APRIL 2019

WHAT GROWS IN YOUR GARDEN?

April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes.  I would like to take that saying and add a biblical slant to its truth.  To speak of April showers takes my memory back to an old hymn, There Will Be Showers of Blessing.  The chorus of that hymn rings out these words, Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need; mercy-drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead. The songwriter was likely thinking of those wonderful words in Psalm 72:6, in which it says of the Messiah, He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth.  April will be the month in which we celebrate the showers of blessing that fell upon humanity when Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose again.  There is no greater shower upon our soul than God’s redemptive love.  As for May flowers, that reminds me that the day Christ enters our hearts, our soul truly begins to flower.  The Bible declares, If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation steadily flowering into the image of Christ (1 Cor 5:17; Rom 8:29).  I am also reminded of the words of Psalm 103:12: As far as the east is from the west so far has God removed the debris of our sins from the garden of our lives.  Flowers in the spring are beautiful but the flowering of new life in our hearts and souls is far greater.  And the best news is, Christ will tend our garden and it will never fade away. Pastor Mike