… when only 23% of people who believe in God identify his #1 attribute as Love.
No wonder we struggle to understand who He is and who we are as a result.
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Return to the Garden –When God* made Adam, and shortly after Eve, he placed them in the Garden of Eden where he would commune with them (Gen 2:15). The garden represents the overlap of heaven and earth before the Fall. This was a place where God was able to walk and talk with man in perfect relationship, His intent for the Trinity and man even before the foundations of the earth were laid.
Humans were the climax of all creation, and as God reflected on all that he had made, he called it very good. In Hebrew terms, very good means in perfect harmony with God and fit for its purpose. But then comes the Fall, and that harmony and intimacy was lost.
After the Fall, and before Jesus’s birth, we see God’s desire to dwell with us in the biblical tabernacle and temple. Although there was always a safe distance between man and God that could not be bridged, except by a priest who once a year entered the holy of holies on behalf of the people, after performing (perfectly) purification rituals and sacrifices.
Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, all believers have the capacity for intimacy with God again–the same intimacy we experienced as we walked and talked with Him in the Garden of Eden. In Revelation 21 it is revealed that in a new heaven and new earth, which are completely integrated, we will walk and talk with God in person once again.
At His crucifixion, when Christ declared “It is Finished,” the temple veil was torn from top to bottom providing complete access to God again for those who accepted His sacrifice. The temple is now placed inside of us (1 Cor. 3:16-17). We once again can be in full fellowship with our creator. Priests were no longer required to be between man and the presence of God.
Return to the Garden (this artwork) reminds us that Jesus’s sacrifice paid our way to return to full intimacy with God, just like in the Garden of Eden. We can now walk and talk with God, daily, hour by hour, even minute by minute.
*Every reference to God is a reference to the Trinity, God the Father, Christ the Son, & the Holy Spirit.
The Tree of Brokenness illustrates our futile attempts to get our needs met apart from God, leading to extreme brokenness in our lives. Some of the brokenness comes from being born into a world at war with an unseen enemy set on the destruction of anything that would bring glory to God, mainly God’s children. At times we experience direct attacks by the enemy, such as those perpetrated against Eve in the Garden of Eden, that usually involve deception, distraction, or discouragement. But other wounds are caused by sin committed against us from those following a corrupt and evil world system, or sin that we choose to commit ourselves (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life – 1 John 2:16).
The root system of the tree represents the core longings that can only be met by God and were perfectly fulfilled in the Garden of Eden. Exemplified by breaks in the root system, these breaks make it impossible to get all we need from God (abiding). When our root system is broken by woundedness, it is not possible to fully abide in Christ. This limits our ability to have our deepest needs met in a way that fully satisfies.
In the absence of God meeting our needs, our response is to seek to fill them through our own dysfunctional means. In the branches, you see a brief list of dysfunctions which are only a representation of an exceptionally lengthy list of possibilities. It is important to note that anything you place in the God spot that is not God is dysfunctional, idolatry, and sin. The journey of spiritual formation/sanctification to address these breaks involves the healing work of Christ in our lives. To move into spiritual maturity, we need to break up with sin, the false self, and the world’s system, choosing to live from the rules of the Kingdom of Heaven. Only then will we have victory over dysfunction and be able to fully abide in Christ (the vine) as instructed in John 15:5, “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
The Tree of Restoration works hand in hand with the Tree of Brokenness. Most Christ followers are symbolically somewhere between these two trees and only Jesus would have represented the fullness of the Tree of Restoration completely, although His Deity would indicate there was nothing from which to be restored. As we “pick up our cross and follow” Jesus as instructed in Matthew 26:24, we begin a journey into spiritual maturity, where our tree will begin to bear fruit. As part of this process of sanctification, we learn to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. Only then can we walk in the Fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal 5:22-25) embedded through illustration in the top of the tree.
Part of the journey of crucifying our flesh includes, with Jesus’ help, dealing with the extreme brokenness in our lives. This brokenness comes from being born into a world at war with an unseen enemy set on the destruction of anything that would bring glory to God, especially God’s image bearers. So, at times we experience direct attacks by the enemy that usually involve deception, distraction, or discouragement. But other wounds are caused by sin committed against us, or sin that we choose to commit ourselves (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life – 1 John 2:16). As part of the journey, we must break up with sin, our false self, and the world’s system and ways.
The bottom of the tree shows how this brokenness has caused breaks in the root system, that once limited our ability to fully abide in Christ. But once the brokenness has been addressed by the healing touch of Jesus through His sacrificial death and resurrection, the cross (illustrated) covers all the brokenness. With our brokenness addressed through Christ, we are equipped to experience a whole new relationship with God, our core longings fully met in Him.
The result of this transformed relationship is a vibrant, blossoming life exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. Fully alive in Him, our identity is secure in the truth of who we were created to be and a purpose created before the foundations of the earth were even laid (Ephesians 1:4). Unique in every way, we are equipped to step into the freedom God has for us. The power of abiding we see in John 15:5 is ours; “Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. If we remain in Him and he in us, we will bear much fruit; apart from Him, we can do nothing.” This includes fulfilling the greatest commandments “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . . and Love your neighbor as yourself.” All through abiding in Christ!
