Kingdom Principles-Part 3: A Well-Watered Garden-You and I

(This post is actually Part 4. Sorry for the confusion).

in my last post I wrote about the Church and life in the City. My point was that misery in the City can be mitigated through social programs, but healing most of the Cities’ ills requires changing the hearts of human beings and defeating the power of Satan. Only the Church can do this; and only if the Church operates in the Power of God, which is Jesus. When the Church aligns itself with culture it begins to resemble the ‘bush’ in the wasteland I quoted from Jeremiah 17: 5 -8:

“Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on the flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands: he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will live in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

 But blessed in 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 it 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: 5 – 8).

Two men, two kingdoms – the kingdom of self, life under the curse; and the Kingdom of God, life under the blessing. One man trusts in self; the other man trusts in God. What are they trusting for? They are trusting for life! The essence of life for each human being is significance, value, acceptance, worth, and relevance – the need to be connected, to overcome separateness.

In the ‘Art of Loving’ written by the psychologist Erich Fromm, he says this about separateness (or rejection, devaluing):

“The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety. Being separate means being cut off . . .  to be separate means to be helpless, unable to grasp the world . . . The deepest need of man, then, is to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity”.

We have all lived, at one time or another, in the wasteland described by Fromm and Jeremiah 17 –brokenhearted, alone, without hope. How do I know? Because Scripture tells us that we were sinful in our mother’s womb. We were born into the wasteland, into the kingdom of self. And many of us live there still. Sadly, the longer we live in the wasteland the more hopeless life appears – in fact, it is a particularly dangerous type of hopelessness – it is a learned hopelessness that can affect us from the earliest age.

Life in the wasteland is a prison. It is a lonely place, no matter how much wealth, acceptance, and worldly power we have. We are like a solitary bush, a stunted shrub. In Hebrew, the world for shrub means “poor, naked, destitute”. These words remind me of Revelation 3, where John writes to the Church at Laodicea “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing’. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3: 17 NIV).

I have a picture of an arid, flat expanse of sand with a lone, isolated shrub on the horizon, struggling to survive. A place largely devoid of life. We might be loved, accepted, and respected by the world but we will still walk in fear, without power to confront the enemy we meet in the wasteland, and, in the deepest part of our heart, alone. The fear of rejection is our constant companion. For many, rage and anger burn deep in our hearts and it takes a constant effort to keep them under control. It doesn’t take much to offend us and wound our hearts, and we walk each day with a spirit of resentment and unforgiveness.

This is the life of the man or women living in the kingdom of self, relying on and trusting in their ‘self’ for life each day. This is a person who has not heard about the Kingdom of God and doesn’t know there is an alternative to the ‘desert life’ or someone who rejected the Kingdom for the mirage of fulfillment offered by the world. It is a life of finitude. When it is over, it is over. It seems to me like a life in hell, now.

It is our prison. We are alive externally, but trapped and alone in our heart. This condition of the human heart has led many to exclaim that life is ‘meaningless’. It has led to existentialism. It is the root of the spirit of anxiety and fear sweeping over America and the world today. We feel alone and powerless. And in the wasteland, we are.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, who places all of his confidence in Jesus. This is the man who has received life in the Kingdom of God – not perfectly or completely, but he has made his choice and he is committed to it. He no longer lives in human power for anything, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is like a tree whose leaves are always green. Green, signifying life, is the result of a continual supply of the water sucked up by the roots of the tree. These roots go deep into the ground, tapping into the life-giving water that represents the Holy Spirit. The Spirit flows through the capillaries of the tree to the smallest twig and stem. It is life in the Kingdom of God – a life connected to God through the Holy Spirit. We do not move, think, breathe, or create in our own power alone, every fiber of who we are and what we do is nourished by the life of the Spirit. We are alive!

This man does not depend on his limited power, but he has tapped into the power of the Creator of the Universe. He is not a shrub; he is a tree. The shrub in the desert is stunted, it will not grow. But the tree can grow, spread out its branches, reach out to the sun, provide shade, and a home for birds. And the tree bears fruit for others to eat. A tree that nourishes all who pass by, a tree that never fails to bear fruit.

Fruit – love, patience, kindness, gentleness, the power to heal and make whole, and effective prayer. The fruit is not for the tree. The fruit is for those who pass by the tree, for them to take the fruit offered by the tree, to find nourishment and life. What a blessing to the tree, to be able to be a source of life to others — blessed to be a blessing. When we live in the well-watered Garden, free from anxiety and fear, healed and made whole, saved, we can pour the blessings of God into others lives. This is the meaning of “glorify God and enjoy Him forever”. We are free and are fulfilling the purpose for which we were created.

But the Garden is still in the world. Heat will come – trauma, suffering, pain, disease, and other unforeseen twists and turns of life. But these things will not devastate this man. No matter how hard life becomes, he will always drink deep from the stream of God’s love, power, and acceptance. He is not standing on his own power, but trusting in the power of God. In the midst of difficulties he will continue to see ‘life’.

Even though all of us were born under the ‘curse’, we can live now under the ‘blessing’. God, through Jesus, has created an entirely new life for us and a way from the wasteland into the Garden. The door to the well-watered Garden is open to everyone. We all have the possibility of being transformed from a bush to a tree. How do we enter? Repent and believe, as Jesus says. This is a decision between life and death – not just for now, while we are alive on earth; but for eternity. This is the Good News, the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. There is a life of freedom and blessing apart from the one Adam and Eve consigned us to.

One of the mysteries about the Kingdom is that God calls us to choose the Kingdom in this life – later will be too late.

Repent really means crying out to God, asking Him to change your heart from one of dependence and trust in the external things of the world, which for many of us are addictions, to total dependence and trust in Him. No turning back, no regrets, all in for Jesus.

Only God can do this, but you must decide. You must participate. This life must be your heart’s desire. He can even give you this desire if you ask Him for it. But you must choose the well-watered Garden, which is sometimes not that easy.

Jesus has given the Church the authority and power to carry this message into the world: “There is another Kingdom. You don’t have to live in the wasteland. You can be like a tree in the well-watered Garden”. But the Church can only carry this message into the world in the Power of God, not their power; and when the Church focuses on the gospel of salvation, which points to life in a future heaven and not life now, the message of the now-Kingdom life is lost. And when the message of the Kingdom is lost, lives are lost – not just for today, but for eternity.

It is good for the Church to care for people in the short-term, but it is not a substitute for the work of bringing people into eternal Kingdom life now. This is the ultimate purpose for the Church’s existence. And when people are brought from the wasteland into the Garden, many of their problems will no longer exist. The old adage about teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish really is correct.

I have been critical of the Church in America and Europe in these last two posts. I will close by asking the question ‘what is the Church?” Is the Church the building, the pastoral staff, or the programs? Of course not. We are the Church, you and I. The responsibility of sharing the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is ours. But we must share it in the power of God! If we don’t share, who will? Forget about programs and about being told how to do it. Just do it. God will show us how.

It is a beautiful picture, isn’t it? The well-watered Garden – a home for all of us. The water will never dry up, it will never fail us. As long as we stay connected, we will have life. The world is dying in the wasteland, but we know the truth. Jesus is calling us to share this truth with friends, family, co-workers, and even strangers. Share in the Church, especially where the message is not preached, but most of all, share with the world. If we ask Him each morning “Jesus, show us how to share today” he will. You will be amazed and blessed!

This is how the Kingdom of God is released into the kingdom of the world.

Grace and peace

PS I believe that many know about the Garden, but can’t enter until they are healed. I hadn’t intended to write about healing but I think I will in the next post.