How does your garden grow? Probably not with cockle shells and silver bells. Mine either. Thank goodness.
The nursery rhyme we learned as children is actually about Queen Mary I of England, aka Bloody Mary. The garden was a graveyard. The cockle shells, silver bells and pretty maids were used to torture Protestants who would not convert to Catholicism. Definitely not my kind of garden.
In contrast to Mary’s garden, perhaps you prefer a beautiful manicured landscape, or a plot for vegetables. Perhaps you enjoy the view of green grass and a bird feeder through a window. Quite possibly you have a container on your front porch or a hanging basket with a variety of sun loving petals.
Maybe you’re a truck driver like my husband. He enjoys God’s handiwork through the window of his vehicle.
Wherever and however your garden grows, the items grown are a focal point of beauty. And if you don’t have a garden yet, start one. Find a pretty container and a shade or sun loving plant to suit your growing condition.
God’s Holiness
In contrast to Queen Mary’s garden of death is God’s holiness. He desires to reconcile us out of the graveyard of death, pain and sometimes horror that sin produces in our life. He desires for us to be holy as He is holy. God in His boundless love and grace reaches out to us out of Holiness through Christ our redeemer. Our sin nailed Christ to the cross. We are dead to sin through the blood of Jesus.
In conclusion, surrender yourself and your sin to the Master Gardener who can create a beautiful garden in your heart. Allow God to work His miracles of change through His wonder working power.
How does the Master Gardener work in your life?
Bible Verses
1 Corinthians 3:6 Living Bible (TLB)
6 My work was to plant the seed in your hearts, and Apollos’ work was to water it, but it was God, not we, who made the garden grow in your hearts.
1 John 1:7 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)
7 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
It is sin that makes God’s holiness so awful. It is sin that makes God’s holiness so glorious, because He has said: Be ye holy for I am holy, I am the Lord who makes you holy” (Leviticus 20:7,8) Andrew Murray
© 2019, Nanette M. Holloway, All Rights Reserved
