What started in one garden ended in another.

Believers whose righteousness is found in Christ, our Lord Jesus sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane so that we should stop eating bread "by the sweat of your brow." Luke 22:44 says of Him in the garden: "He prayed more fervently, and He was in such agony of spirit that His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood."

What started in one garden ended in another garden. Remember it was in the Garden of Eden that God told Adam:

“...Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,..." (Genesis 3:17–19)

Work for man thus became stressful. He had to toil and sweat to eat of the land. But Christ's blood fell on the ground that was cursed as a result of Adam's disobedience, so that we should no longer eat of it in toil all the days of our lives. His blood redeemed us from the curse of stress. Adam had a job in the Garden of Eden but it was stress-free work. In Christ, part of the blessings for believers is working stress-free (no wahala from employees/bosses/colleagues/clients plus awesome results in terms of profits and remuneration). In Him, we have much more than this because "as He is, so are we in this world." 1 John 4:17.

By His grace, stay under the hearing of faith. The law is not of faith. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve ate of with Adam in order to be godly (be like God) is a picture of the law that many in the church are feeding upon today in order to be godly. The letter kills so stop trying to get right with God by keeping the Ten Commandments. See Galatians 5:4 - "For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

The law is not of faith; we are set right with God through faith in Christ and not by obeying the law according to Romans 3:

"Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law."

See Romans 10:9-10. Actively confess your righteousness in Christ out loud and watch the stress give way to His peace that surpasses all understanding! The Holy Spirit will teach you all things.

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