Where The Gardener Is At Work - The One Year Unlocking the Bible Devotional
Where the Gardener Is at Work
We are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 1 John 1:6
It is clear that some folks in the early church had deceived themselves (see 1 John 1:8). They claimed to have fellowship with God but were walking in darkness. They lived a double life, and their claim was empty. Others genuinely thought they had fellowship with God but did not.
When Mary and Joseph made their annual visit to the Temple, they no doubt were part of a larger group with many children, uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends. Returning home, they thought Jesus was with them. Everybody assumed it, but along the road they realized he wasn’t. He had remained at the Temple. It would be a terrible thing to go through life thinking Jesus is with you and to find on the last day that he never was. John makes it clear: this is an area where some people are deceived.
Jesus said, “On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:22-23). Here are people who had no doubt impressed many with their ministries but knew nothing of fellowship with God. Jesus says he doesn’t know them.
Some years ago my parents bought a home in the country. It was a wasteland, with an impenetrable swamp in the front yard and an overgrown path in the back. The perimeter was unfenced, and the whole place was a mess, but they saw its potential, so they bought it. Over the past ten years, the swamp has been transformed into a pond, the lawn is green, and a fence has been put around the perimeter. The evidence of a gardener at work can be clearly seen.
Think of your life like a garden. There are flowers to cultivate and weeds to pull. The flowers and plants are always growing, and the work of pulling weeds is never done. The garden is always a work in process; it is never complete. But where the Gardener is at work, the evidence can be clearly seen.
For further reading, see Matthew 7
