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2 Biblical Gardens Reveal How to Make the Best Decisions

How Eden and Gethsemane still affect you today.

Two gardens, Eden and Gethsemane, provided the settings for two choices that brought opposite results. The Bible wildly contrasts these choices. In fact, you face them today.

Olive Trees in the Garden of Gethsemane

(Photo: The Garden of Gethsemane. Notice the city walls in the distance. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

In the Garden of Eden, Adam’s choice to commit sin had the potential of bringing condemnation to everyone. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ’s decision to die for sins provided potential justification to everyone (Romans 5:18).

Adam never would have eaten the fruit had he known the consequences to himself and to his race. But he couldn’t see the results.

All he had was God’s Word and its warning. That’s all we have as well.

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Mount of Beatitudes – Beauty that Illustrates Truth

Looking Beyond the Lake to Life

No matter where you stand to view the picture, the subject seems to be smiling. The hills surrounding the Sea of Galilee frame the lake like a portrait. In spring, the hillsides burst with wildflowers, fresh grass, and spectacular color.

Mount of Beatitudes and Sea of Galilee

(Photo: Mount of Beatitudes and Sea of Galilee. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

The tranquil slopes tower above fruit crops and fertile fields that stretch across the lush Plain of Gennesaret.

Numerous places around the lake offer splendid panoramas.

  • The best view, by far, is atop Mount Arbel. Windy and requiring a walk, the vast landscape stuns every first-timer.
  • Another grand vista is the view from Kfar Haruv on the eastern side—you can see the whole lake from tip to tip. Impressive, for sure.

But the picturesque view from the Mount of Beatitudes offers visitors more than simply a beautiful view.

It offers a place to consider truth taught there by One who knew it.

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How Vanishing Biblical Sites Warn of Our Spiritual Lives

The Emmaus Road and a Gezer Boundary Stone offer a heads-up to our commitments.

Without preservation, truth can grow weeds. Truth remains true, of course, but it can get buried beneath brambles and may as well not exist. Two sites I recently saw in Israel illustrate this well.

How Vanishing Biblical Sites Give a Heads-Up to Our Spiritual Lives

(Photo taken in 2007 of Gezer boundary inscription #8. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

I traveled to Israel to do some filming for my video Web site, Walking the Bible Lands. Two of the locations I filmed at proved hard to find. Why?

They are vanishing.

But these eroding places made me think beyond the importance of preserving them. They suggest a much deeper need in our walk with God.

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An Amazing Truth: We Worship What We Think We Need

Are people elbowing God out of your life?

Some people can make us feel good. They attract us. Like a sunflower in a sunny field, we long to face the source that keeps us satisfied and meets our needs.

We Worship What We Think We Need

But we tend to worship what we think we need—whether it’s God, money, or even people. And whom we worship, we will also obey.

That’s why worshipping people—or using them to get what we think we need—can leave us enslaved to them.

God offers a better alternative.

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This video was recorded in the Wilderness where Israel wandered for 40 years, waiting on God to enter the Promised Land.

Its message encourages us also as we wait on God.

Tell me what you think: What are you waiting on God for right now? To leave a comment, just click here.

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The Wilderness of Judea—The Ultimate Getaway

How this place of escape and seclusion still speaks to us today.

Very few places in the Holy Land still look original. Most historic sites in Israel have some church, or a mosque, or a settlement, or thirty feet of civilization piled on top of them.

Judean Wilderness at sunset.

Photo: The Wilderness of Judea at sunset. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands.

The places pilgrims come to see today show centuries of scars from the ruins and reconstructions of many faiths and peoples.

But in the Wilderness of Judea, one can see what the ancients saw. Deep ravines. Rocky terrain. Barren grades with scant vegetation. Horizontal lines cut in the hills betray generations of flocks that have worn trails like terraces in the stony slopes. Miles and miles of desolate land, interrupted only by an occasional camel, a shepherd with his flock, or a group of Bedouin tents with satellite dishes.

Bleak, inhospitable, stark, and harsh—the Wilderness of Judea has sat virtually unchanged for thousands of years.

It was the perfect place to escape.

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Ein Harod —How to Move from Fear to Faith

Sometimes what we see seems more compelling than what God says.

Too often, fear keeps us from enjoying what God has promised. We want so badly to have faith in what the Lord says. But fear of what we see seems more compelling than mere words. Gideon knew that.

Ein Harod —How to Move from Fear to Faith

(Photo: Ein Harod (Gideon’s Spring). Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Gideon longed to believe God. But the enemy army before him was enormous. What he saw seemed far more compelling than what God had promised him.

We face the same odds today. And the solution is the same.

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Pools of Bethesda – God’s Amazing Kindness and Our Courageous Choices

What motivates you most isn't fear.

Very few people are drawn to God by intimidation. Instead, the Lord urges us to come to Him by revealing the kindness of His mercy. It’s a tremendous motivation.

Pools of Bethesda—God’s Kindness and Our Repentance

(Photo: Pools of Bethesda and Crusader chapel, courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Once we comprehend the depth of our imperfections, and the futility of our own efforts to remove them, we are in a position to respond to God’s kindness.

In this post, you’ll read how Jesus revealed this simple truth one day in Jerusalem with an act of mercy at the Pools of Bethesda.

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Your Shame and Its Surprising Solution

What to do when you feel dirtied by the world.

Shame hits us for one of two reasons. We feel shame because of something wrong someone did to us. Or we feel it because of something we did ourselves. Either way, like Adam and Eve, we want to cover it up.

Your Shame and Its Surprising Solution

(Photo: Frieze sarcophagus, Adam and Eve after fall. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

The Prophet Zephaniah writes: “The unjust knows no shame” (Zeph. 3:5). He means they have no awareness or regret over their sin—even though God makes known to them His righteousness every day.

But it’s what God goes on to say in the next couple verses how He did things to draw His people back to Him.

If your shame has smothered your life, you need to hear God’s words of grace.

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Your Rededication to God Can Begin Right Now

Shechem urges us to get back to where we once belonged.

The Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC marks where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech, “I Have a Dream.” Standing in the shadow of Lincoln gave greater force to Dr. King’s words. The site intensified the message. I’m convinced that’s why Joshua regathered the young Hebrew nation to Shechem. 

Shechem in the valley between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

(Photo: Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, with Shechem in the valley. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

The geographical context of his words played a significant role. They spoke as loudly as Joshua did that day.

And they speak to us.

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