John 12: 24-26: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his 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.” (NIV)
In this passage, Christ speaks of seeds. Did you know that archaeologists found seeds stored in the tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen when it was opened in 1922? Can you imagine seeds that were several thousand years old? Did you know they planted these seeds and they actually ended up growing? Seeds thousands of years old!
Our lives are just like these seeds. Just as seeds have resurrection power locked within in them, so our lives have great potential for God! Although a seed dies when planted, it resurrects itself and bears fruit. If a seed is not planted, it will remain only one seed.
If we hold onto our lives, we will never multiply. But if we allow ourselves to be planted in the Lord, then we will multiply. We have got to be willing to die to ourselves and planted in the Lord. When we choose to die and be planted, then there is an abundant harvest—one greater than we can fathom!
The call of the passion is to be planted as Jesus was planted, to lay our lives down as He laid His life down, and to be willing to die to ourselves. In dying to ourselves, God can then raise us up and produce a great harvest for the kingdom of God.
Consider a kernel of corn. Locked inside that kernel is the potential for stalk, the ears, and the grain—all just waiting to be released! When we see a kernel of corn we may not be able to see the stalk of corn, but the latent potential is there, hidden inside the seed! You can count the number of kernels on a corn cob, but you cannot guess at how many ears of corn will eventually be produced by that one seed. Only God knows the final count of the harvest!
All of us as seeds are called to be seeds! As seeds planted in Christ we have the potential to multiply the Kingdom greatly! As seeds surrendered to Christ we have the potential to produce an amazing harvest.
We often times, however, don’t consider ourselves worthy—we don’t consider ourselves that important. Consider the story of a humble Sunday school teacher who lived in the nineteenth century.
There was a nineteenth century Sunday school teacher named Mr. Kimball who was committed to evangelism. In 1858 he led a Boston shoe clerk named Dwight L. Moody to Christ.
As we know, Moody became a great evangelist. Moody at one of meetings in England inspired passion for Christ in the heart of Frederick B. Meyer, pastor of a small church. F. B. Meyer, preaching to at American college campus, in turn inspired a student named J. Wilbur Chapman to surrender his life to Christ. Chapman, who was involved in YMCA work, ended up sending out a former baseball player, Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work.
When Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, N.C., the people there were so touched they planned another set of evangelistic meetings, inviting Mordecai Hamm to town to preach.
During Hamm’s revival, a young man named Billy Graham heard the Gospel and surrendered his life to Christ. It’s possible you yourself are one of the tens of thousands who have come to Christ through the ministry of Graham.
Countless numbers of seeds have come from the seed of Kimball who planted His life in Christ so long ago. He was only a humble Sunday school teacher, but His life was planted in Christ and the seeds of that life continue to touch people today.
Brett
