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Tag: paradise

The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter: a Garden
Scene One:

a Garden
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An illustration of times in life beyond the bounds of time and place
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The Gardener, the Shepherd and the Hunter

Once upon a time there was a gardener, a shepherd and a hunter.

I met a man who knew each of them (and many others), for he frequented the garden during his journeys through time.

But before I tell you about these men from long ago, allow me to describe this garden seen by just a few men, women and even children during these countless years and times.

To begin, you must close your eyes in order to look through a distant twilight upon a face of this place not visible to any who think we might see this extraordinary place by the light of this distant earth.

For that is how I met his man who showed me the way to look into the vast darkness to see this paradise.

Of course, if anyone wanted to look for a gardener,

wouldn’t you first try to find the garden where he works?

That’s what I did after I heard a Voice of the man who had met them all. Then he showed me where to look into the twilight of the night sky.

Better, with your eyes closed to this world, he said.

Do you have a picture of the garden where I can see this gardener, I asked?

Imaginations of it by men and women paint many pictures of places not at all like this garden, he replied.

You cannot allow even the most beautiful earthly place of your imagination to mirror this distant garden beyond the borders of time and place.

Beyond …time… and place

What do you mean that this garden is on another side of a border of time?
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(I thought is was a straightforward question about where I should look.)
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Have you ever been there … or met anyone else who has seen this garden?
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(Of course I hadn't.)

And without saying anything and with my eyes still closed I could still see the man who spoke to me as he gently looked into the depths of my thought.
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So you would like to see this garden..? .. and have me show you how to get past your border of..

.. The man was suddenly silent.

I strained to see him with faint light passing through my eyelids as I imagined a beautiful garden filled with light and life. I imagined scrumptious fruit, the greenest of plants and purest of air.. a blue sky (of course).. Behind a moving mist somewhere between my eyelids and my wandering mind, I painted for myself a paradise with several people wandering about carelessly…

… time … ?

But which one was the Gardener, I wondered?

Then as my mindless mist obscured my vision of this garden beyond the bounds of time and place, I realized that the man had just spoken to ME again.

…time… ? (he had just said – his last word inviting me to follow him there)

Do you see this … LINE …

he asked?

Yes.

Where does it end?

(With my eyes again closed tightly and staring into the distance both to the left and then the right, I could see NO END

and the … LINE … just keep going beyond where I could see..)

Can you see it’s BEGINNING?

I nodded.. NO.

Yet haven’t your READ the truth of a garden beyond this …LINE… drawn in …TIME…?

How about the other END of the …LINE…?

Now I thought briefly of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to John. A horrific scene of apocalypse began to unfold — a scene I had never wanted to look upon.

The Garden

And just as before when I had tried to glance back at the garden of Eden, the desired paradise with GOD, the voice of the man no longer spoke comfort into my spirit.

I did not know then WHO the gardener was, but now I knew where to look …beyond the line of time and place…for the garden.

from the Voice of Truth

וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃
Bereishit (Genesis) 1 :: Westminster Leningrad Codex (WLC)

גַּן

CLICK HERE for MORE Original truth of the garden: Strong’s H1588 – gan
- garden, enclosure; גַּן gan, gan; from H1598; a garden (as fenced):—garden.
The LORD God planted a garden H1588 toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed..

Out of the ground the LORD God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden H1588, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden H1588 of Eden to cultivate it and tend it.
Genesis 2:15 NASB20

NEXT:

Scene Two: a gardener near the beginning

(more…)
April 2, 2022
A Brief Glance at Paradise
Where can I Find Paradise?

We all know the story of Eden as a former place of paradise on earth from where Adam and Eve were evicted by God because of sin. But where can we find paradise in the Bible now that mankind has lost it?

Today’s short take from Scripture will take us on a brief journey we find in the New Testament.

The real question of DEATH is ‘What then?’

We have just witnessed an brief scene of Stephen at the point of his death in Acts 7.

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

“Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
Acts 7:56b NASB – a final witness of Stephen before the Sanhedrin

Jesus also gives us several glances at life after death in the Gospel. And we could be taken up into John’s vision of heaven in Revelation.

But today’s Short Take on Paradise comes from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.

What is Paradise?

I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago— .. was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak.
2 Corinthians 12:2a,4 NASB20

Could this have been at the moment when Jesus met this man on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus? Paul later writes about his own imminent death as if he prefers it!

What does Paul mean by παράδεισος: Paradise?

And what’s your short take on this definition?

παράδεισος :: Strong’s G3857 – paradeisos

Outline of Biblical Usage
1. among the Persians a grand enclosure or preserve, hunting ground, park, shady and well watered, in which wild animals, were kept for the hunt; it was enclosed by walls and furnished with towers for the hunters
2. a garden, pleasure ground
3. grove, park
4. the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise
5. the upper regions of the heavens. According to the early church Fathers, the paradise in which our first parents dwelt before the fall still exists, neither on the earth or in the heavens, but above and beyond the world
6. heaven
Let’s Talk of Jesus and our possibility in Paradise

Want to know my opinion from Scripture and experience?

COMMENT or ask your questions on this post.
January 27, 2022
From This World to the Next – Sanctification
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
John 17:17 CSB – Jesus’ prayer for disciples

Between life & Eternal Life

As Jesus intercedes for disciples our Master has just prayed:

“I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.“

Jesus, the Eternal One, has completed His work in the world as the Son of Man, only Son of God the Father. He is about to experience the very death of mortals condemned by sin!

So as a Perfect High Priest the Lord intercedes for sinners in prayer in an upper room in Jerusalem, a Holy of Holies before our Father God, the Most High Creator of the world and Author of all life.

John 17:

13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

The Lord speaks clearly to the Father and before the Apostles that He has this one more thing to say ‘in the world’ before His Disciples.

The world hates God! Jesus gave them God’s true word and now the world hates them.

Why?

They are no longer condemned by their sin, as the world is condemned to death along the the evil one. So the departing Messiah prays for God to keep them from the temporary but real power of evil.
- 17 Sanctify them in the truth;
  - Your word is truth.
- 18 As You sent Me into the world,
  - I also have sent them into the world.
- 19 For their sakes I sanctify Myself,
  - that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.
Jesus prays for them and us and clearly states why.

What He will do next?

The Lord will sanctify Himself so that His disciples will become like Him as they are sent also into the world.

Sanctification

“Sanctify them…”

“I sanctify myself…”

What do these formal and holy words mean to a casual worshiper of these last days?

Perhaps the time has arrived for us to receive this truth as was near for a soon-to-be crucified Savior and His Disciples.

ἁγιάζω – hä-ge-ä’-zo – sanctify

Jesus prays: Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
John 17:17 KJV
- to make ἅγιον, render or declare sacred or holy, consecrate. Hence, it denotes:
1. to render or acknowledge to be venerable, to hallow: Since the stamp of sacredness passes over from the holiness of God to whatever has any connection with God, ἁγιάζειν denotes
2. to separate from things profane and dedicate to God, to consecrate
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source: Thayer's Greek Lexicon STRONGS NT 37: ἁγιάζω - blueletterbible.org
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Sanctify them, as in “hallowed by Thy name.” ‘Father make these Holy by Your own holy Name,’ He could well have prayed.

The Apostle John has already testified in his gospel [John 6:69],

“We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy G40 One G40 of God.”

Be holy, for I am holy, says the LORD.
וְהִ֨תְקַדִּשְׁתֶּ֔ם וִהְיִיתֶ֖ם קְדֹשִׁ֑ים כִּ֛י אֲנִ֥י יְהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃
Leviticus 20:7 & many other scriptures

Jesus IS the only High Priest with the Authority to sanctify any flesh of sinful man who He sends out into the world. The Lord can make you or any He chooses to be ‘a holy vessel of the LORD.’

“I have sanctified them..

Jesus continues to pray for those the Father has given Him:
And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
John 17:19 KJV

You cannot see the face of God, O man of flesh tainted by sin!

Gaze far into the distant heavens beyond the vast sea for a light of truth, the paradise of Eden, the glory of the living Temple of the LORD. You will not enter it any more than you may enter the Holy of Holies constructed by man and destroyed by disobedience.

Jesus our High Priest prays to sanctify you through the truth.
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To be continued... 
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July 29, 2020