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Living to Die or Dying to Live?

by Jerry Ousley  
4/29/2011 / Christian Living


Seeds can last for a very long time. We have we read about archeological discoveries of some ancient tomb and inside that tomb they found containers of grain. The grain had been there for several thousand years but when planted it still grew. God put a miracle into seeds that preserves them giving them a very long shelf-life.

The miracle of the seed presented itself this past summer in our own backyard. A few years ago I constructed what I call a "burn pit." Its purpose is to periodically burn yard debris such as fallen tree limbs and leaves. However, we had developed the habit of also throwing in things like watermelon rinds and old pumpkins left over from Halloween. We also had erected a bird feeder which stood upright in the holes in the concrete blocks that made up the burn pit.

I had dutifully filled it with limbs waiting for the next good day to consume them in the flames when all of a sudden things began growing in there. First there was this vine that crept right up over the wall of the concrete blocks and began to spread out into the yard. Then sunflowers began growing from the spilled, uneaten bird seed. The vine turned out to be a pumpkin plant and the sunflowers were pretty enough that my wife forbid me to put anymore limbs in the burn pit. There went my burn pit! Finally with fall approaching the pumpkin vine and sunflowers died and I had a large pile of limbs stacked in the backyard waiting for the right day to finally burn. I do have to say that our wild pumpkin vine yielded four small to medium sized pumpkins for us that year!

The point is that those seeds that were left on discarded rinds and the sunflower seeds that the birds hadn't eaten when exposed to fertile soil did their thing and sprang up into life. Jesus made a very important point about a seed. We read in John 12:23-25, "But Jesus answered them saying, 'The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.'" What a strange saying, isn't it? Jesus was telling us that our own lives are much like a grain of wheat. It doesn't do much until it hits the ground and in symbolic death is buried in the dirt. But once it is there the death of the grain of wheat suddenly begins to produce life. It grows up and out of the ground and if allowed to run full cycle will produce many more grains of wheat.

Of course the first comparison is that our Lord, Jesus Christ who allowed Himself to die and be buried in order to rise again providing the way to produce eternal life in great abundance. All who come to Him have the right to eternal life in God.

But the comparison goes even deeper than that. When we come to Christ in essence we also die with Him. Our old lives are forever changed and we spring up into newness of life. We bear fruit that also contains seeds. Our fruit is the expression of Christ coming from within us manifested as good works. That provides nourishment for others and the seeds we then sow representing our part in spreading the Gospel - will also be buried in others and the cycle of spiritual life continues on and on.

In order to be fruitful we've got to be willing to be what God wants us to be. We don't pattern our lives after others trying to bear the same fruit they do. We bear our own fruit. Here's a poem I found that illustrates this. I don't know who wrote it so I'll say for now that the author is anonymous. It says:

A little seed lay in the ground
And soon began to sprout;
Now, which of all the flowers around,
Shall I, it mused, come out?
The seed then could be heard saying,
"I don't care to be a rose. It has thorns.
I have no desire to be a lily. It's too colorless.
And I certainly wouldn't want to be a violet.
It's too small, and furthermore, it grows too close to the ground."
And so it criticized each flower,
That supercilious seed,
Until it woke one summer hour
And found itself a weed!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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