PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.
Jesus, We belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Luke 8:4–8 (NIV)
While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
CONSIDER THIS
There is something about a seed.
From one seed comes not only the whole field but entire farms.
A seed is a miracle of nature. It is a natural miracle. I marvel at how when Jesus wants to teach us about his supernatural kingdom he tells a parable about a natural miracle.
One seed contains generation upon generation upon generation of harvest. A single seed of wheat will yield around 400 seeds. We take this for granted in our natural world, but it is truly phenomenal. We did not produce those 400 seeds. We planted the seed. Perhaps we watered it; or maybe it just rained. And with minimal cultivation it multiplies itself by 400.
So what if we planted those 400 seeds that came from the single seed. That would mean 400 x 400, which comes to 160,000 seeds. Not so fast. According to Jesus’s parable, only one of four seeds yields a harvest. The other three don’t make it. That is a 75 percent fail rate. So let’s back down our math. Let’s say of our 400 seeds that came from the one seed we get a yield on 100 of them; 400 x 100 brings us to 40,000 seeds. We have gone from 1 seed to 400 seeds to 40,000 seeds. Staying with the ratios, let’s pair that back down to 10,000 productive seeds; 10,000 x 400 brings us to 4,000,000 seeds—all from one seed.
1 to 400 to 40,000 to 4,000,000 and you see how crazy this math gets. It is a natural miracle springing up out of an extraordinary failure.
So what is the supernatural miracle Jesus teaches us here? The supernatural miracle is the seed of Jesus in the humble soil of a human life. The yield of such a fruitful life is extraordinary.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, 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.” (John 12:23–24)
It is as though he is telling us, “I am the miracle that comes from extraordinary failure.”
It is as though he is telling us, “I am the seed.”
And he bids us follow him:
“Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their 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.” (John 12:25–26)
Here’s the amazing part. You don’t have to do anything to make this happen—just receive the Seed into the soil of your inmost being. He will do everything else.
There is something about a seed.
It carries the entire kingdom.
THE PRAYER
Jesus, thank you for being the one seed who went into the ground and died that the great harvest of resurrection could come. Thank you that the whole kingdom is in you and that as you become planted in my life, the kingdom multiplies. Make me good soil, Jesus. Whatever it takes, make me good soil. Praying in your name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Have you thought much about seeds before? Or do you just take the natural miracle for granted? What about the supernatural miracle of the seed of Jesus?
THE HYMN
Let’s sing one of the older new hymns of the church you likely know, “Seek Ye First.” It is hymn 341 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
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3 Responses
O hear and heed
The inner seed
That Jesus is planting
As He whispers
In your heart’s ears,
And let Him daily write
His living Word
Deep within your soul
And make you
Gloriously whole!
There seems to be at least three different perspectives contained within this one posting. Jesus as the seed, the seed of the Gospel of Jesus which we are to sow liberally, and the last parable contained within John 12:25-26, which I understand is about us being the seed. The last one seems to me to reinforce the truth that a true Christ Follower will have to die to self will. This same fact was stated by Jesus when speaking of discipleship, spoke of “denying oneself and picking up one’s cross daily to follow him”. (Luke 9:23) In my opinion, this missing element seems to be one of the major weaknesses in today’s modern American Christianity. This message isn’t being preached in a lot of churches.
I LOVE that the Word of God is alive and always speaking new things each time we invest time in it. A question that came to mind while I was reading/listening to today’s devotional was in reflection on the scripture. In the past I’ve always heard the scripture passage used, focusing in on the different types of soil and how they either accepted or rejected the (seed) the word, and the results that came from their response.
My thoughts today were in the question “what if the “seed” is being presented in the wrong way for that specific type of soil? For example, if you’re preaching to a group of people who are longing for a message of hope, yet you instead, preach a message with tones of negative conviction, that discourages those hearing it, is that the fault of the sower or the soil?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.