Gardens along the way…new landscaping…

 Gardens Along the way….new landscaping….

Finally, the weather is breaking enough for walking…working in the yard…still cool enough to be comfortable…warm enough not to freeze…not raining at the moment…

I walked an old path yesterday, hadn’t been that way for awhile ….many residents out industrially working in their yards…many redoing their yards…new rock, less lawns, new vision with new homeowners, trees disappearing, new flowerbeds, new drip systems, more raised gardens, new trees, repairing existing watering systems…etc….people ready for a break in their labors and ready to talk to strangers….

I thought of the Israelites coming into the promised land…everything was already ready for them…a land “flowing with milk and honey” as promised. Their “new landscaping “ was to take it…realize their gift, realize God keeps his promises, that He gave it to them…prepared it for them… and follow Him…cultivate their hearts toward Him…as we still need to do…believe and still receive that promise of salvation…a renewed heart through belief in Christ as our Savior…our promise…our gift…

Thank YOU…

and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’

Exodus 3:17

Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

It is the Lord your God you shall fear. 

Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 

You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God— lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. 

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 

You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 

And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised. 

And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 

 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

Deuteronomy 6:3-19,24-25