SCRIPTURE: John 12:24-25 NLT I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.
THOUGHT: I think of the fable about the goose and the golden egg when I read this saying of Jesus. The owner of the goose was so fortunate, so blessed – and yet came to covet the golden eggs above all – even above the life of the goose that gives him the golden eggs. In the same way, we can set out to find life in wealth, popularity, fame, love, or a hundred other distractions, some of them even “religious,” until we’re spent and used up. Our goose is cooked. The main thing gets lost: God the way, the truth, the life.
When we invest in loving God more than the life we can find on our own, we learn to live. The seeds of what we want so much are cast into the earth where God begins to work a miracle. He shows us how to die, then he shows us how to live in freedom, growing up to be life-givers ourselves. The Christian life is a greater challenge – and adventure – than anything we could have dreamt on our own, and gaining more and more golden eggs just doesn’t seem as important as it once did.
SONG: Show Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-dov9hKHLs
PRAYER: All our desires boil down to this, Lord: we really want to live, not die. Show us where our formulas are wrong – and show us how to die on the way to real life.
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