Words from the Rock
The time has come for the Son of Man to receive his glory. I tell you the truth, a grain of wheat must fall to the ground and die to make many seeds. But if it never dies, it remains only a single seed. Those who love their lives will lose them, but those who hate their lives in this world will keep true life forever.
John 12:23–25 NCV
Jesus is predicting his death, and the day is getting closer. He uses the image of a grain of wheat. Now if you look at a grain of wheat, it doesn’t look like much, but it has the potential to produce a whole lot more grain. In fact, over a period of years, one single grain could produce an entire crop—millions of grains. To do this, the grain must die. It has to go back into the earth, and the hard shell that protects the grain has to be broken and deteriorate so germination begins. After that the grain can actually grow into a plant.
Likewise, Jesus knows he has to die and come back to life so his followers can become firm in their faith and go out and tell others. He’s like that one grain that falls to the ground and dies but then rises again to produce more grains (more believers), which over the course of time will number into the millions. Jesus trusts God his Father implicitly (to the point of laying down his life) in order to bring life to others.
Jesus takes this a step further by telling his disciples they need to have the same attitude about themselves—they need to trust God enough to be willing to give up their hold on their own lives and follow him. He tells them that if they love their lives, they will lose them. All except Judas take his words seriously because they trust Jesus and love him more than life. In fact, ten of them will be killed for their faith. But their deaths will inspire others to believe, and like the seed that dies, they will become part of the miracle of millions coming to faith. That is ultimate trust.
But Jesus’s words aren’t only for his disciples. He knows that if we love our own lives more than we love him, we’ll ultimately lose our faith—and him. Because he doesn’t want to lose us, he encourages us to love him with all we have, even unto death, and he knows that takes total trust.
My Prayer
Dear God,
I probably won’t have to physically lay down my life for you, but help me to have the kind of total trust that allows me to love you with 100 percent of my being. I want to love you more than I love my own life.
Amen.
Final Word
Those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.
1 John 2:5 NLT
Stone for the Journey
I trust God enough to love him more than anything in this life.