Jesus seems to be saying that he does not want peace for people. However, a careful look into the Gospel story reveals Jesus declaring and pronouncing peace for many people. Jesus stands in the midst of the striking message of Jeremiah and Ezekiel who condemn Israel’s prophets and priests for proclaiming peace over a radically rebellious Israel. The peace that Jesus brings comes only through reconciliation with God through his sacrifice on the cross. God transforms the garden of alienation from God and others into a garden of peace for those who trust him. We discover our alienation from God largely from our experience of anxiety which reveals that we are trusting something or someone other than God.

Jesus’ “sermon on the mount” is a lesson on the “way of life” found in the kingdom of God. Rather than external righteousness born from mere outward acts of obedience, Jesus is about the righteousness born from within. Born from a heart that has been transformed by God. The connection between adultery and lust is just one key example that Jesus gives to show how there is a “righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.” Anything short of heart transformation will keep us susceptible to the deceitfulness of lust. Are you willing to let God transform your heart and make you into a person at home in the kingdom of God?

When asked, most people say that the thing they want more than anything else is happiness. Happiness is based on good happenings. As a result, it is as fleeting and unpredictable as the circumstances of our lives. However, happiness, as good as it is, is actually a counterfeit for the supernatural characteristic of joy. Joy is an inner predisposition towards gladness and hope which is rooted in God’s character and promises, independent of circumstances and expressed in our lives. It is grown in the garden of waiting.

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The fruit of the Spirit are the supernatural characteristics of Jesus that are grown in the lives of those who have given their lives to him. But how does this happen? Do you just wake up one day and find yourself more patient? Do you just decide to be loving and bear down hard enough to make it happen? God cultivates this fruit in the lives of believers in a way that is counterintuitive to what we might think – The Garden Principle:

God plants us in a garden, speaks a word to us, and the way that we respond shapes our character and our destiny.

God cultivates love in the garden of rejection.