How Does Your Garden Grow?

Many of you may have gardens or grow flowers and plants and enjoy doing this as a hobby or maybe even for food. Some of you were raised in a family who farmed or maybe you are involved in farming now. We all know that growing food, plants, & flowers takes a lot of time. It takes work.

It would be so easy if flowers, fruits and vegetables just grew, never needed tending to, and took care of themselves, but they just don’t. Weeds just grow - they don’t need any work to grow, but they take time and effort to keep them from growing. It is the same in our lives. Good fruit will not just grow in our lives, either. And sin, like weeds, will come about in our lives if we don’t work to rid our lives of those sins. Throughout the Bible, fruit is referred to as what should be evident in the lives of Christians. The fruit is visible evidence as to what is growing within us. We should have good fruit within us because we are children of God.

This week's daily blog posts will look at our lives as a spiritual GARDEN and find out what it takes to make them grow. I like acrostics because it makes points that are easier to remember. I hope that you do, too!

G - GROW WITH GOD.
In our world we are bombarded with all kinds of things that we can learn and so many different ways to gain knowledge. We can buy CD’s, videos, and attend seminars and read books. We can go to college for years and years and obtain any type of degree we can imagine, but while that knowledge is good and may bring us success in life (worldly wealth and financial gain) it can not become what is most important in our lives. I want to grow with God - grow how God wants me to grow - that’s what is truly important in life. I hope you want to grow with God, too.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. I Corinthians 3:7

To "Grow with God", we must get close to God. If you want to get to know someone - another human being, you have to grow closer to them, don’t you? It’s impossible to get close to someone without spending time with them. Think about your spouse or friend. How did you become close? By getting to know one another. You talk to each other. You hang out with each other. You share with each other. You do things together.

When we do the same with God, it’s called prayer. The more we pray to God, the closer we will become to Him. The neat thing about prayer, though, is that God can’t wait to hear from us! Do you realize the fact that God cares about every single thing in your life? Do you think that God only cares about the big things? No! We must believe that God cares just as much about the famine in 3rd world countries as he does about the pain we may be having in your big toe. So talk to Him...about EVERYTHING!

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

"Getting with God" not only involves prayer, but also worshipping - worshipping Him alone in a quiet devotional time, but also with your congregation during worship services. Worship is not confined to a building or to a certain time or day. Coming together as a congregation on Sundays (and many on Wednesdays)is the congregation’s way of worshipping and obeying the commands of God, but we can and should worship God alone and on every other day, as well.

So, first of all, in our spiritual gardens, we must grow with God. Tomorrow we'll look at "A".

Have a blessed week!