THE WORD 4 ev 1

Today’s reading is John 12 (click here for link).

It is commonly held that self-preservation is the first law of nature. We don’t naturally take risks. Yet Jesus is constantly pulling us away from that natural mind set. He says, “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.” Christ directly challenges the mindset that has self-preservation as its highest goal. If self-preservation controls us, He says, we’ll end up losing our life. Think about this for a second… you will end up losing your life! Doesn’t that seem to defy our natural logic? At least for me it does. I so often live my life according to “my time,” “my interests,” “my money,” “my…” But Jesus says it’s only when we’re willing to give our life away that we’ll truly have life for now and for eternity. I think perhaps this is the most challenging statement I have heard Jesus say so far.

We are faced with the choice of willingly giving our lives away everyday or the choice of attempting to clutch our lives to ourselves. But it probably won’t be dramatic. Drama is easy. The mundane life of the day-to-day is more complicated. For most of us it will never be a case of facing a firing squad and being given one last chance to renounce Christ before we are blindfolded and shot. It is the daily choices we make that reflect whether we’re entrenched in self-preservation, or whether we genuinely give our lives away, day-by-day.

But how relieving it is to have Jesus as our model for this. He is giving and forgiving everyday.

Hope you are enjoying the rain today. I love rain!
Pastor Aaron