Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it (Gen 2:15).
God intends us to cultivate and keep our place of connection with heaven, so that we will be able to bring heaven to earth. We still have the mandate to cultivate the garden of our hearts. The garden does not just grow of its own accord. We have to plant seeds in our hearts if we want them to grow into trees which will produce fruit and ‘leaves for healing’ (Ezekiel 47:12).
What to plant
You may be asking, ‘what seeds do I plant?’
You can take the encounters you have had with God, the victories you have had in your life, the revelation He has given you, the testimonies you have, and plant them in your garden. It does not take a long time for them to grow into trees, because you can water them from the River of Life, and you can speak to them and call forth fruitfulness.
Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
(1 Cor 3:8)
There will be a reward from that planting, if we cultivate and tend the garden in our hearts.
The power of testimony
If you have a testimony that is sown into your garden, you can go back and take the fruit of that testimony and re-live it, and see it multiply. That is what it is for. Everything we have seen is a seed we can plant and it becomes a tree of that testimony and bears fruit. That is why we have trees with fruit in our garden in our hearts.
I do not want to see healing just once, I want to see healing over and over again. In fact I want to see every one of God’s promises over and over again. So when I have experienced something from the hand of God, I can be thankful, rejoicing, plant it in my garden, cause it to be watered and it will produce fruit that I can go back to over and over again.
I can draw from that on the inside, in order to produce it on the outside of me. So if I need an anointing of the Holy Spirit when I am praying for someone, I can draw it from within. I am not dependent on the atmosphere being filled with the anointing. I can draw the anointing from the inside of me using the testimony of what God has given me. What He has done before, He can release again. That is the power of testimony.
Watch over your heart
But if I want to be able to draw on it in the future, I need to plant it, to look after it, and nurture it. And I have to watch over my heart.
Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life
(Proverbs 4:23).
Remember the four types of soil that Jesus spoke about in the parable of the sower. He explained to His disciples that the soil represents the heart. What is our heart like? Hard, so that no seeds can go in? Rocky, so that they cannot take root? Full of weeds, that choke out the new growth? Or good soil, that will produce a tree of life on the inside of us, that we can pick the fruit from, and eat?
If my heart is good soil, what I plant can grow and bear fruit.
What is in your garden?
My garden is full of things God has given me. There is a river, pools, and a waterfall. There is a door into the heavens. There is a green pasture with a big tablecloth set with all kinds of food I can go and eat from. There are trees. There is a yoke – I yoke myself to Jesus daily. All of those things are what God has given me by revelation in the heavenly realms, and I have planted them in there. There are even mountains. The mountains which represent my spheres of authority in the kingdom of God are now there in my garden.
Some of the things in my garden will also be in yours, and some will be unique to me. You can develop your own garden, in your own heart, and you will have things in there that are particular to you, precious to you; the things God has given to you, to enable you to draw on them every time you need them again.
What is in your garden?