We are following pathways that lead to deeper intimacy with God, things that flow from the inside out. We can engage heaven that flows through the gateways of our spirit, soul and body and really were at a point where we need to go deeper and find deeper experiences of that relationship. So, we’ve looked at various things were looking at the four chambers of the heart we have body soul and spirit they work together or supposed to work together when God’s presence comes within us the glory God. Then our spirit becomes alive, and our soul and body begin to compete. We open our first Love gate where God is within us, then we invite him into our spirit, we become God conscious then as that flows out into our soul we become self-conscious with connection to God rather than independently and ultimately, we become world conscious so that everything can flow as rivers of living water flowing from the inside out through our lives. We been looking to the fact that we need to cleanse the gateways of our spirit, soul, body to see that flow take place. That means dealing with some of the familiar spirits and other things that are there so that we can have a flow. The first part of a deeper intimate relationship with God starts with the garden of the heart. We’ve looked at our ketubah, our marriage relationship contract with God as a foundation for looking at the other four. Now we are looking at the garden of the heart, so we looked at what is our heart, how to prepare the soil of our heart. Now we are looking at tending and cultivating our heart. Our heart is really our very core where soul and spirit are joined in a secret place of intimacy within us, our innermost being. It is where the essence of who we are in our personality and redemptively how God has made us to be, can come into union with our spirit which comes from an eternal aspect with relationship with God. Our image needs to be restored and conform to all the wonderful thoughts that God has about us, that he revealed to us in eternity. But we were lost because of the separation, because of sin. Now in intimacy God wants to restore that to us. God gave Adam a garden on the earth so it would reflect Eden- God’s heavenly garden and that was a physical place at that point in time. As Adam was excluded from that garden and things changed dramatically, as we get restored then that garden reflects our heart. We then can begin to bring heaven into our heart and let it flow out. God walked with Adam in those gardens both on earth and in the realms of heaven because they overlapped in that period of time. Our heart is designed to reflect our spirit and heaven, to be a garden where God can walk with us today so is an intimate place, that God wants us to grow and cultivate. Matthew 11:28 says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. This is the relationship of discipleship where we come into a relationship with Jesus, and this is how he describes it. For I am gentle and humble in heart and understanding what it is to be gentle and humble in heart is a key to understanding how we grow the garden of our heart. How we become more conformed to his image. Gentleness is strength under control and knowing who we are and identity. Being humble is coming into alignment with who God says we are and what God says about us and in agreement with that- that produces fruit and then will find rest for our souls. If we don’t find that within God, then what we will find is we need to find out from outside of God. And that does not bring rest to our souls, it brings damage to our souls. Jesus said for my yoke is easy and my burden is light, that means in relationship with him he carries all the load we just have to outwork it. Psalm 23 the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, he makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quite waters, he restores my soul, he guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. That all takes place within the gardens of our heart and the heavenly garden. It is not just an analogy of something, it’s actually God wanting us to experience those things in reality. So, our heart and our spirit, they are spiritual dimensional places where we can actually engage God. In heaven is a spiritual dimension where we can engage God. And we don’t need to die before we can do it. Because he’s opened up away through Jesus as the door for us to go in and out and find that pasture, Jesus said that. I am the door you can go in and out, you can go in and out of that relationship, in and out of that place in there to the gardens to find that pasture. so restoring our hearts garden, reveals are true identity. It is where we can become gentle and humble in heart where we can really understand who we are what we called to do and begin to find fulfilment and satisfaction in outworking who we are in our destiny. So, we need to discover the true source of that identity, does it come from rest in a relationship with God or does it come from works we are trying to get our identity from. We receive our identify from our relationship. Is it coming from inside out or outside in, because inside out is where God is in the center of our being and wants to flow out through us to the world around us. Outside in, is the world around us and the people of that world influencing us. One is a good flow, and the other is not. Most of us have been damaged by what comes from the outside in. Our identity comes from relationship. It depends what relationship it comes from. If it comes from our relationship with God, it aligns with God’s heart and purpose for us. If it comes from our relationship with the world that’s what shapes us. Romans 12 do not be conformed to the world, do not be shaped in the worlds mold, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. So, God wants us not to be confirmed by what are nurture, nature, trauma of our life would have brought, but actually from what God says. So, our destiny comes from relationship. It will be our eternal destiny or something we try and create. So, we do what we value, and we value what we do. A statement someone said to me a long time ago and it’s really true and if you analyze your life you will actually spend the time doing what you really value. So, what are we spending our time on, because that will determine what the fruit is in our lives, that is what we truly value and we may say we value our relationship with God above everything else. We’ll when you look at what we do in our lives, does that support it. So, it is important to find out. This is really where our needs are being met. So, our needs are either being met in God, or they are being met in other things. And those other things become idols. Idolatry is not bowing down to images and statues; it is putting anything before God creating an idol. Work can be an idol, family can be an idol, relationships can be an idol if they come before God. If God comes first all those things, work, family, other relationships, can flow the other way. So, then it becomes something when we can give into those relationships rather than always needing to draw from those relationships. And that’s a huge difference. So, what level of priority is our relationship with God. How much time do we spend developing in relationship. Not because we have to, not because of law or legalism or fear, but because we want to. Because that’s the source of life. So, we are driven by are need for love acceptance, affirmation, approval, significance, security, God has given us those needs, they are not created by us. God gave us those needs so we could find them in him. But because of separation of sin, we look to find elsewhere. So, what is the source that we are drawing on today. There are two basic pathways or sources one is called the pathway of the tree of life that’s from God and heaven and is where that source flows from. The other is the pathway of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that has man and earth as it source. So, we have two choices, which pathway we can follow. Every day we get to make that decision because every day is a new day in which we have to choose which path we are going to follow. In fact, every choice you ever make is a choice of whether you are going to follow one or the other of those paths. Are you going to follow the path that is being led by God and the life of God guiding and directing and leading us to produce fruit. Or are you going to follow the path which we have to find the results of that for ourselves we have to make things happen if we follow that path. That’s where humanism comes from. We can do things apart from God and look at the state of the world, look at the state of our lives in the past. The result of seeking to do it apart from God will not produce good fruit. So, one path and source damages the soul. The other path restores the soul. We have a choice which one we follow. One tries to draw everything in, because it’s a life about me myself and I. It’s focused on my receiving something. That leads to being self-conscious in relationship to the world, so we get our identity from the world around us. The world owes me because I have to earn everything through the sweat of my brow. So therefore, I have to work everything out myself, in the power of my soul through my body senses. So that everything is flowing from the outside in, in that way, and I have to work things out, I have to effort into it. So, my soul is independent separated from God and my spirit. Until I then become born-again and then my spirit and God come back into union, and that gives my soul a choice. Up until that point we have no choice yet. The outside world was all we have. As soon as God comes into the picture, he then gives us a choice. It talks about the flesh and the spirit competing to one another for control. Because our spirit and God need to be ruling, our soul needs to be subservient to that. So, that’s a wrestling match that takes place over a period of time. So, my needs are met through what I do or from what I can get from others, that often ends up in codependent relationships. Because I need from other people, they need from me, so we form relationships which are mutually damaging. In reality all codependent relationships are damaging to us. The other path flows out from inside, because it’s about my conforming into God’s image, it is all about being God conscious not self-conscious. The focus is about giving and taking responsibility from the world to bless it. So, we can outwork everything. There is a huge difference between trying to work things out and letting things outwork through us. Because that operates in a flow of our spirit in union with God and our soul and body, everything as God always intended it to be. Now were a long way from that when we first become born-again and we become Christians, because we’ve lived, and our habits of life have come from the outside. As soon as we begin to engage in a process of transformation takes place to conform us to a new image. That’s an eternal image that God has in his heart his mind for us. So, either we become driven to get things, or were led to give from what we’ve really received.
Because God freely gives us things on the basis that we freely give them away. That’s always Gods desire, freely you’ve received freely give. Jesus said our significance, acceptance, approval, affirmation, comes from others because of what we do and therefore it’s very dependent on what we can do and if were not very good at that then we have often low self-worth, low self-esteem, low self-image, poor self-image, because of how we are seeing that from a reflection of the world. All our needs basically and our identity can be met in a relationship with God because of who he is. He is our father, he is our Lord, our brother, our friend, there is so much in that relationship which will bring us all the things we ever needed, if were willing to engage it. So, either slaves in the world system or sons in a heavenly relationship. I know which one I’d rather be, I’d rather be a son in relationship to my father. Were either stripping the world of its resources to meet our needs or tending and cultivating the world to meet the needs of others. One path leads to walking with God in the gardens that yields their fruit willingly and continuously. That was the picture of the garden that God gave Adam, continually fruitful and flowing in life. We didn’t have to strive or struggle to produce life, everything grew and was available to him. Our heart becomes like a well-watered garden and our lives are described as fruitful trees. Psalm 1:2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. Now that’s a key, meditation is the way that we receive everything through the word of God. Study will not bring life study will give you information. Intellectually you may know a lot. There are theologians who know probably more about the Bible than I ever could from a theoretical perspective. But actually when you meditate in the word and when you become to experience the word you know the word by personal experience. It becomes your testimony, and we need to focus on engaging in a meditative process, because our heart has senses which can engage us with God in a way which brings personal experience. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and whatever he does prospers. Doesn’t that sound like a good deal all we need to do is draw from the right source and follow the right path and everything prospers. Other words were blessed to be a blessing.
Everything succeeds from God’s original purpose if we follow that. In Revelation it talks about the tree of life, and it says it has 12 fruits that are continually in season. So, the season we are looking for is not, well in summer we get fruit, in winter cold, don’t get any fruit. we want continual flowing and growing fruit. Genesis 1:28 God blessed them, this is the prospering, he blessed and said to them be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it and rule. So, fruitfulness brings life, multiplication, filling, growth- in relationship. Because it’s motivated by love and giving of sons. If we bring and want to give, then God multiplies what we have. So, that we give away more. And a lot of people want to keep, because they’re afraid of losing what they got, but with God, God wants us to give so that, he can multiply that and our garden is where that fruitfulness begins to grow. So, we may have a vocation, a calling, a destiny as sons. Were blessed that we can be fruitful, we can give generously with a wealthy prosperous mentality. I am not talking about money when I talk about wealthy prosperous mentality, I am talking everything. That God will meet all our needs. God is able to make all grace about to you. Grace is the divine enabling power of God, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, it doesn’t leave an awful out. Always having all sufficiency in everything, that’s the promise of blessing. You may have an abundance for every good need. Every good deed that God has prepared for us in our destiny there is an abundance for it. If we are following the right path and were drawing from the right source. But the other path leads to hiding from God and covering up, using fig leaves of dead works to try and earn our blessing. Religion will always make us earn something and Adam and Eve when they first sinned could have run to God and he would have forgiven them. But they decided to hide from God because of fear and then they tried to cover up their nakedness, their sin with their own efforts by sowing fig leaves together. Now Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died from the roots up, which basically says there is no source of life that comes from that supply. We can try all the dead works in the world to earn favor and blessing with God and earn our salvation, but it will never work. It comes as a free gift through grace by faith, so our heart is like a barren desert that’s how it’s described in the Bible, a barren desert, barrenness is like the curse that resulted from Adam’s sin. Nothing grows well. Barrenness brings death, motivated by fear and selfishness trying to earn everything as a slave to the machine that we are living in. We have jobs, duty, obligation as slaves. Which is very different than having vocations, callings and destiny in God. Were accursed and barren so we keep things because of a poverty mentality, were fearful of letting everything go and being generous and letting everything flow. Because if we give it away, we think we will never get anything back, because we’ve got it ourselves. That’s not how God intends us to live. So, we keep the wealth because of fear. So, what path we living on? What source are we drawing from? Are we fruitful or fruitless in regard to others. Are we a blessing to others or not. Because it will be determined by what’s flowing through us. Are we consumers or contributors. We need to tend and cultivate our hearts to release its flow of life. So, we need to be fruitful and have a fruitful heart. So our heart is designed to be fruitful God always intended it to be fruitful it’s designed to multiply expand and grow it’s designed to be filled our heart like a garden has soil which needs preparing we looked at that last week having the four soils of our heart how you prepare the soil of our heart dealing with the weeds and the stones and the hard areas that we can have good soil producing good fruit we need to prepare the soil of our heart for fruitfulness it doesn’t just happen our hearts garden is created to reflect our image of sonship in sonship sons of God so who we are is reflected in how we live and how we outwork that so eternity and time converge in the union of our body soul and spirit we have an opportunity of bringing our eternal destiny outwork into the world as a son of God that he will manifest on the earth to answer creation’s grown to bring restoration of all things because that’s God’s purpose to restore everything to its original purpose and condition but we need to tend the garden to reflect our heavenly spiritual identity so that our redemptive gift identity personality can be outworked and worked together in unity our hearts need to be in good condition for that to take place. So in a natural garden you may need to rotavate or till the soil to break up the hard surface to make it easier to plant the condition of the soil we need to fertilize it usually with organic material so that it has a better structure easier to plant, easier to produce fruit. So, you need to prepare the soil depending upon what type of plants you got if you got acid loving plants you need more peaty soil so you add lime to acid soil if you want lime loving plants and clay soil P to alkaline soil you have to do something to prepare our hearts in the same thing with garden of our own heart. What we do with it, what we put in there how we deal with it will depend how fruitful it will be which is why Jesus said some can be 30 fold 60 fold or hundredfold depending on how much effort we put in. My garden is full of clay soil when I first went in there is like it was so boggy and soggy nothing really was growing well. So, I had to break it all up, so I put loads and loads of manure in it, dug it over added more topsoil, improved it. So now I have 6-to-12-inch layer of good soil, things grow in. It took hard work, but it’s worth it because now I have got nice plants and things grow well. Without water no life can survive. So, our garden in our heart must have water in it, without water there can be no fruitfulness. Without water there will be no flowing of life. Fortunately, we can have water flowing into our heart, it is called the river of life. Rivers of living water within us. I am the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13), that’s a description of God the source of life. Psalm 23:2 he makes me lie down in green pastures, leads me beside quiet waters. Isaiah 58:11 is a description of our heart. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters do not fail, that can be our heart if were drawing from the right source. Isaiah 44:3 I will pour out water on the thirsty land, streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. God desires for our hearts to be fruitful and blessed. So that river of life flowing with living water is the empowerment to prosper our lives, without that source our lives are going to be fruitless or very little fruit. It describes that water as a trickle flowing under the threshold of God’s house. And until we open the first Love gate and invite that presence to come through all the gateways of our lives, it can be ankle-deep or knee deep or waste deep. God wants it to be overflowing, so that you swim in it. Blessed is the man whose trust is in the Lord, for he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes, but its leaves will be green, it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. So, no matter what goes on around us, in the circumstances of life, of the world around us, whether the economy is collapsing, the government fails and everything else fails, we can have a source of life which will not fail, which will not stop producing fruit if were drawing from the right source. But if were drawing from all those sources in the world and they are meeting our needs then ultimately there will be a drought at some stage, and then will be what we do? So, it’s important to have that river flowing. Song of Soloman, you are a garden spring, a well of freshwater. My streams flowing from Lebanon make my garden breathe out fragrance, let it spices be wafted abroad may my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruit. It is a description of intimacy but in this instance, it is like the garden of our heart needs to release fragrance, it needs to release life flowing out of it, so that God can eat those fruits and I can eat those fruits because when I eat the fruit of the life that is in me it actually multiplies, so that I can give it away to others.
Psalm 46:4 there is a river who streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High. Where does God dwell? In us, God is in the midst of us, he will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. All the scriptures indicate this place where God’s life is and where blessing is, so those streams can produce joy, peace and love in us. That can be a description of our hearts garden if we are willing to draw from that source.
Isaiah 12:2 behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord is my strength and song he is become my salvation. Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation. This is a wonderful description of what our heart can be like. Everything we need, and salvation means wholeness, it means healing, it means provision, it means protection, it means deliverance, it means everything.
Salvation can flow in our heart; we can draw from the water of that spring of salvation that is within us. So, we can be continually flowing.
John 4:13,14 talks about it. Whoever drinks of this water I will give him shall never thirst. The water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. There is no water without, you have to drink it. whoever drinks this water you have to drink it. it can be there, but if you don’t drink it, it does you no good.
To drink is like priming a pump. Often pumps don’t work unless they’re primed. So, when we drink that initial living water it becomes in us a fountain of water.
And then according to Jeremiah 2:13 this is the choice we have. My people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters. To hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. God offers living water, if we try and get it from outside of God it’s like a broken vessel that will not hold water, it leaks away. So, no matter how much water we try and put in it from the world it will never be able to be full. It will always leak away. And we will always need more. This is why people get into addictions. It is never satisfied, whatever addiction it might be. Whether it be food or drugs or alcohol or sex or power or any of those things. All of those things can become addictive, they never satisfy and always require us to get more and more and more. Why? Because they flow away, they drain away. Because there not coming from the source which is continually and perpetual. So what is the source of our life?
John 7:38 he who believes in me as the Scripture said from his innermost being, our soul and spirit together will flow rivers of living water. This is spoke of the spirit. The Holy Spirit in us when we join to the lord, we become one spirit, and it flows. Jesus said the father in him did his work through him, we become a channel of that life. The glory of God flowing through us, the life of God emanating around us. God the Spirit is in that river, we can encounter him through that experience. So, knowing God as our Shepherd in intimacy of relationship comes through experiential meditation. We need to engage it; we need to experience it. Not just theoretical or reading it in the Bible. We need to actually encounter it in reality, in our spirit within our heart and in the realms of heaven. Opening the eyes of our heart as it says in Ephesians. Our imagination connects us to that eternal reality.
God has chosen to use the screen of our imagination where we can engage these things. Everything happens in your mind .Your seeing me in your mind, your hearing me in your mind. Everything happens in your mind. So that place, the screen of our imagination becomes a place where the reality of those experiences can take place. That is why we need to learn how to hear the voice of God, walk in the spirit, see in the spirit, in order to engage these things. So, open the eyes of my heart Lord, so that I can see you. The song we sing. Are we actually experiencing it? Because God wants to open the eyes of our heart, our imagination so we can begin to engage.
So, God’s garden Eden can be reflected in cultivating and tending of our garden in our heart. Our spirit eternal identity joined to the Lord one spirit, is like a river flowing which is the source of life. That’s why life can come. So, restoring our spirit, soul and body to be in complete unison and cooperation is the key. We don’t want to be separated and fragmented. We want to be integrated and whole. That’s what salvation is all about- wholeness. Peace is about wholeness, coming together.
Genesis 2:15 the Lord took them and put into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it. So, that was God’s intention to cultivate and tend or to look after and keep it. But then problems happened. Genesis 3:23 therefore the Lord sent him out of the garden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So, it is an indication that there was something different between what was outside of that garden (that God gave Adam and Eve) and the inside of it. Now of course they were supposed to expand the garden to fill the earth to extend that rule, but they didn’t. So, then they were excluded from that garden. Genesis 4:12 and hears the problem, when you cultivate the ground which is outside of that garden, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant, a wanderer on the earth, talking about Cain. So, what happens is that the world is a hard place to get all the needs met.
But the garden of our heart is the place that God wants it to be fruitful and flowing and abundant. So, we need to tend it, to cultivate it. So that as we care for it and look after it, give attention to it which is what tend means it will produce fruit.
So, we want to look after our heart. That’s where life comes from. So, I need to manage the things that are in my heart. All the things that I store there. Because I put a lot of things into my heart. I learned how to look after it. So, my heart becomes a reflection of all my spiritual experiences with God. It reflects my relationship with God, which did not use to be much, but now is a lot. Because I learned how to do it.
So, we have to look after things in our garden. In a natural garden, and I am building some things in my garden at the moment. There is grass, there is paths, there is fences, there is a shed, a patio, there is all sorts of things. I am extending things and growing things in my natural garden, because I am inspired actually to do it. Not that I really wanted to do it. It blesses my wife because she loves flowers. The last few days I’ve been building things in my garden. I put a retaining wall in. Flattened area made the slope different because I have something in me that wants to cultivate a garden and it reflects what’s in my own heart. In my garden we have little areas that were creating which are little places you can go and engage. There is a pond and things like that. So, in our garden of our heart we can create special secret intimate places where we can engage with God. See my dreams, my visions, are living tapestries hanging in the trees in my garden of my heart, that I can look at see them. Because there is no limit to our imagination. We tend to think of things as being how can you do that. Nothing is impossible. You can create everything because were made in the image of God who is creative. We have the ability to create the garden to reflect everything that is in the desires of our heart. And I’ve done that over a period of time. I have my scroll, the blueprint, the mandates are stored in my garden. Who I am. So, I have testimonies of thrones where I have engaged in heaven. A sword I was given. a scepter, staff, a seal, crowns, a bluestone of destiny like a ring that I can look into and engage. All these things are illustrative and figurative of the things I’ve experienced in my relationship with God. Many of them in heaven but I don’t want them to be just heavenly experiences. I want them to be experiences I have stored within my heart as memories, as testimonies that I’ve planted there. I have scrolls I planted. I planted a scroll once in the garden my heart and it grew into this amazing tree which had all this filigree silver all over it and silver trumpets. And I took those silver trumpets and actually I began to blow them as God directed and things started to happen in the spiritual realm and the natural realm. So, these things may seem really fanciful but in reality, they produce fruit. They actually trade and do things. So, we can store the things given to us by God, scriptures, truth, revelation. In the word of God, it says figuratively to eat them. So, I have eaten all sorts of things. Scrolls, Diamonds, scepters. Not physically possible to eat them because it’s a spiritual thing. I can take things; the garden of my heart is like the TARDIS in Doctor Who. It is much bigger on the inside than it can possibly be on the outside. because it’s a spiritual dimension not a physical place. Our heart is a spiritual dimension. So, there is no limits to how it can grow and multiply which is what God said. Fill the earth multiply. Ezekial 2:8 open your mouth and eat what I’m giving you. That’s what God said to Ezekial 3:1 he said to me, son of man eat what you find, eat this scroll, so I opened my mouth, he fed me this scroll and said to me son of man feed your stomach, fill your body with this scroll I’m giving you and then I ate it and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But the things that God gives us, those wonderful experiences of encounters that we have. The revelation and the truth we can find in the word of God. And experiencing the word can be all planted in the garden of our heart. I used to do this a while ago but now I do not have enough room to put things on it. I just made a collage of pictures that reflected the things that were in my heart. So I have rivers flowing there, I have doorways there, I have a tablecloth in there I can feed on. I have these tapestries hanging up. I have a swing, there are thrones in there. My angel which is that white winged horse thing. I have engaged that in that realm. And many other spiritual beings other than God.
So, how do we cultivate the garden of our heart? We need to plant seeds. Plant testimonies in the soil. I like to plant things near the river of life because that’s where the water is. I don’t want to go too far from where the water is. So, if you have ever been to Egypt, it is a barren country, and it has this wonderful strip of fertile ground all around the Nile. It is an amazing place around the Nile. But everywhere else it’s a desert a real rocky desert, it is not all sand. It is a really mountainous desert. But where the river is, there is real-life.
Matthew 13:23 the one on whom the seed was sown on good soil this is the man who hears the word of God understands it and it produces fruit. So, every seed of encounter, all the victories in the spirit, visions, revelations, testimonies, truth, all the mandates, I plant in the garden of my heart. So, my garden is now really large. Then you can water those seeds you plant from the river of life.
1 Corinthians 3:8 he who plants and he the waters are one, but each one receives his own reward according to his own labor. So, the more you cultivate and tend this. And plant and water and speak life to it, the more it grows so I speak life when I plant a seed, I call forth its fruitfulness, I don’t have to wait for years to get fruit. It happens instantly. Many of you have done this with your own testimonies and implanting it produces instant fruit which you can eat. When you eat it, you can re-engage that testimony. And you can also give it away to others. So that it grows into a fruit tree or bush. The fruit is a testimony, that testimony is repeated as I eat it and I give away to others to eat.
Revelation 12:11 they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony and they did not love life even to death. The word of our testimony is a powerful thing. The seed of testimony, put those things you’ve encountered, let them become testimonies that are fruitful, eat that fruit again that releases that testimony. So, that testimony is literally putting roots into the soil and acts as an anchor to the experience. See our minds shred things which aren’t important, the hippocampus in our brain shreds information if we don’t use it. If we plant a testimony, it stores it in our memory. Therefore, it can be used over and over again. That becomes a doorway to re-experiencing it and go beyond what we did the first time. That fruit then we can experience and give away.
When I had my first encounter in my garden with God when I was first encountering God spiritually in this dimension. I didn’t even realize it was my heart, because I had no idea that I had a heart that was like that. But I experienced that, and I was with God and there was a tree and a swing and a small patch of grass and a little bench. That was it, that was my experience, I thought this is a nice place, God had made for me in heaven, that I can encounter with him. So, one day I sit on the swing, and he was pushing me and I was talking to him sharing things. And he said to me, this is the garden of your heart. This is all there is. And that was all I had. Because I have never done anything with it. The rest of it was basically barren hard ground full of stones, full of weeds and other things, because I never ever realized I needed to look after it in that way.
So I began the process and the journey of doing that. So, as I kept planting in the garden and filling it with fruit, then fruit trees started to appear by the river. All sorts of different sorts of fruit. Lots of them all over the place. So, now I have a garden which is filled with all sorts of things, there are mountains and there are waterfalls, secret places that I created. And they are not all organic things. I have created secret places where I can sit. So basically, my heart is being restored with that living water carrying the truth and the wisdom from all the ancient pathways of heaven, so that can be outworked in my life.
It is becoming a fertile plane of truth, lush with vegetation. Now it has taken me quite a while to do this. But I regularly plant things, because I am always having new encounters in heaven and I am always engaging God, God is taking me into different places showing me new things every time I get something new, I make sure I go and plant it in the garden of my heart, because then it becomes something I can re-engage. The love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, there the fruit of the Spirit. There is the fruit that grows in the garden of my heart, it can be abundant and overflowing and flowing out of me.
So, as I’ve learned to tend and cultivate, I’ve taken the truth of all the things I have of experienced with God and planted it in my garden. About six months ago I was encountering God in that garden and sometimes I just go and sit with him and talk. And he took me flying. Flying in the Spirit or flying in dreams, it’s like a wonderful thing, like Superman you go zooming around. And he actually took me up into the atmosphere over the garden of my heart, so I could see what it looked like. And it’s like I was amazed by what it looked like. Because I was only on ground level. So, I only see all these plants, so I’m surrounded by all this life. When you go up it was amazing. So, my engaging with God himself, with the four faces of God, those four living creatures, the lion, ox, eagle and man. It produced to me this river that looked like a tree. So, when I looked and saw the river of life it was like a tree that was flowing out. So, it was like it had four main tributaries that were like branches of the tree. They had seven branches coming off each of those four branches, and there was so much fruit that I could see when I was looking above to see all the things that I cultivated. I realize that this was something of the river of life flowing out carrying those things that I have planted, all that truth, all that seed all those testimonies and it was producing a lot of fruit.
So, that tree has roots. Those roots are intimacy, my relationship with the father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit with wisdom, growing deeper and established in love and trust. It wasn’t like that when I first started. That tree has a trunk, formed through my interacting with the seven spirits of God, who have been tutoring and training me. Spirit of wisdom, spirit of fear the Lord, spirit of knowledge, understanding, strength, counsel, they’re all there, my encounters have strengthened the flow of this river. So, it looks like this life-giving thing. So, as I plant those testimonies, they bring order and government to my soul. So, my garden has order and a pattern. And this tree of life is like a blueprint. I did not realize that until I saw it from above. So, I saw all the secret places of Revelation that I have grown there and planted there. I saw so many things. I have this tablecloth in a meadow that I go and sit by. And God puts things there I can eat. I have so many secret places that I’ve engaged with wisdom and prudence who is another angelic being that’s been assigned to me. So, literally eternity is in my heart, says in Ecclesiastes. That’s a true reflection of the tree of life. That tree of life is an image within Metatron’s cube. I haven’t got time to go into all that today, but actually sacred geometry and fractal images are really what God wants us to be like. Were patterned after the image of God. And he does things in a very clear way. There is an eternal pattern. Everything grows on the golden mean or ratio-phi because God is a creator intelligent design. So, the tree of life is like Jacob’s ladder, is another description of it. There is a seed or the flower of life. And literally that shape is what it looks like with those intersecting things and when you break it down the seed of life and the flower of life and the tree of life are all geometric sacred geometric shapes. And when you look at it, people who have investigated some of these things and have seen some of these things, they see there is order in it and you can look into the Hebrew language and see some of the Hebrew letters, words that have meaning in that tree of life. And literally when you look at Metatron’s cube which is that. You can see that shape within it. And many other shapes within it that God has used to create the realms of heaven and the dimensions of the kingdom. Matthew 619 says this do not store for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. That’s what happens when we try and keep things ourselves. That’s what happens where we try and get our own treasure from our own things and when we store it. But store things for yourselves, treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, thief’s do not break in and steel. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So where is our heart, look at the treasure, what is important to you. Because that is an indication where our hearts are. What’s the source of our treasure? From our earthly identity, from doing things for earthly acceptance and affirmation and approval of men, of self-effort, what are we sowing and what is the resultant fruit. Our identity should be derived from our relationship with God who is our creator. Our treasure is the gold, silver, and precious stones that are attached to the scroll of our life, as described in the word of God. I have seen the scroll of my life, I’ve seen some of the good things on it or actually is there just wood, hey and stubble, just things that are just designed to be burnt up and have no eternal value. Because what we are doing in our life will be reflected on what is on our scroll. Does it reflect our destiny scroll that God had in eternity. Our hearts should be God focused rather than man or self-focused. So, all those things, value, worth, esteem come from our relationship with God rather than from what we do for God. Because even when were Christians we can try and earn those things from God. It is what religion is all about, us trying to earn things, getting our identity from what we do rather than doing things from our identity. Those experiences or testimonies are the fruit that God gives us in relationship with him. Psalm 37 :4 delight yourselves also in the Lord and he will give you the desires and secret petitions of your heart. What are the desires of your heart? Have you cultivated those desires? We need to learn to create and cultivate desire in our heart. Because the desires that maybe there may have been the desires of the past generations, passed onto you and maybe things that you’ve created for yourself. We need to learn to cultivate new desires. We all have a destiny both in time and eternity. Where you spend that eternity is depending on the choices you make here and now. Jeremiah 1:5 before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born, I consecrated you, I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. That was Jeremiah’s destiny before he was ever born. Psalm 139:16 your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and, in your book, scroll was written all the days that were ordained for me when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are your thoughts to me oh God, how great out vast is the some of them. That’s what we need to be focused on. Proverbs 4:20 my son give attention to my words. So, those things that God has as our destiny. Those thoughts about us, that he wants to reveal to us, that our spirit already knows in eternity. Do not let them depart from your sight keep them in the midst of your heart. So, we just set our hearts towards our destiny, the things that God said. Set our desire towards it, pursue our desire. How do we do that? By listening, looking, engaging, experiencing that reality. Begin to resonate and align ourselves with it. Become harmonious with it. Come into agreement with what God says. We only have authority for what we carry in our heart. It is only what is there, that we have real authority towards. So, our destiny, blueprints, our vision for our life mandates, the seven spheres of government we been given. Even people our family, friends, we need to have them planted within our heart, so that the desires of our heart will be to flow from God’s eternal purpose. So, we need to cultivate those desires. How do we do it? Through meditation, through engaging, through experience. Brood over it, incubate it, think about it, picture it, focus your attention on it, meditate on what it would be like to be fully fulfilling God’s purpose. Daydream, imagine, picture, that is what meditation is. By cultivating it, were creating expectation, a hope within us, and faith becomes a substance of that hope. So, it can be outworked. and without it, without faith, we can’t please God at all. Faith operates on hope, so we have to cultivate that hope. we take what God reveals, we engage it, we find out about it, read about in the word of God, see what God says, look at other people’s lives, they can model it. That’s what discipleship is about. But most importantly we need to experience it through meditation. Now in the natural realm I’ve learned to cultivate desire. And I the process that I use in my natural realm. And the same applies in the spiritual realm. So as a tech geek, I like stuff equipment, as boys’ toys people call it. Something provokes my interest and I begin to look at the reviews. I begin to look at the manuals to see what this can do. I may look at the forums that people have written about all the problems that exist about them. So, I’m already prepared. Now what I am doing is I am cultivating a desire. I get a certain point where may even look at the thing, go to the shop and see my last acquisition was a TV a nice 4K curve TV it was like I got to the point where I’ve read so much about it, I needed it. I needed it, I wanted it, I needed, it I must have it. I got to the point where I cultivate such a desire in my heart, I was willing to do whatever it took to get it. That means getting the money so it was like, I will save all my Christmas money, birthday money, and everything else. And essentially, I went and bought it because I was willing to pay the cost. It took me about six months to cultivate that desire and then sort of bring my wife around by taking to the shop and showing her how beautiful it was. Until it was like, I’m really going to get that. The same things happen with the things of the spirit. If you put as much effort into developing those spiritual things as you do the natural things of life, then you get the fruit that it produces.
So, my destiny is something I must have! And I am willing to pay the cost of my destiny. No matter whatever it is I’m willing to pay the cost. And as I pay that cost, I will bear the fruit from it, and it will produce that fruit in my life. But I pay the cost because I surrender and yield and give everything for it.
So, we need to meditate on the truth, take those seeds to produce that fruit into our life by thinking about it, musing, beholding picturing, that living active word produces the source that will guide our life. The lamp and the light that will direct our lives if we willing to embrace it. So we need to release it also. It is no good having everything in this wonderful garden if it’s going nowhere. The river needs to be flowing through us out into the world. Ezekial 47 :5 again he measured 1000 and it was like a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen, enough to swim in, a river that could not be forded…. Behold, on the bank of the river there were any many trees on the one side and on the other.
This is the same description and then what happens, what happens to it, these waters go out to the East region being made to flow into the sea and the waters of the sea become fresh. It will come about where every living creature swarms in every place where this river goes will live. If you have a garden that is producing fruit and the river of life is flowing, you can bring life wherever you go. You can produce life in others, you can turn saltwater fresh, you can change situations and bring blessing into them. But it all depends on what you got in your heart and are you willing to cultivate that desire. Are you willing to grow that desire. It is up to you.
Close your eyes and again activate the eyes of your heart your imagination, begin to picture Revelation 3:20 behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him. So just begin to picture that door, it in your spirit, that door of first Love ,the handle is on your side and reach out and engage that hand and open the door and see the river of living water begin to flow, that water will just begin to flow deeper in flowing down from the mountain your spirit flowing through your spiritual doorways flowing into the garden of your heart. Picture that river flowing and let it flow into the garden of your heart and just ask Jesus to walk with you, let him take you by the hand and walk you into the garden of your heart. It may only be a small area, you may have to cultivated it somewhat, just sense the freedom and joy of walking with Jesus. Start to think about how you would plan your garden, how you would like your garden to be. Let the thoughts within, the creative thoughts of the image of God. Start to think about that garden. I encourage you just take a testimony of Scripture or an encounter you had with God, something good and just stand by the river, just picture yourself standing by that river, and plant that seed in your garden. With the river of life, speak life to it and as you speak life to that seed see that fruit growing. Taste it and see that it’s good. Receive the life that fruit gives you. Look after the garden of your heart, so it flows out from you into the world around.