In this very piece I am sharing with you, we will be looking at the Garden System of Dominion. What the Holy Spirit will be doing with us through this piece is that He will be building foundations of understanding of purpose with us, so that we will know what is required of us in purpose, especially in the purpose of God; is what the Lord will be opening our eyes to see. I want us to go the book of the beginning, Genesis 1, we will read verse 26 because that’s where the Holy Spirit will start building with us from. Genesis 1:26, we are familiar with it, I know some of us can quote it by now. But let’s go to our Bibles, open it and let’s read. “Then God said; let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion.”
We are looking at the garden system of dominion. God said “let us make man”, man is going to look like us, man is going to behave like us, but they are going to have something, they are going to possess something. When you see man, there is something that would be commensurate to seeing a man and that is dominion. So, when you see a man, you will see Him having dominion. For example, if you see a man that has gold, you will see the gold on the man. If you see a man that has riches, you will see the riches on the man. If God says “have something”, God expects that thing to be seen on you.
So, God said “let them have dominion.” Let dominion become an expression, let dominion become something that is visible, tangible and manifest in the life of a man. That is the original intention of God, that every man has dominion. When you encounter a man, what you should see, what you should come in contact with is dominion. So, that’s how God ordained it. So, let us go to Genesis 2:7, “and the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being.” Now, Genesis 1:26 let us into the intension of God for every man. Every man that God created, God created the man to have dominion. It said “you will look like us; you will behave like us.” Who are the Us? The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
It said the man we are making will behave just like us, will look just like us, will have a spiritual personality, that when you see that man, it is as though you have seen us, when you encounter that man, it is as though you have encountered us. That’s when Jesus came to live the original life of man on the earth, when He walked on the earth for 33 years, God speaking concerning Him; “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”; not just pleased; I am well pleased. And at a point when He was going to repeat that on the mount of transfiguration, He said “this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear Him.” Because when you hear Him, it is as though you are hearing me. In fact, when you hear Him, you have heard me. So, man was created like that. That when you hear man, it is as though you have heard God. When you see man it is as though you have seen God. And somebody will say is that correct? Yes!
In Genesis chapter 2 after God created man in verse 7, the Bible says “and God called all the animals that He had created and brought them to man to see the name he will call them and whatever man called the animals, so were their names.” Every living creature; was it not as God named them? It’s as if God named them. Because, God had no issue with every name that Adam claimed. Why? Adam was made in the image and in the likeness of God. Everyone that represented God, and functioned in this original picture, image of God, every word that He says is as though God has spoken it. Because what will give a man called Elijah the audacity to speak and say “on this land Israel, I am declaring there will be no rain or dew for three and half years” and heaven will stamp it. Do you know what Elijah said? He said “I am Elijah the prophet of God, the one that stands in the very presence of God.” Meaning that I am a representative of God. When I speak my word becomes a law. So, this is how God created man.
What we are establishing now is that there is a height, there is a stature, there is a level of maturity and operation that God has ordained man to function. If a man is functioning less, that man is not functioning at the optimum. What is the optimum? Dominion! What is the optimum, operational, functional, place where man must be? Dominion. Any man functioning less is because there is something wrong. That’s why we are looking at the garden system of dominion. How can man have dominion and man stay in that place of dominion and be operational perpetually? Sometimes this is what happens in our lives; we undulate, that’s not how God ordained it. That’s why until we go back to the garden experience we will keep undulating, and the devil is satisfied with you undulating because he knows you are going through identity crisis, sometimes you know who you are, sometimes you don’t know who you are. And you keep undulating and your life keep having highs and lows because there is a loss of identity. And that’s why we are looking at the garden system.
So, we are going to go to that Genesis chapter 2 and we will read from verse 8 to verse 17. We want to look into how God actually materialize dominion, how God made dominion operational for man. Genesis 2, we will read from verse 8 to 17, we will pause a bit then we will continue. It says: “The Lord planted a garden east ward in Eden, and there…” Remember we read verse 7 that God formed man from the dust of the ground, He breathed into the man the breath of life and man became a living being. So, I want to quickly say this; when God planted a garden, He did not plant it in heaven. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man that He has formed. God planted a garden on the earth.
Because if you go back to Genesis 1:26, the Bible said that “God said; let us make man in our image according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air” and He got to a point He said over all the earth. So, the place of man’s dominion is not in heaven but on the earth. So, when God was going to plant a garden for the dominion of man, He did not plant it in heaven with the angels, He planted it on the earth. So, let some religious mindsets start changing, your dominion is not to harass angels, it is for the earth. The Bible says the Lord planted a garden. Adam did not plant the garden. The Lord God; when the Bible says the Lord God; it talks about Elohim-Adonai, the one that owns and the sovereign ruler. He is the sovereign ruler and He is the owner. So, when you are talking about the one that planted the garden, He didn’t plat it so that you will own it. He planted it so that it is His own. So, that’s the starting point.
If the Bible has said; God planted a garden, we could have taken that planting for granted. But the Bible says the Lord God, meaning that when He was planting it, He was planting it with the full consciousness of who He is. I am the Lord; I am the sovereign ruler and I am planting this garden to own. I own it. That’s the first thing we must establish. God owns the garden. The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof, the world and all those who dwell in it. The earth is the Lords; the garden belongs to Him. And there in the garden God put the man whom He had formed. Can we pause a bit? “In the garden.” Why did God put the man in the garden? Why is it that God panted the garden? One thing about God that we must know that the Holy Spirit taught me is this; when you want to have dealings with a person, the wisest thing to do is to know who you are dealing with. It will be foolishness to go into negotiation or relationship with a person and you are ignorant of who the person is. It’s foolishness. So, when you want to have dealings with God, you must know the God you are having dealings with.
One of the things the devil easily use to rob us is that we don’t know God. God Himself testifying of this; He said my people perish, my people are destroyed, my people lose out because they lacked knowledge. Is it knowledge of physics and chemistry? No! they lack knowledge of me. They don’t know me. Because, if you know God you will know how to relate with Him, if you know God, you will know the right questions to ask Him. If you know God you will know how, because the problem is that many people don’t know how. “The labor of the fool wearies them because they don’t know how to enter into the city.” And many believers are like foolish laborers, they are sweating in ignorance because they don’t know how. The labor of fools wearies them, makes them tired because they don’t know how to enter the city.
How many believers are like that? There is something you are seeing in the hands of God, but you don’t know how to access it. There is something you know God can do for you but you don’t know how it becomes a reality, how the possibility of God can become a reality in your life. You are seeing it but you touch or access it. Why? You don’t know Him. And as long as that ignorance perpetuates, there can’t be life. The Bible says in John 1 that in Him is life and the life becomes the light of men. Many of us are too consumed with knowing things and knowing other people and we have forsaken the one person that is the most important to know.
At a point I was going through a season and the Lord said to me, “He said you are trying to know too much irrelevant things.” I said Lord why? He said “because it doesn’t take me 5 minutes to show you the things you are trying to know yourself. He said you can focus on me; I will show you the mystery behind this thing.” The Bible says it is God that gives you the power to make wealth. What does the power mean? The enablement, He gives you the wherewithal to make wealth. Because what God will show to you, He won’t give you naira and kobo, He won’t give you dollars and cents, He won’t give you pounds sterling. What He will give you is the knowledge, the mystery behind how wealth can be gotten. And that’s why if only men will know God, because this is who we are. Dominion is about knowing whose image you are and whose likeness you carry.
Dominion is for the man that is made in the image of God and the likeness of God. Outside of that he cannot have. What precedes dominion? Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness let them have dominion. Let them have dominion did not come before image and likeness. Image and likeness precede “have dominion.” So, what qualifies us, what puts us in that place, where we can handle dominion? It is by being in His image and according to His likeness. So, you can’t underrate it. Jesus said don’t cast your pearls to swine they will not know the value. Until you become a man in the image and likeness of God you can’t have dominion.
Let’s go back to Genesis 2; “The Lord planted a garden east ward in Eden and there He put the man he had formed.” What is garden? Why a garden? Why didn’t God plant a forest? Why didn’t God create a ranch? Why a garden? Because garden is symbolic. And we are going to do layman understanding of garden. And from there the Holy Spirit is going to explain to us what garden means to us. Garden is a planned space usually outdoors set aside. I got this definition from the dictionary. So, that you will see how relevant this definition is, the Holy Spirit led me to this definition. What are the features of a garden?
#1. Garden is a planned space usually outdoors set aside for the cultivation, display and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. So, what are the features of a garden? Number one, it is a planned space. God planted a garden. God cultivated; God prepared a purpose. So, your purpose was planned. Because that’s what garden is. Your purpose was a planned space. So, God owns the space, He planned it before you came on the scene. What did God do when you came on the scene? He puts you in the garden that He has planted. He puts you in the purpose that He had planned. That’s why the Bible says it is pre-ordination, pre-appointment. Because it has been aforetime. It is something that had been created beforehand.
So, your garden is not accidental, it is planned, deliberate, calculated, structured; that’s how God did it. So, it is a planned space. Another word I want to use for that planned space is that it is a controlled environment. Usually, a garden is not a forest that has no end. Gardens have boundaries. So, when it is a garden, it is a controlled environment. So, your purpose is a controlled environment deliberately planned by God.
#2. It is usually outdoors and garden often times is adjoining to a house or a residence. You don’t suddenly go and plant a garden in a jungle. It is usually adjoining to a house or residence, usually outdoors but in a controlled environment. What does that mean? Your purpose is adjoined to the presence of God. God will not plant your purpose outside His presence. It is adjoining to His house, to His residence. That is why in the book of Genesis chapter 3, when man fell, the Bible says and God walked into the garden in the cool of the day because the garden is a place that is accessible to God, it is adjoining to His residence, His presence is evident. It is an extension of His presence. The wealth of His house is present in the garden. The resources of His house are reflecting on the garden. The life that happens in His house is reflecting in the garden. Even though it is outdoors, it is on the earth, it is a reflection of heaven. That’s the garden. So, the garden that God planted and put you into is the garden that God has His presence as a hallmark in. and if you go through that Genesis chapter 2 verse 8, I want us to read it from verse 9 again;
“And out of the ground the Lord made every tree grow, that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, a river went out of Eden to water the garden. And from there it parted and became four river heads. The name of the first is Pishon, it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.”
If you look at all these descriptions, you will see that wealth is in that garden. You will see that that garden is a pleasant place. It is a place of delight. God will not come and fellowship in a desert. It is demons and the devil that walks around in desert. Where God comes is always a lush place. If you see that garden, it is always a lush place. Then the Lord God took the man out and put Him in the garden of Eden to tend and to keep it.
#3. The third feature of the garden, it said it is set aside for the cultivation. Your garden is to be cultivated. God put the man in the midst of the garden and told Him to tend and to keep it. What does it mean? It means cultivate it. Your purpose is to be cultivated. When Jesus was speaking in Matthew 5, from verse 14 about the parable of the talent. He said and the master called His three servants to one He gave 5, to anther he gave 2, and the last one he gave 1. And he went his way for a season to come back and settle account with them. What were they supposed to do with the talents? Cultivate it. It is a foolish servant that will have what God has given him and just sit down idling away. You are to cultivate it. The garden is a place of cultivation, to tend and to keep. Work it, increase it. When the master came back, and the one that has five came, and said master the five talents you gave me, I have traded; another word for cultivation is trading.
I have traded and I have five more. The one that has two came back and said master you gave me two, I traded and have two more. Then the sit-down-look came and said master I know you are shrewd, how can you plant a garden and ask me to be working, if you are such a great master, why don’t you give me a done deal? Why should I cultivate it? Why should I cultivate? And that’s the mindset of may believers, you don’t believe in hard work, you say hard work is a sin, but the Bible says be diligent. What is diligence? Hard work! It said a man that you see that is diligent in his business, diligence means that you are cultivating, you are busy at the things that you are asked to do. It said he will stand before kings, he will have dominion, He will have authority, He will stand in the full right of a son. He will stand before kings and not mere men.
So, you are to cultivate your garden. That purpose that God planted before time and put you there, you are to cultivate it. Even though it’s a lush place, God is not going to give you a done deal. God is going to give you WIP meaning work in progress. So that you will contribute. God has called us to contribute, not to sit down and look. That’s why we are called co-laborers. If we are not supposed to labor, then we should be called just co heirs. But the Bible also called us co-laborers. We are co-laborers, so we are to contribute.
#4. The next feature of a garden; it is a place of display and enjoyment. The only place God displays is in a garden. If you have not found your garden, there is no place for display. If you cannot find your garden, you cannot find a place for display. Because, your garden is the place of your display and enjoyment. Are you looking for fulfilment in life? Go and look for your garden! How do you look for your garden? Look for God, because it is God that plants the garden and puts you in the garden. You cannot put yourself. You cannot look at my garden and say my garden is beautiful I want to put myself inside. It will be an effort in futility. Your garden is the place for your display. God wants to display you. One thing the Holy Spirit said to me and I was meditating on that. And I remember when we spoke about the ecosystem of grace, how that we have different members but one body. He said “do you know that there are some gardens that are just for vegetable? The only thing that God is displaying and enjoying from that garden is vegetables.”
He said do you know another garden is for flowers? What God wants to display in another garden is for flowers. So, you will see hibiscus flowers, sun flowers, it will be so colorful but not edible. He said that is the pleasure of the king. And I want us to read a Scripture, because this will help us. Philippians 2 verse 12 to 14. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation– did we see work? Did it say play or enjoy your salvation? It says work out your own salvation, the purpose for which Christ laid hold on you. Work it out, don’t play with it. Work out your own salvation, cultivate your own salvation, keep and tend your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God- did we see that; it is God. Because we can’t separate God from purpose. God’s purpose and God, they walk together like Siamese twins. It is God who works in you both to will; you love it, this is what you are wired to do; and to do for His good pleasure.” To display you for your good pleasure.
So, if the garden God has put you to tend and to keep is for flower, for show, for beauty, God just want to be enjoying fresh aroma, fresh fragrance, if that’s what He wants to be enjoying from your garden, as a worship minstrel, He just wants to be enjoying fresh fragrance from your garden; don’t try to uproot what God is planting in there and put vegetables and say how comes I cannot also produce vegetables? Do you know there are some gardens that it is tree crops that is planted in them? So much fruits, deep roots, very strong stem. That’s why Jesus was showing us when He came to the fig tree, He was expecting to find fig on it. In that garden, He was expecting to find something, and when He got there, He found nothing, nothing for His pleasure, He cursed it.
When God comes to your garden what will He find for His pleasure as He has ordained it? The garden is not the same, the pleasure that God seeks and demands from you is different from mine. We must not become copy cats and engage in rat race, becomes the one audience that must give us a tick of yes well-done good and faithful servant is God, every other person is irrelevant. And what did it say? He works it for His good pleasure. So, when He sees you as a garden of flowers, and you are blossoming and He is having a swell time, fresh fragrance, He is pleased. Let other people come to your garden and say imagine! Only flower, no vegetable. It’s their business. The one that planted the garden is God, the one that must be pleased in the garden is God.
So, your own comfort, your own rest, your own enjoyment must be that you are producing for the King of kings and Lord of lords. You are producing for the master of the universe. You are producing for Him, Him alone, He is the one audience and He is pleased that’s how we have dominion. We’re going to use a case study to explain this in practical terms. John 1, we want to look at John the Baptist. John 1:19, I might not read the entire Scripture, I will just skip some verses. We are using the case of John the Baptist to understand the garden system of dominion.
“Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”21 And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”22 Then they said to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” 23 He said: “I am ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the Lord,”
This was John the Baptist; He said this garden that God planted and put me there is so that I can make straight the way of the Lord. I want us to see what John said; verse 24, it said; “Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees. 25 And they asked him, saying, “Why then do you baptize?” Why do you do what you do? If you are not Christ, if you are not Elijah nor the prophets? John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. 27 It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to lose.” 28 These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. It says “where John was Baptizing” not were John Baptized. Whether they liked Him or not, whether they called Him names or not, he kept on baptizing. What he was instructed to do, he kept on doing it. And hear the testimony of John from verse 31 to 34.
“I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.” 32 And John bore witness, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him. 33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
This is my assignment. I will remain in my garden, what am I cultivating in my garden? How am I tending and keeping my garden? Baptizing! I will keep baptizing everyone until Jesus comes, I will keep baptizing everyone until Jesus is glorified. And John kept at it. Do you know how many years and people he has baptized before Jesus came? The reason why he came was to baptize Jesus. And it looked like one single day event. That was the hall mark of all his life and he didn’t stop, he kept baptizing. I want us to see John 1 verse 6-8. When John was introduced; The Bible says; “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He was sent from God; how did God send him? God planted a garden and put Him there. 7 This man came for a witness; there is something you have come for. To bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.”
That’s the assignment of John the Baptist. And He kept baptizing. There was a woman in the temple, God promised her that she was going to see the messiah and this woman was in the temple dedicating children. And she was there a widow, refused to marry was praying day and night in the temple, she was there every child that comes heartily, gratefully, graciously she will dedicate them to the Lord. And as she was dedicating, they brought Jesus and when she saw Jesus, she was not in the flesh, she remained in the Spirit, and she acknowledged that today my eyes have seen the salvation of the Lord. What has God called you to do? That’s where your dominion is.
What is the thing God has told you to do that you stopped doing? You have become tired of doing it, you have given up and say God can you say something else. Can you go before the Lord and ask for grace? Say “Lord I won’t stop, Lord I receive the grace not to stop, give me the grace to remain in that garden cultivating it. The grace to remain steadfast and unmovable.”
