Daily Devotions
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:11
Summer gardens take much work before yielding good produce. Gardeners plow, plant, hoe, and weed to prepare for harvest. But the garden needs adequate water to grow. A well-watered garden produces an abundance of beautiful vegetables.
Isaiah describes Israel as a well-watered garden. What great promise! She would first become a dry desert because of her rebellion. But then God would bring deliverance and supply the water of life to His people by bringing them back from captivity. By making them a well-watered garden, He would enable them to produce much fruit as they rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem.
In our sun-scorched world of sin, we are helpless to produce an abundant crop. But God sent His own Son as the Water of Life to die for our sins. Through our baptism God has made us a well-watered garden so that we might produce a bountiful harvest of souls won for the Savior. We receive His watering regularly as we worship with Word and sacrament. We depend on Christ for life and respond with a joyful, caring, witnessing life-style. A well-watered garden indeed!
PRAYER: Thank, You, Lord God, for sending Your Son Jesus to be our Water of Life. Guide us to live a joyful, caring life style as witnesses to Your love. Amen.
(Devotions from “My Daily Devotion” by Dr. Stephen J. Carter, copyright 1988 CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time emailing of this link to a friend. For ordering information, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit www.cph.org.)