On Being a Grain of Wheat

by Tom Johnston

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” John 12:24-26

Seeds get planted. They exist for one purpose – to give life in order to produce fruit, a crop, a harvest. So it was with Jesus, the Ultimate Seed, who in giving His life for humanity released the potential for harvest of souls throughout the ages. And in each generation He calls His followers to do likewise – lay down their lives in order to bear much fruit. The call to follow Christ is the call to perpetual death of the self, choosing instead a life of loving devotion to God, His people and His harvest.

Such dying to self for most of us will not take on a singular grand heroic act such as martyrdom, but rather we will die 10,000 little deaths to our flesh, our fallen human nature, so that Christ might live through us. We have an opportunity to mortify the flesh each time we are presented with a decision in our day-to-day lives in the context of our marriage, family, vocation and ministry. In each and every relationship we have, with God and others, we can choose either to live for ourselves or to live for Christ. It encompasses our inner life as well – the desires of our heart and the thoughts of our mind, as we make choices being led of the Spirit as opposed to the flesh. Again, it is in such choices that we allow Christ to release His life in us and through us, bearing spiritual fruit in our own being and in those around us as well. All such choices – both internally and in our relationships – are based on what we value.

In speaking of losing our life, Jesus seeks to focus His disciples on something transcendent, something beyond this life – eternity. We often say “everything pales into insignificance in the light of eternity.” This is Jesus’ point exactly: don’t live your life in the flesh, in the moment, but rather live your life in the Spirit, in the “now and not yet” of the Eternal Kingdom of God. Such a life is costly, Jesus teaches us, requiring we pay the ultimate price of self-sacrifice. But in doing so He promises us fruitfulness – a harvest of righteousness and of souls which will outlast this life, extending into eternity.

In dying these little deaths daily, we are not paying some “price of admission,” not earning our way into heaven, but rather we are allowing Christ to live through us in ways which He cannot do when we live life focused on us. It is when Christ shines through a life which is yielded and surrendered that people take notice and ask us about the hope that is within us. Through a life overflowing with the abundance of His life we truly can be witnesses to the Risen Lord and the power of His resurrection. Today it seems much of the Church in the West is grappling with cultural relevance. Forget it – grapple with the Cross. Let us grapple with what it means to die daily that Christ might live through us. Let us wrestle with God through spiritual disciplines that Christ might be formed in us. Let us lay hold of that for which Christ laid hold of us. Let us strip away everything from our lives that will hinder us from running the race that is set before us. All this we can do, when we choose Christ and His life, allowing Him to increase in us, and our flesh to decrease. We must see our lives as that grain of wheat which Jesus has sown into the world, so that He might reap a great harvest.

We have this promise from Him – that where we are He will be, and where He is we will be for eternity. Choose to let Him sow your life, so that He might live in you and through you, now and for evermore.

What are your thoughts?