Lesson 1 The Garden of the Lord

     Genesis 2:15 (Amplified) says, "And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to ten and guard and keep it."
     As a boy growing up, we always had a garden.  And being a country boy in a family of ten kids, we all had to do our part tending it.  We raised our own chickens and eggs, pork and beef and our own vegetables.  Dad worked in a coal mine and Mom had all she could do to take care of us and the house, so tending the garden mostly fell to the kids.  If we didn't tend the garden, then the weeds would choke out the vegetables and we would have nothing to can and put away for the winter.
     When God placed Adam in the garden, he was there to tend and keep it.  This was so nothing could enter the garden and destroy what the Father had placed there.  Everything man would ever need on earth was to come from this garden.  Adam's instructions on how to conduct his life and how to use everything in the garden to provide for his flesh, came directly from his Father God. Everything Adam's natural body would need was to come from the garden.
     Today, the plan of salvation and redemption has been restored and delivered back to the Father's original plan.  The garden is once again to take care of us while we're here on earth.  All every believer will need to prosper is here.  The garden now, is the heart (the spirit) of the born again child of God.
     This could be the "laboring" to enter God's rest that Hebrews 4 sites.  Matthew 6:31-33 (Amplified) says, "Therefore do not worry and be anxious saying, What are we going to have to eat? or, What are we going to have to drink? or, What are we going to have to wear? For the gentiles (heathen) wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows well that you need them all."  Verse 33 says, "But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His Kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right) and then all these things taken together will be given you besides."
     Most people read this scripture as simply a parable.  Others take it to mean that God will rain down these things on them like ripe apples from a tree.  Both are wrong.  All these things will grow out of the garden of the Lord, which is now in our recreated spirits.  Everything we see and touch came from the Spirit realm to begin with and the Spirit can still produce it now.  Jesus proved this when He fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes.
     The problem we have is that we haven't tended the garden and we've allowed more weeds to grow than fruit.  We weren't guarding against mixed seed or even bad seed.  We've allowed whatever seed the wind picked up and scattered to grow.  Tending the garden means working it, weeding it and keeping the soil pliable.  Let's read more from Jesus' parable in Mark 4:24-25 (Amplified) which says, "And He said to them, Be careful what you are hearing, the measure (of thought and study) you give (to the truth you hear) will be the measure (of virtue and knowledge) that comes back to you and more (besides) will be given to you who hear."  Verse 25 says, "For to him who has (ears to hear) will more be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away (by force)."
     Jesus explained to His disciples, after reciting this parable, how the seed is the Word of God, the soil is the heart (spirit) of the believer and the produce is in the garden of the Lord which is now the recreated spirit of His children.  Tending the garden means we're to be careful of what seed (words) we allow to be sown in the soil of our heart (spirit).  ALL WORDS ARE SEEDS!!!  The seed that Jesus sowed (and us if we're preaching the kingdom) is the Word of God.  "The sower sows the Word."
     Your heart (spirit) is good soil because the Holy Spirit has prepared it and made it fertile.  Good soil will produce poison ivy as quickly as it will produce tomatoes.  The soil has no control over what it grows...the one tending the garden does.  We can hear words (seeds) of doubt, unbelief, fear, false doctrine or lies.
     As Christians, we are to tend, guard and watch the garden, allowing only the true seed of the Kingdom to produce in this fertile, prepared soil.  When other seed falls into this soil, we are to uproot it and not allow it to grow.  According to Mark 4, these other seed will bring forth things that choke out and shut down the harvest of God's garden.
     We've been lazy  and have been unaware concerning the "wrong" seed or words that fell into our garden.  Adam should never have allowed the serpent to enter the garden of Eden.  If he had taken his job of attending the Garden seriously, then sin would never have taken root.