Christ Revealed in His Own Word #74
“The Garden of the Mind” #4
Sunday, February 2, 1997
Brian Kocourek,
Pastor Grace Fellowship
[Isaiah 58:11] “And the Lord shall guide thee
continually, and satisfy thy soul in
drought, and make fat thy bones: and
thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose
water s fail not. “
Wednesday evening
we continued to speak on the subject of the “Garden of your mind” as a
mini series within the Frame work of the Message “Christ Revealed by His Own Word”. And I hope that while we have
taken a slight detour from the main topic which is the Revealing of Christ, that
we can see that as Christ is Revealed in His Own Word, so too we are revealed by our own word.
And knowing that your words are only your thoughts being expressed, then we
should be able to see how it is that who we really are is what goes on in our
mind. As we have stated in this mini series, the scripture tells us that, “As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he, and out from the abundance of the heart
the mouth will speak”. Therefore a man is the sum of all of his
thoughts. We then are not just some of the thoughts, but all the thoughts that
you have is what makes up your character.
PP. [77] Brother Branham said, in “the first church age, is when the Seed went in the ground, the
complete Seed..... and at the end-time, the complete Body of Christ is
revealed in the form of a Bride”. Now we know that this Complete Seed
that went into the Ground is the Word, which is Christ or the life that was in
Christ. Therefore this Complete Seed (the Word) which went into the ground
contained the whole of every attribute and characteristic that could be found
in The Son of God. And thus has returned to take over our own hearts, to
reflect the same life back in a Body, A Bride.
Now, last weekend
we showed you that everything you are, even your Character comes forth from the garden
of thought that is in your heart or your mind. And it is the sum of your
thoughts that makes you what you really are. Then this garden of thoughts, in
your mind, affects every thing that is already in you, not only does it affect your character, but
it molds your character. Not only does it affect the way you handle the
circumstances around you, but it even
causes those circumstances to happen. And God uses those circumstances in the
shaping of your character into the final product that God predestined for you.
Therefore, every trial you endure, every trial God tests you with, must come
about as a result of the Seed Thoughts
that lay within your heart.
Therefore, every
thought seed that is sown, or that we
allow to fall into the fertile soil of our minds, to take root there, will
produce it’s own likeness, or nature. Sooner or later each thought seed we have
sown in our hearts will have to take blossom and become manifested in our lives
as an action or deed. And each action or deed will bear it’s own fruit in terms
of opportunity or circumstances. As the Scripture tells us, good thoughts will
bear good fruit and bad thoughts will bear bad fruit.
Therefore
Loving thoughts create an atmosphere of
help, and trust, which crystallize into habits of Grace, kindness, and
charity, which creates further circumstances of friendliness and cheerful
benevolence, and reciprocity on the behalf of those who are the recipients
of your loving thoughts. [2
Thes 1:2-3, Eph 1:15, Col 3:12 & 2
Pet 1:7]
Pure thoughts
create an atmosphere of holiness and sobriety, which crystallize into habits of
sanctification and self control, which further solidify into circumstances of
rest and peace.[1Thes 5:23 Rom 6:17-19, 2 Cor 7:1, Phil 4:8, 1 Tim 1:5, Heb 12:14]
Positive
thoughts, along with thoughts of
courage and decisiveness, creates within you an atmosphere of assurance,
and steadfastness, which will bring forth circumstances of success, and freedom. [Eph 3:11-12, Heb
10:35-36, Heb 10:22-24]
Gentle and
forgiving thoughts create an atmosphere of love and trust which solidify into
protective and preservative circumstances, and crystallize into circumstances
which allows you to minister help and forgiveness to others, which allows those
affected to enter into an atmosphere of hope and reconciliation. [Eph
4:31-32, Col 3:12-14, Luke 7:40-47, ] If you keep sowing the same
particular seed thoughts, be it good or bad, it cannot help but to create an
atmosphere around you which will also affect your character and the
circumstances in which you live.
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #74
“The Garden of the Mind” #4
Now Wednesday
evening we brought this thought of the Garden of your mind one step further
when we laid out the simplicity of the idea of a garden. In order to grow a
garden you must have a plot of land assigned. Therefore you must have a purpose
and a plan. And therefore, our main focus Wednesday night was to help you to
see that you must have a purpose in life or your thoughts will actually work
against you. People who have no central
purpose in their life fall easy prey to petty anxieties, phobias, and cares of
this life, and it leads to self-pitying, all of which are indications of
weakness, which weaknesses lead, just as surely as deliberately planned sins,
to failure, unhappiness, and loss. For weakness will not endure in a world
where the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Just
as in nature, the wolf-pack usually looks for the weakest lamb, or the one
straying from the flock, so too does the devil look for the weakest of the
flock to devour.
Therefore you
should conceive in your heart to have a purpose in your heart, and that you
will set your sights on obtaining that purpose. You should make your purpose
the centralized focus of your being.
And your purpose should reflect the season which you live.
Now Wednesday
night we showed you how even God has guided His own thoughts by His Purpose.
Yes, God must also have a purpose to guide and direct the sum of His own
thoughts. For without purpose our
thoughts only drift into the open seas of all eternity. When you have purpose
guiding your thoughts, then your thoughts coupled with this purpose becomes the
control tower of your thinking, taking over the control of your actions and
speech as well. [ Isaiah 14: 24] “The
Lord of Hosts hath sworn, saying, surely as I have thought, so shall it come to
pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.”
And so you see,
in order for our thoughts to bring forth, they must have a PURPOSE. Even a garden has to be plotted out, and there must be a PLAN in your mind as to how you would
like to see your garden turn out. The harvest I mean. A garden that is planted
only haphazardly will not produce a bountiful harvest. A garden must be planted
with order and in consideration of what we desire to harvest. We do not sow
seeds as a matter of exercise, but we sow seeds as a matter of receiving a
desired outcome. Therefore when we plan out a garden we try to utilize and make
the best from what we have to work with. If the soil is too acidic, we treat it
with lime. If it is to clay-ish, we add a little sand. And then after we plant
the seeds which we want a harvest from, we fertilize, fertilize, fertilize,
until we have done every thing in our power to give the seeds the nourishment
they need.
Next we must
cultivate away any seeds that are not in our desired harvest. If we have weeds
growing up, we must cut them down before they take over our garden. This must
be done on a regular basis, for to fail to do so will allow to grow and use up
the nutrients reserved for the harvest plants, and thus it will choke off the
life of the harvest plant, preventing
them from maturing. [Matt 13:22-23]
[2 Cor 7:7-10 ] Every man according as he purposeth
in his heart, [so let him give]{so let him sow}; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful
giver. And God [is] able to make all
grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all
[things], may abound to every good work:
(As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor:
his righteousness remaineth for ever.
Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for [your]
food, and multiply your seed sown,
and increase the fruits of your
righteousness;) Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which
causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service
not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many
thanksgiving’s unto God;
[Amplified] And God who provides seed for
the sower and bread for eating will
also provide and multiply your resources for sewing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness
which manifests itself in active goodness, kindness and charity, and thus you
will be enriched in all things and in every way, so that you can be generous,
and your generosity as it is administered by us will bring forth thanksgiving
to God.
And so, you see,
we must have the proper focus and the proper plan if we are to bring forth out
of the garden of our mind, a harvest of Eternal blessing. We are promised that
God, who gave us the seed to begin with will also multiply that seed as we sow
properly.
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #74
“The Garden of the Mind” #4
[NIV]
Now
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your
righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be
generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in
thanksgiving to God.
[Isaiah 61:3b] “that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD,
that he might be glorified..
And So I hope you
can see the importance of having a purpose or plan for every seed thought that
we want to bring forth to harvest. Therefore, in order to reap we must not only
sow, but we must learn how to sow as well. Because you can not sow just any
which way and expect to reap a harvest that is orderly.
[Isaiah 61:11] “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord will cause
righteousness to spring forth before {in the presence of} all nations.” Now the garden is laid out with an order to
it. As we see in [Genesis 1:11]
Everything will bring forth after it’s own kind, or nature. But even before we
see God laying out this law of reproduction, he first brought together
everything that was of like kind, and then the law of reproduction was given.
Notice in verses
[9-10] everything was gathered
together with it’s kind before the law of reproduction was introduced into His
Creation. Therefore, if we are to be able to bring forth from the garden of our
mind in the same way that God has brought froth from His own mind, we must also
follow his Example. We must have a purpose and plan to the things which we wish
to sow and harvest.
He that sows
sparingly shall reap sparingly and he that sows plentifully shall also reap
plentifully. Our gardens must
have an order to it if we expect to reap a good and profitable harvest.
Otherwise you will spend all of your time just trying to sort out what it is
that you have in your garden to begin with.
As long as our thoughts have a no purpose, they will only drift
aimlessly and will never bring forth any fruit. {James 1:2-7] Thoughts which
have no purpose fall easily to the anxieties of life, and pleasure seeking and
other things which so easily rob you of victory, Peace and Grace, and lead you
to a life of weakness and self pity.
Therefore, we need to have purpose for our thoughts, and once we have
purposeful thinking, we should set out to accomplish what we purpose.
A strong man can
not help a weaker man who is unwilling to be helped. And even then the weak man
must become strong on his own, for he must by his own efforts, develop the
strength which he admires in others. There is no one but himself that can alter
his condition. He can only rise, conquer and achieve by lifting up his
thoughts. He can only remain weak, and abject, and miserable by referring to
lift up his thoughts. Arnold Schwartzenegger began as a tall, skinny, weakling
of a man, but he was determined to change his situation and he worked and
worked and worked until he began to grow muscles that most people never even
thought existed. But he had a purpose
and his purpose came together with his thoughts and gave rise to the icon of the
American Hero. I am sure he had no idea when he began that he would one day
live in America. But the circumstances that were created out of shear effort
gave way to where he is today.
In order to do
this, his purpose had to be that which brought together his thoughts with his
energies, and actions, and therefore
tying together his body, and soul into one energized being with one focus. Just
look at Thomas Edison, He tried nearly 10,000 times to invent a workable light
bulb, and finally he did it. But what if he had stopped after 9,000 tries? Edison might have been [dis] couraged, at
the ending of each day, but every time he got back up, the [dis] just flew away.
Now it is too bad that his thoughts were not Eternal in purpose, because,
although he can be used as an example of what one can do to achieve, yet his
accomplishments are all temporary, and fleeting with the wind. But we should make our purpose become our
supreme duty, and we should devote ourselves to the fulfillment of our purpose,
not allowing our thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and
imaginings, but becoming more focused on what God is doing here and the going
home of the Gentile Bride.
Christ Revealed
in His Own Word #74
“The Garden of the Mind” #4
[2 Tim 1:12]“For I know whom, I have believed,
and am persuaded, that He is Able, to keep that which I’ve committed, unto Him
against that Day.
[Serpents seed] A little poem, that used to help me so much when I was a kid, goes
something like this:
There was a noble Roman,
In the Roman Emperor's days; Who heard a coward croaker, Before the
castle say: Oh, it's safe in such a
Fir tree, There's no one who can shake
it. 'Oh, no,' said the hero, 'I'll find a way or make it.'
[Jehovah Jireh] When you begin to seek the
flower bed of ease, you're on your road out. I like that old poem: Must I be carried home to heaven on a flower
bed of ease, While others fought to
win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas?
No, I must fight, if I must reign,
Increase my courage, Lord.
And again another
Poem he told us goes like this, A man of words and not of deed, Is like a
garden full of weeds.
And that is
exactly what I have been trying to bring to us in these message of the garden
of the mind. What do we have in our garden tonight, thoughts that have Purpose
or weeds.