Friday June 28, 2024
Matthew 20:1
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early
in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”
The greatest work ever begun upon this earth was planned and started by Jesus.
He seeks nothing less than this: to bring heaven down to earth. He often spoke of it as establishing the kingdom of God on earth.
In our Word today He speaks of it as God’s garden on earth.
Humanity began its life on earth, too, in the garden of God. But sin made of the earth a waste of thorns, thistles, and weeds of all kinds. And now in order that there might be a garden of God on earth again, it had to be watered with God’s own blood. It becomes very costly to have to purchase a garden site with one’s own blood!
He would have the most costly soil of all for His garden—human hearts, where sin has wreaked its worst destruction.
It is a thought full of joy that Jesus is to transform the race and the earth which have been cursed by sin into a very garden of God again. That He will not stop until the new earth stands there as God’s perfect garden, gloriously laden with ripened fruit.
And our hearts are filled with gratitude at the thought that there is a garden of God here on earth, and that we, with our little lives, have been planted within the divine hedge surrounding this garden. Ever since our baptismal hour.
First, this, that I am under His protection. He cares for His plants. My life shall be a success!
In the second place, that I am under the daily supervision of Jesus. He directs the growth of His plants. He waters, dungs, and prunes them.
What a joy to live one’s life in the garden of God! Planted in the sacred soil of Calvary, with the rain of heaven and the sunlight of grace falling upon the heart-leaves of one’s life!
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 