For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:10)
Life is in the Seed. Unless the Lord is the Seed, they labor in vain who tend the garden. On earth our hearts are this garden. If the Seed has been planted and has taken root we have become children of God. If the Seed has not taken root, we are not His children. Children begin with the Seed. If we are to be holy as God is holy, our success rests in this reality and no other. We resemble our parents because we came from their seed. So, to do our part as stewards of our own hearts, we must realize when God tells us to be holy we must first realize that we are holy – even if this holiness is embryonic.
If we have an understanding of holiness as a mere moral attribute, there will a compulsion to go out and do what we think are holy things. To be sure, there is doing in tending our garden but if the doing is without respect to the Seed, we will develop as mere human (religious) doings with mere human fruit as opposed to any God-birthed fruit that would spring up, causing righteousness and praise to blossom before the nations.
I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)
Isaiah’s mixed metaphors don’t need to throw us. We can get from the garden to the wardrobe with a little effort. Assuming Adam and Eve were adorned in God’s finest before they donned their first animal skins, we can assume God is speaking (through Isaiah) of something internal as opposed to external, something spiritual as opposed to material when he is referring to our garments.
When Christ lives in the garden of our hearts, there are always wardrobe upgrades. As we live with Christ as our life, we will find ourselves rejoicing and exulting in our Lord; for we will be like Adam and Eve. We will have nothing but Christ as our clothing, nothing to explain our lives but Jesus. When we are at rest in the understanding that Christ is our life, we adorn ourselves with our finest jewel – Christ alone. He (exclusively) is our hope of glory.
Father, teach us to do our part well as stewards of Your Life in us. May the mystery of Your Seed grow and escape the boundaries of our gardens, bearing fruit that is available to those You have placed near to us. May we truly be holy as You are holy. Amen.