits when He comes into His garden. The Spirit lives in us, and He cultivates us for greater fruitfulness.

The spring of the Spirit is found in us. From the hidden man of the heart, the fountain flourishes and flows through us. We are well watered. Out of our belly flows rivers of living water.

We are a fenced garden - a garden full of life, full of fruits, and filled with fragrance.

Isaiah declares, "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" (Isa.51:3). We are the garden of the Lord. Isaiah says again, "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" (Isa.58:11). We are a well-watered garden. Jeremiah says, "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" (Jer.31:12). Jeremiah describes our "soul" as a "watered garden."

God wants to find fruits in His garden. Do not disappoint Him. In this spiritual horticulture, you have a role to play.

You cultivate the garden of your heart and life by diligently adding to your faith "virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity" (2Pet.1:5-7). Paul talks about the fruit or harvest of the Spirit. He says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law" (Gal.5:22-23).

Fruit speaks of life, growth, and proper cultivation. Jesus Christ says, "He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit…" (Jh.15:5). The new city in Rev.21 and 22 is a garden-city that yields medicinal fruits for the dwellers. The fruits are therapeutic.

Get involved in this divine horticulture. God deserves better from you. Blossom, flourish and flower for Him. Bear Him goodly fruits. Let Him enjoy His garden.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter