Category: Exploring God’s Canvas

Two Gardens

STAGE 1

On a canvas I see two gardens drawn side by side. The garden on one side has several full and healthy looking trees with one tree standing out from the rest in a different unique way. This garden has a visitor passing through the trees with the sound of walking. The visitor brings, a faithfulness of fellowship, a breeze of peace, a flowing gentleness, a light of joy, a kind patience, and a warmth of love. You can feel the liberty and the freedom in this garden. The garden on the other side next to this one on the canvas is far different. This garden has darkness about it. You can barely see from one tree to the next. The visitor that comes to this garden brings an air of deception, twisting words of lies, a stabbing feeling of hatred, a destruction of jealousy, stained with impurity, a plan of selfishness, a rage of revenge, a discord of envy, and a blind drunkenness of self empowerment.

 

The one garden on the one side of the canvas is what one would imagine seeing God visiting man (First Adam) in the beginning of time at the garden of Eden before the fall. The other garden is what one would imagine seeing the devil visiting the man (Jesus, second Adam) the night they came to take him to his death.

STAGE 2

The one garden held a trial for the breaking of the only one law to be followed. The visitor of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness now stood before them as the jury, the judge, and the executioner. The judge with hurt, pain, and sorrow had to pass the unchangeable sentence of death. This judge put into motion the death penalty, but by the power in him he inserted inside of man a day of redeeming life to return to his garden and his fellowship.

The garden on the opposite side of the page had a corrupt jury, a bias judge that would not listen to truth, had false witnesses to deceive others, officers of the court to inflict unnecessary pain, and executioners with no remorse. The judge of this other garden passed the sentence of being whipped with leather straps of nails and glass under the cloak showing mercy. This judge allowed the physical abuse of slapping, pulling the hairs from his face, driving a thick crown of thorns on his head, and a mocking cloak soaked with his dried blood. This judge took a tree from his garden, cut it down, removed all branches, carving a tall vertical wooden beam and a shorter horizontal wooden beam. This judge took the beaten, bleeding body and drove one nail through both feet into the tall vertical tree beam. This judge took the short tree beam driving one nail through one hand on one side and another one nail through the other hand on the other side. This judge raised the cross tree beams into a hole to stand up the innocent man between heaven and earth for all to watch him slowly die. This judge of this garden put into motion the death penalty and by the power in him inserted in the side of the man a spear piercing his heart for confirmation that he was dead and he had taken the life of the man to hell and the grave.

STAGE 3

Deep down in the bowels of the dark garden of evil, a tiny light appears faintly in the distance. The tiny light seems to be changing in size and brightness leaving a path behind it as it walks. The evil judge, jury, and executioner seem to have lost all signs of power to their own garden of darkness. The light comes closer glowing with life in the form of a man. The innocent man who was put to death three days ago was the light growing brighter the closer it came making a path of light showing the way to leave the garden of death.

The innocent man was the Visitor from the other garden inside of him with all his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and now with the payment of blood for our debt to the penalty of death. The man was put to death in the body, but the Visitor inside him made him alive in the Spirit. Both births of the natural and the spirit took place inside the death garden. After being made alive the innocent man went around in the garden that became a prison of darkness and told the imprisoned spirits if they would follow him he would lead them back to the garden of life (1 Peter 3:18, 19; Eph. 4:8).

TWO GARDENS

The first garden man had with God visiting us with all His light of life and atmosphere of eternal love. The second garden the devil tricked man into believing it was better than the other only to find ourselves imprisoned in darkness, hell, and the grave. The Visitor of the first garden inserted Himself into our blood line waiting for the day inside the second garden of darkness to be born. He, Jesus, was born into our world of darkness with no sin in his life. The rulers in this garden of darkness schemed to kill him removing him from changing their world of lies. His death paid for our sins and his life made a path of escape for us to follow back into the first garden of light and fellowship  with God restoring us to our rightful home.

What spiritual garden do you find yourself standing in? Have you found the lighted path from the garden of darkness we all were born into? Have you asked Him who knows the way out to be your guide? Do you want to leave this garden of lies back into the garden of truth? Jesus is the spirit Visitor of the first garden. He was born, he died, and He came back to life to create a path if we want to escape this death, hell, and the grave garden of the devil. To follow this path out of darkness is to be sorry of our sinful dark ways that we have adopted in this garden, walk down into the water of a burial type baptism in Jesus name fully immersed for the purpose of washing away our sins (his blood of forgiveness is in his name), and continue on this path receiving His Spirit inside of us to guide us the rest of the way into the garden of eternal life.

Start your journey out of the garden of darkness and you will wake up one day inside the garden of Light. We are only eternally saved when we leave this world being led by His Spirit walking through the valley of the shadows of death of this world’s garden into His marvelous Light of eternal life garden.

One Door To All Things

Let me prepare you this is going to be really deep stuff and it will be very hard to understand unless God helps (I Corinthians 2:14, 10) because it is the only way I have come to share this with you. He has allowed such knowledge to come into my life of Himself that has absolutely changed my outlook on life and in the same breath I feel completely unworthy, but it is His grace. I encourage you to read slowly and with an open spirit to His Spirit.

God being God and possessing the title as God would have the ability to do anything, anyway, and by anyhow He desires because He is God – right? He could have created things by just thinking of them. He could have created things by twitching his nose, blinking His eyes, snapping His fingers, crossed His arms and bowing his head, tugging His right ear lobe, or clapping His hands. There are NO limits to the avenues God could use to create all things. It is easy to understand why God is seen in plurality – many gods. He is everywhere at the same time, He is in all knowledge of all things in what we may understand as real time, and He is powering all existing things keeping them in solid form without struggling or stress to remain in control. No matter how many gods a person believes exits that is NOT ENOUGH to represent the everywhere (meaning no god beside Him), knows everything (meaning no god smarter than Him), all powerful (meaning no equal god to Him) God. The belief of other gods co-existent, co-knowledge, and co-powerful is just an appearance of a different angles of the One all present, all knowing, all powerful God. How can we see with understanding and perception a God whose mind processes everything without struggle and at the same time empowers all existence while being everywhere with them – mind blower.

“One Door To All Things” is the choice this everywhere, all knowing, all powerful God made to go through to create all we know and don’t know as of yet. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (Jn. 1:1) that created the heavens and the earth (Ge. 1:1), through him all things were made and without him nothing was made that has been made (Jn. 1:3). Everywhere God can do or say anything He wants from all locations appearing to us as many gods when we only understand there is one of us in one location. The Word is simply the one doorway God, which is a Spirit, chose to create all things and God deemed the Word to be the best representative of Himself. At this point of creation we are seeing Him as the Father of all creation by His own design. He wants us to see as much as we can with understanding and perception of fatherhood – of His and ours. The key is the Word being His choice to go through to us and all creation. The Word is His way of saying I want you to understand and perceive because He has already faced one of His creations (angels), who had free will as we do, that chose the opposite of God and is paying the price.

Now, about the doorway God chose to go through. He already had a group of angels to not believe in Him and wanted to take over. Freewill and free belief are the two core elements God gave His creations to use for themselves. It makes total sense why God chose to work His works through the Word. Words are what we come to form our beliefs freely and willfully follow. Also, we (mankind) were made in the image of God and the Word, which is spirit and life. This is why Jesus being God manifested in the flesh said the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life (Jn 6:63). All of creation was created by Spirit and Life of God. Adam was different from all other creations because he had the breathe of God breathed into him creating the body and the soul. Adam had the spirit and life of God in him (the Word) to be able to connect with God’s intelligence to name all the animals that God brought before him to watch what he would name them (Ge. 2:19, 20). God gave Adam His Word of doctrine to eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because it would bring death. Eve and Adam believed another word doctrine from the devil and chose the opposite of God’s Word and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil causing death and disease upon all the earth because it was under our dominion. This changed everything from the spirit and life status to death, but God inserted into us a day of redemption the Word would return us to spirit and life through one of mankind’s children.
God’s ministry to us in the old testament was as a Father trying to guide His lost children back home. God is a spirit and it is time for Him to join His children in physical form to restore us to spirit and life. We have already talked about God and the Word is the same (Jn. 1:1). The Word (God) became flesh (Jn. 1:14) and dwelt among us (mankind). He was seen as the one and only Son who came from the Father. A virgin woman was found pregnant through the Holy Spirit, from the Holy Spirit, his name is to be called Jesus because he will save people from their sins and be known as God with us.  (Mtt. 1:18, 20, 23; Lu. 1:35). God is establishing another phase with us from His Father ministry to a Son ministry. He is now in a fleshly body (He. 2:14) showing us how real sons of God should be. Now, God inside of Jesus the man gave us a ministry of man and God, which is the fellowship God had with Adam in the beginning before Adam chose wrong and sinned. We were meant to be one with God – oneness.
As a man Jesus would hunger and thirst, but as God inside of Jesus He would feed 5000 with a couple of fishes and few loaves of bread (Mtt. 14:19). Everything Jesus did was a ministry on how we should act as true children of God. Jesus showed us obedience and the everywhere present God including inside of Jesus would show signs (a dove) for others and speak from the heavens to confirm His presence (Lu. 3:22). God has from the very beginning attempted to show us key things about Himself. He is an everywhere present God who can be at many places at once. Our minds struggle with the thoughts of an all present, all knowing, all powerful God can be anything, do anything from anywhere at the same time. We (mankind) will always fall short in putting God in a limited box in our minds with limited abilities. As I said earlier to put a number on God is not enough because how can you number the limitless presence of God? God the Spirit can speak from heaven, form a dove coming down to fulfill what He told John the Baptist, and still be inside of Jesus the man. God did everything He could through the man Jesus to show us the way, the truth and the life back to Him. This is why when they asked how to be saved Peter told them to repent (completely turn your back on sins), be baptized in water in the name of Jesus Christ (the blood is in the name of Jesus because you can’t crucify the Father or Holy Spirit) for the washing away of all your sins and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit just like the apostles did for it is a promise to them, their children and to all a far off (Acts 2:38, 39).
The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the three things God wanted us to focus on with understanding and perception, not dividing God up into three gods. Three is not enough to number the all present everywhere, all knowing all things, and all powerful over all God. Jesus is the Father/the Word in Spirit form in the beginning, and the physical son to provide blood/death payment for our sins, and the Holy Spirit to guide and teach us all truth. These are the three elements we are to connect with to return to the oneness with God that we lost from the beginning. These are ministries, and phases of the one and true God did to redeem us, establish fellowship, and guidance for the rest of our days until we make it home to Him in Heaven.
God chose the Word to be the one door to all things and Jesus is that Word giving us spirit and life once again. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (Jn 14:6). This is the second chance and second birth to walk with God.

STRONGER YOU FROM WITHIN

“FOLLOW PEACE WITH ALL MEN AND HOLINESS…”

          “Follow peace…, and holiness…”; Peace should be our leader giving us directions of attempts to follow and holiness should be our devotion to doing the right thing from within our mind, heart, and soul.  “..With all men…” is aimed towards all of mankind, meaning male and female species.  Do you consider yourself a part of the mankind race?  If your answer was “Yes” then I believe you are to follow peace with yourself first and then to others second.

If Peace and Holiness (devotion) is locked down in your heart, mind, and soul there is no greater power that can overcome you. Inside your body should be a walled fortress that you are the overseer under God’s leadership.  Whatever is within you will come out to those around you whether good or bad (Luke 6:45, Prov. 23:7). 

PEACE WITH YOURSELF

          “Peace with Yourself” is coming to the conclusion of accepting your physical abilities are what they are and you can do what you can do – nothing beyond what you are.  Looking at people around and allowing the thoughts of comparison is a foolish path to walk because others are what they are.  Uniqueness is within all of us no matter how greatly seen or unnoticeably small.  Uniqueness is still there within you and it is yours to own it with the peace and internal devotion.  You will achieve this on a moment by moment, day by day agreement of mind, body, and soul. They must be unified together to create that fortress inside of you.  A threefold cord is not easily broken (Eccl. 4:12).  The conclusion of “Peace with Yourself” comes from believing in you, hope of doing the right thing within yourself, and loving yourself as one of God’s unique creation.

HOLINESS WITH YOURSELF

          “Holiness with Yourself” is best viewed as a devotion you have committed yourself to being.  Holiness equals devotion, which represents loyalty, dedication, commitment, and care.  I have things in my life that I have personally committed to that will differ from others.  I do not force upon others what is unique to me personally.  For an example: some people are religiously about washing their hands.  This is a form of “Holiness” they have made a dedicated process for themselves.  They do not feel right until they have done it.  To them it is doing the right thing and keeps them on track.  This is a worthy cause, but not all of us are devoted to doing it all the time.  “Holiness” is several things we can be devoted to within ourselves that will be conveyed to those around us.  The conclusion of “Holiness with Yourself” comes from a love of devotion to something good that brings joy to you when you do it, loyalty to tolerating others in their ignorance, dedication to implying it gently with temperance, committed to producing goodness with meekness, and caring about what you allow yourself to believe (Gal. 5:22-23, James 3:17).

WITH ALL MANKIND

          We are all born with our bodies doing the thinking for us.  When the stomach (the body) is hungry it causes the baby to cry.  If any part of the body gets hurt it causes the baby to cry.  If the body soils upon itself it causes the baby to cry and if left unclean the irritation will cause the baby to cry.  I know you can think of many, many more examples.  Our body gets us looking eternally for things, before our internal thinking develops.  This is where selfishness develops because we were born crying to satisfy self.  “With all of Mankind” is first about reversing the looking externally to looking internally.  You have been fulfilling the needs of your body your whole life and will naturally continue to do so, but you need to retrain yourself to fulfill the needs of your mind, heart, and soul, which lives on the inside of your body and is the driver of your body- think about that.  Your body is simply the vehicle that taxis your spirit around.  A good or poor spirit driving their body around in public will be seen by others eventually.  “With all of Mankind” is first developing inside yourself moment by moment things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good reports, virtue, and things worth of praise to fuel your mind, heart and soul (Phil. 4:8).  There are good foods for your body and there are bad foods for your body.  It is the same with the inside driver of your body.  Your spirit needs good food to power it up for the day “With all of Mankind”.  The world is absolutely full of negative people, bad drama, and depressing events.  Feed your spirit first full of trueness, honesty, just, purity, beautiful things, good reports, virtuous, praise, and then you will be able to walk strong anywhere.

APPROACHMENT FORMULA

IF = Yes   THEN = Continue   ELSE = Change Path

IF (= Peace…)

1)   Approach every situation with the desire to interact peacefully from a heart of personal integrity injecting peace into a disturbing situation.

THEN (= Cooperation.)

2)   Complete the right actions necessary for the elements involved.

ELSE (= Resistance.)

3)   This is where the judgment must meet the action with “No Other Choice”.

     The judgment can be a wide range of decisions you must make in order to go forward, but it must be something you feel you can live with before God.  Your inside driver of the body lives with memories popping up at all times of the day or night whether good ones or bad ones, but in the end all your actions will be judged for you whether they were good ones or bad ones (1 Cor. 3:13-14, Hebrews 9:27).

          “Follow peace with all men and holiness…” is when your inside leader is Peace and your inside driver is focused on doing the right thing then you will live a life that has harmonious outcomes. If one is yelling and you start yelling the only thing that has been proven is you both can yell and you have got no where.  Be the better person approach with peace and see what happens.  Have a great day in-spite what comes your way.

Streams of Water

Where are you in the stream of life?
Where are you in the stream of life?

Walking, driving, riding, running in the mountains brings across things that should make us think.  In the mountains I have come across streams flowing down the mountain, through a valley or a farm.  Can you see a flowing stream in your mind that you have seen before?  Did you ever try to pick a part in the water and watch it flow over, around, and sometimes under things whether it was a leaf, a stick, some other type of object?  The object I watched in the water flowed into rocks and slowly worked its way around it to continue its forward motion.  I saw it flow through little rapids with the up and down motion still going forward until it was out of sight.  Our lives began to surface in my mind.  We are born in some point of the stream of time.  We start our journey flowing forward towards different type of situations.  We run into places that slow us down, but we still continue forward.  We hit places in life and in time where it feels like we are up one moment and down the next.  We have the moments we feel like we are going under, but the stream of time still moves us along.  Looking at the stream of water I can see we are born into the stream of time in different eras of this life.  I can see my parents were born in a time in the stream where life was very much different from the stream of time I was born into, yet the stream flows onward without the notion of ever stopping.  The stream of time waits for no one.  I can see the stream carries all the generations of mankind.  Each and every one faces the different elements of this stream, yet continues forward.  The streams of water I have seen have been in the winter, sprint, summer and the fall.  You and I have flowed down this stream of time experiencing a lifetime of cold, warm, cool, and mild moments from family, friends, and fellow human beings.  Yet the stream flows onward without stopping.  Our lives are flowing by without any ability to control its ever flowing forward motion.

WARNING:  DEEP THOUGHTS AHEAD

Imagine an eagle flying down to get a drink of water and you were one of the drops of water it scooped up and as it was flying away you dripped out of its beak landing on a branch of a tall tree.  A leaf comes forth from the spot you landed.  Your life is now one with the leaf.  You now have a view high above the streams below.  You experience the wind blowing your leaf,  the warm sunshine, the full moon nights, the morning dew upon your outer shell, the heavy rains, the cold frost, and the changes a leaf goes through.  As summer comes to an end and the fall temperatures take over you notice your outer shell, which is the leaf is drying up and your color is changing.  Then the day comes you feel your self detach from the branch and you find yourself floating towards the earth as things around you slowly fade away.

Perspective

I count myself fortunate to have been raised in a mountainous area. As a young teenager of 16 with a license to drive gave me the first opportunity to venture out. It did not take very long for the realization of how tiny we are in comparison to the vast mountains and open plains. The news media would tell us about hikers getting lost for days with a search party desperately looking for them before too much time got away. A great respect for the wilderness was instilled in me early in life.

It is amazing when you drive your mechanical car and park it in an area for a nature trail hike how a person can sense passing from one world of mechanicalism to the natural world what a vast difference. Walking down a nature trail your senses come alive with seemingly thousands of attention grabbing curiosities. It is amazing how the rat race clock slows down to nothing when you are out in the woods. Life in you and around you slows down to a natural awareness.

If you have never experienced the mountainous outdoors I would encourage you to go on an exploration. If you ask what is the big deal of drinking in through your senses what nature has to offer? Examine your every day life with the unpleasantness, negative bombardments, and a seemingly stressful noose around your neck. The disappearing into the mountains gives you a more to life perspective and new release on there is more to life than my little world of torture.

Sometimes the only kindness a person gets is from nature itself. People tend to be cruel, judgmental, and callus. With nature you know what to expect. It doesn’t change and alter its intent because of who you are. The warmth of the sunshine on your skin is the closest some people get to feeling love from a true pure source, the wind as a gentle refreshing breath into your lungs, the soft sounds flowing into your ears healing the raw words it has endured, and presence of purity all around you for your eyes to see.

Electronics have their place in our life, but their robotic components do not touch us as much as a good day of exploration in the natural beauty near us. Have a great day in-spite of what comes your way.