One Seed. Many Seeds. Be the Seed.

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR John 12:23–28 NIV Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless one seed of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a one seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!” CONSIDER See if you can spot the four words which capture the great movement of great awakening—of the gospel itself in these words of Jesus: "Very truly I tell you, unless one seed of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only one seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." One Seed. Many seeds. Be the Seed.  So, how do we be the seed? It starts with recognizing that we already are the seed. Within our lives is the potential of enormous generative possibilities. As I have said here many times before—repeat after me: I am an unbelievable, inconceivable, unrepeatable miracle of God.  "Very truly I tell you, unless one seed of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only one seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." What does it mean to be the seed? The seed is the miracle. But the miracle never happens unless and until the seed is planted. So what does this mean—to plant the seed of my life? "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." This sounds so unreasonable. Aren't we supposed to love our life? Why would we ever hate our life, unless it was miserable? Here, Jesus speaks in stark language to awaken us to the greatest secret of life, which is to die before you die. It is to release control of your life to God. To be the seed means to surrender your life to Jesus and all the glorious purposes for which God made you in the first place.  "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." And contrary to what some want to tell you, this doesn't mean you need to give up all happiness and goodness in this life in order to enjoy it in the next life. Not for a minute. This is about abundant life both now and forever.  "Very truly I tell you, unless one seed of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only one seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." One Seed. Many seeds. Be the Seed.  The unsurrendered life is the same thing as the unplanted seed—a waste. Why on earth would we go another day holding on to the tiny seed of our lives? It’s time to sow our small, fragile selves into the field of God’s dream for our lives. We are taught the gospel is about sharing our lives with others, as though a seed could be shared. No, it’s about surrendering our lives to Jesus, who will make of our lives an unending, unimaginable gift to the world. Sharing will never get it done; only surrender will. Sharing is division. Surrender is multiplication.  What if the little boy had shared his five loaves and two fish with the crowd? How far would it have gone? Exactly nowhere. Instead, look what happened when he surrendered all he had to Jesus. Precisely unimaginable.  This is not unreasonable. It’s absurd—that God could be this good. I mean, are we holding out for a better deal? I'll close with the three greatest questions of great awakening: If not me, then who? If not here, then where? If not now, then when?  Sharing is good. Surrender is glory.  "No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!” PRAY Abba Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus, who would not take us to the cross, but through it and into a world beyond our imagining. Thank you that, though it cost us our everything, it returns your everything to us. Come, Holy Spirit, and awaken us to the magnitude of this offer of life. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.