Fruits of a Garden

I was so careful when my children were young. It was easier then. As they grew older, however, as I entered the workforce and they entered a more adult world ... as they were more 'peer' in concept, I realize now the 'carefulness' of the earlier days wasn't there anymore.

"Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world!"

I wish it hung as a banner in front of my eyes (my children's eyes, all our eyes) ... all the time. One I had to intentionally gaze through, peer around, consciously turn my back on if I wanted to walk a way other than God's way.

However, that's the subtlety of sin. It parks itself right in front of our face .... saying, "I'm alright. I'm light. Look how far from darkness I am." Yet all the while its light is merely a cloak covering the depth of darkness permeating its soul ... waiting to devour mine.

God wanted us to realize something when He shares with us His conversation with Cain (and Cain's response) in Genesis 4. Sin is not an inanimate, lifeless object. It lives ... it desires ... it has a game plan ... it’s on the prowl. And its target is you ... is me ... is all those I love.

It doesn't take the headlines or the local news channel to alert even the least discerning that still ... the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)

How comfortable have you been standing at the checkout counter at any grocery store lately? How many commercials on TV can you sit through, without cringing in embarrassment? If you live with a forest of billboards, how often have you felt the need to avert your own eyes … or desperately wish those of your young sons and even daughters were blindfolded?

Maybe it's because I'm a tad older, though I’m not that old. I remember when certain content simply wasn't appropriate in mixed company, even in commercials. Where certain poses and body language still brought blushes to faces that might happen to ‘take it in’, even men’s countenances. Where parents felt a need to avert the heads of their children when someone clothed in specific apparel came into their line of vision. Now, flesh rules the day, as that wily serpent takes us back to the garden before ‘eyes were opened’ … knowing fully well how very opened they, indeed, are … having successfully erased every aspect of our shame - so hooked on pleasure have we become.

Today you’re apt to find the person on the pew right next to you, or maybe even yourself, clothed in fashion that can only turn heads … worse yet, turn hearts. How well I remember my own sons saying, “You’re not letting her out of the house in that, are you!” referring to their eleven year old sister. They wanted her covered. And I think it was their reactions that most captured my attention to just how differently a man’s mind ‘sees.’ Sin’s success at inoculation permeates the church today, not just the world.

Today a 'no holds barred' philosophy seems to be behind what should be even the safest content .... turning it into a 'who can push the envelope the furthest' contest. It grieves me ... I can't imagine what it does to God's heart of holiness.

What makes for top box office ratings these days? or even the content of the supposedly 'family' appropriate TV programs? Think about the DVDs or videos lining your shelves.

If Romans 1:28-32 doesn't describe, in varying shades of grey (not that before God there is any such thing) what those shelves hold (even children's material) then you have accomplished the unaccomplishable:

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting: being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, callousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

If they're on my shelf (which, grievously, they are) I've shown my approval of them. If my attendance at their offering filled their coffers (which it has), I've shown my approval. If my bookcase reveals a sharing in their feast, a supping at their table ... then I needn't wonder if I've conformed to the pattern of this world. It's there for all to see. And evil needn’t look beyond me to find a tool of conformity to work its work in the heart of those I love best.

What does Paul tell the Ephesians?

This I say, therefore, and testify in the LORD, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (4:17-24)

I'm not writing this to you as much as I'm writing this to myself! Oh, how much I’m writing it to myself.

We can't live in two gardens. We can't live with one foot in Eden and one foot in Gethsemane. A divided mind, a divided heart, can't live ... it dies. And it pulls those watching into the pit with it.

We can't have two masters. Either the flesh (Eden) rules us, our choices, our shades of grey. Or the Spirit of God, where the sod of our Gethsemane knows well the indentation of our own bended knee and taste of our own obedience’s bloodied drops of sweat.

No wonder David cried out: Create in me a clean heart; and renew a right spirit in me. We’re desperate for it.

How far we have fallen from the light, even those of us knowing ourselves children of God, purchased by the shedding of His own blood ... because our own hand keeps reaching out with Eve’s.

It’s so easy not to look beyond her … not to look beyond the serpent … but our own senses enjoy being titillated just as much as hers. We’ve not just bought the whispering lie, we live it out, daily. We stand in Cain’s field because it’s ours … bloodied knife in our own hand … righteousness, slain at our own feet, and our dirt trying to cover the evidence of it. How do I know?

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. (Philippians 4)

…Abstain from every form of evil … (1 Thess. 5:22) Another translation puts it …avoid even the appearance of evil…

God doesn’t allow man any shades of grey … period!

But the Eve-ishness of our hearts won’t truly receive that message. When Eve saw it was pleasing to the eye more accurately translates satisfying to the desires of the heart. Is it any wonder that God looks at our own righteousness and sees it as ‘filthy rags?’

Man hasn’t changed, because flesh hasn’t change. The LORD looks and still sees ‘that the wickedness of man is great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.’

It's impossible to shield our children from the vileness of life. And there's something terrifying in that reality. I’d like to look at their own stumbling, their own conformity to the world and point my finger … anywhere, but where bitter truth lies. The same truth that the first parents had to live with as their own world grew darker and darker and darker, until even the earth itself was filled with evil’s violence. It lies with me … with my own Eve-ishness … my own conformity to the result of my slaying of righteousness, over and over, on the field of want … desire … which lines my own shelves, colors my own conversation, molds my own choices.

Paul pens my heart eloquently when he writes … For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – that through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Righteousness will ever be an internal work … ever a work outside my own doing. Righteousness will never cease to always be a work of grace, acted out on my behalf, imparted through mercy alone to this fallen, evil-seeded clay called me. Righteousness’ fruit, that daily putting off of the old and putting on of the new through the working of the Spirit of God within me, must make up my moment-by-moment portion of obedience … my Gethsemane living.

There’s something about Gethsemane … it doesn’t allow for even the merest speck of self to set foot upon its sod, let alone dwell there.

Why has the world grown so increasingly dark in our day? Because we, the children of light, have taken up companionship with the serpent. And the heartbreaking truth remains, we’re comfortable there, for the most part. We’ve accepted his definitions of ‘goodness’ … we’ve allowed the planting of his description of ‘fair … pleasing’ to take residence within us. It’s not that darkness’ seed has vanquished the light. Never! But Light will not reside with it … and making our choice, God allows us to reap its fruit … though it breaks His heart.

We must choose! That’s what love is, a choice. Choosing to walk as children of light through the power of the Holy Spirit within us … turning our back to every ‘pleasurable’ seed of darkness. Daily! In every single area of life … not from external legalism … but from an internal love that allows us to choose no other. As more and more of God’s children, beginning with me, make that the genuine desire (‘stretch out after’ in the Hebrew) of their living, cutting to the quick our conformity to the world, darkness will diminish as God’s light burns brighter and brighter upon the earth.

May love such as this truly capture our hearts. As we stand in Cain’s field, aware the blood dripping from our own knife, may the blade fall from our grip. May our stained hands, instead, stretch out after Grace’s covering, grasping it so tightly about ourselves that even a shadow of darkness has no chance of slithering through. May our love choose, not conformity to darkness, but the transforming light of conformity to the mind of Christ, who lived Gethsemane with every step, with every breath … that I, in Him, may choose the same.





© 10 January 2006
DeAnna L. Brooks