Gospel Grace Our lives are intended for restored relationships with the Lord, yearning and crying out to be back home with our Father in heaven. It all started in an earth-shaking, sensory-soaring grace garden. The garden of Eden brought new life into God’s abundant, abounding creation. Creation sang and creation spoke through God’s tender care towards Adam and Eve. The garden was splashed with intelligence, flourishing with noisy, wild creatures all dressed in a magnitude of beauty, sharing God’s glory all together in sync, in step with HIM. Graces swarming on every side of the garden as it flowered directly from His glorious presence, His river of everlasting life and communion with Him. But sneaky, snarling, sin and satan made their way into the garden. The Father of lies lured Eve to taste pride in an apple! You see God gave them one rule; to not eat from the tree of good and evil; the ultimate forbidden fruit. As the Father of lies intruded, so did direct disobedience to their true Father’s voice. Pride consumed Eve’s heart, and the snake’s voice became louder than God’s voice. At that moment, darkness overturned the garden with a grim demise, and a curse struck the once perfect garden of communion, with separation. Satan and sin separated man and woman from His great, holy, perfect arms. As death came upon perfection and stole the graces of God’s affection, this birthed sin, rebellion and shame. Our unstoppable God went at length with love leading Him onward to restore what had been lost and taken by the fall. You see, years later in the Garden of Gethsemane, our very tangible, living Emmanuel, God with us, would come yet again to another wild garden. This time, Jesus would cry out in the garden, a final prayer to the Father before death. When days prior, He would He would meet and greet us with miracles, signs and wonders, with a kiss of cataclysmic grace to win back the hearts of the Father’s children. Here in the Garden of Gethsemane is a depiction of the second garden. Jesus our Christ, our long-awaited Savior, would come to seek and save the lost. Our Jesus would come and restore our relationship, with HIM. To give us back what sin and the enemy had stolen, His very presence. His presence provides the very epitome of joy, His presence brings us His unmerited, undeserved gifts of mercy. His presence brings us power to live like He walked by the enabled, equipping of His Holy Spirit.
His presence, two gardens later, now becomes our eternal garden awaiting new birthing salvations! This is good news, for you and for me! We each are like Adam and Eve, born from the seed of sin, and without accepting Christ’s love would be sent to eternal damnation! But there is another way out of our wayward hearts of destruction. We can come to Jesus and receive the power, to trust HIM. It’s a free gift, you do not have to be perfect. In fact, you MUST be a sinner. Your heart must be repentant enough to feel the weight of sin and shame. Come into the light, beautiful child of God, and receive HIS forgiveness for you with childlike faith. To the Christian, live daily a life of repentance! Although we’ve been washed clean and Jesus paid the price for our sins, we still desperately need the Lord to sanctify us and purge our wicked ways. Walk daily in holiness by living a life of forever confessions! Prayer for the one who wants to know HIM:
Father God, I give you my life. I confess that I am a sinner, in need of a Savior. I can’t do this life on my own, sin has been shackling me and has caused much grief in my own life. I need you Christ to forgive me of my sins, and enter into my heart through the power of the Holy Spirit. Help me to follow you all the days of my life. I surrender all my life to YOU. Thank YOU Father God for your love for me, thank you that it’s not by good works that I am saved, but rather YOUR perfect work of dying on the cross. It is finished, it is done, God’s grace has just begun! Welcome to the Family of Believers. If you’ve just received Christ’s everlasting love, please let us know so we can pray and rejoice with you. Email us at info@womenworldleaders.com
Carrie Christopher
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