{"id":238,"date":"2015-06-29T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/29\/gods-garden\/"},"modified":"2017-07-09T13:28:34","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T18:28:34","slug":"gods-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/2015\/06\/29\/gods-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

God\u2019s Garden<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n
This morning as I lay half asleep, I listened intently as the Holy Spirit began to impress on me the Garden of Eden. God\u2019s garden\u2026<\/h6>\n
God planted a garden and I thought hum, that\u2019s interesting Lord, It must have been a large place because there were rivers and lots of plants, trees, vegetation and tons of animals.<\/h6>\n
I also had the thought that the animals must have been able to talk. I know, right? The thoughts we have sometimes\u2026funny but really anything\u2019s possible. It does say the serpent spoke to Eve.<\/h6>\n
I thought about how God said, \u201cLet us make man in our image.\u201d And so he took dirt and created the man. Then to give him life he breathed into his nostrils and the man became alive\u2026he had a living soul. The soul would live forever.<\/h6>\n
God had created a gardener for His garden\u2026his name was Adam\u2026<\/h6>\n
He must have been alone for a long, long time\u2026because he had to name all the plants and the different birds and fish, the stars and the sun and moon, and then name all the animals that dwelt in the garden.<\/h6>\n
And then finally when Adam had completed his task he sat down and he was lonely.
\nSo God said, \u201cThe man is alone and there is none like him to have as a helpmate, so God caused a deep sleep to come over Adam\u2026and instead of taking more dirt to make the helpmate he took a rib from the man and created a woman. He named her Eve.<\/h6>\n
I thought about why God would make woman this way from man\u2019s rib and not from the dirt\u2026then I thought well it must have been his plan because from man and woman would come children\u2026<\/h6>\n
He said the man and the woman would become one\u2026to be fruitful and multiply they would bring forth offspring\u2026That was God\u2019s plan\u2026<\/h6>\n
The man did not decide how things were to be done\u2026God did.<\/h6>\n
You see it\u2019s when we as humans try to take things into our own hands and minds and say we know better than God, that everything gets out of sorts\u2026we fall.<\/h6>\n
Wars come and disasters and famine and plagues\u2026chaos and destruction.<\/h6>\n
Life began in the garden\u2026God\u2019s garden\u2026<\/h6>\n
Death also began in the garden\u2026<\/h6>\n
Why because of disobedience\u2026<\/h6>\n
\u201cYou may eat of any tree in the garden, all except one. Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.\u201d God said.<\/h6>\n
Because he knew if they did, they would die. Oh not right away but it would separate them from God\u2019s love and care. They would die because they were no longer in the presence of a sinless God. He who generates life\u2026the serpent knew this too.<\/h6>\n
Adam and Eve never knew what death was\u2026they\u2019d never seen anything die. All they knew was that God had said do not eat it, because if you do, you will die. This was God\u2019s garden he had his reasons for them not to eat of it. One command was all they had to keep and they couldn\u2019t do it, they disobeyed\u2026<\/h6>\n
Why, because they were temped and instead of obeying they disobeyed what God had said.<\/h6>\n
The serpent, the sly, hissing, tempter, whispered to Eve\u2026\u201dGo ahead Eve, eat it, it\u2019s OK, and surely you won\u2019t die.\u201d<\/h6>\n
And so, she took the fruit and ate it and her eyes were opened then she gave it to Adam and he also ate.<\/h6>\n
Fear entered their hearts, they knew they were naked they were afraid and they hid themselves from God.<\/h6>\n
You know the rest of the story, if not read Genesis; it\u2019s the first book in the Old Testament\u2026<\/h6>\n
The thing is this\u2026you can believe the story for the truth that it is, or you can chalk it up to some fantasy\u2026but just as the serpent beguiled Eve and deceived her he\u2019s still doing that today\u2026<\/h6>\n
\u201cSurely you won\u2019t die,\u201d hisses the serpent, as he sits sneering in his glib little way, slithering and waiting for you to disobey.<\/h6>\n
Then when death comes it\u2019s too late, the consequences for sin is death.
\nYour only redemption is through the blood of Jesus, he is the only one who can save you from sin and death.<\/h6>\n
Think about it!!!<\/h6>\n
Will you choose life?<\/h6>\n
Or will you choose death?<\/h6>\n
There was another garden; the garden where Jesus the son of God prayed. He prayed until his sweat was as great drops of\u00a0blood pouring from his body. The body he created to live in God’s garden forever…but the man and God were separated by sin, high\u00a0treason\u00a0against God. \u00a0Man and woman were no longer innocent, no longer without fear or doubts, now they knew what being tormented was all about. The serpent had seemingly won…<\/h6>\n
Man and woman had fallen and were cast out of the garden.<\/h6>\n
But on another\u00a0night many, many\u00a0years later\u00a0in another garden the Garden of Gethsemane, God’s plan to\u00a0rescue His children,\u00a0would be fulfilled…that night\u00a0Jesus would make all things right again…He surrendered to His Father’s will…the serpent had not won…<\/h6>\n
There is a new garden now.\u00a0God\u2019s garden, where\u00a0He\u2019s gathering His precious trees, rivers, flowers, herbs, weeds, animals, birds, sea creatures, mountains and\u00a0plains, it’s\u00a0a garden where his children can thrive and live and never have to be threatened of being thrown out of ever again.\u00a0The garden of life where\u00a0Jesus is the Tree of Life<\/em>\u2026you can only get to this garden one way; and that is through Jesus, God’s son. Now you have full access to the Tree of\u00a0Life<\/em>. Where once,\u00a0if you ate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil,<\/em> you would surly\u00a0die….Now\u00a0all who eat of the Tree of Life<\/em>,\u00a0will live and never die…<\/h6>\n
It’s your choice, God never goes against His word…He gave us all a free will…Jesus could have said, “No way, Abba, I can’t do this…” instead he said,\u00a0“Never-the-less, not my will, but thine be done!” Praise God!<\/h6>\n
What will you do?\u00a0 Will you continue to live your own way, rejecting the Tree of Life<\/em>. Living life in toil and despair?\u00a0Or, will you surrender your will to His will and live having hope in the midst of despair and love in the midst of hate? Life or death it’s your choice.\u00a0Will you\u00a0dare to accept the call!<\/h6>\n
~~Marla Shaw O\u2019Neill 6\/29\/15\u00a9<\/h6>\n
Genesis 3<\/span>New Living Translation (NLT) <\/span>The Man and Woman Sin<\/span><\/h6>\n
Matthew 26:36-46<\/span>New Living Translation (NLT) <\/span>Jesus Prays in Gethsemane<\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God\u2019s Garden This morning as I lay half asleep, I listened intently as the Holy Spirit began to impress on me the Garden of Eden. God\u2019s garden\u2026 God planted a garden and I thought hum, that\u2019s interesting Lord, It must have been a large place because there were rivers and lots of plants, trees, vegetation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8aPxH-3Q","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becourageousbebold.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}