Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a divine center, a speaking voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto itself…. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it…. Here is the slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action.
~Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941)
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body…. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second Man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the Man of heaven.
~ from 1 Corinthians 15
Oh beloved, it is true. There is a truth in the Gospel that turns most away from the fullness therein. We come to have our sins paid for. We come to be forgiven. We come to escape hell. We come to have a new life. All those things we have in Christ. And the gargantuan truth of this part of the Gospel is already worth more than we can even begin to fathom.
But the Gospel is not only these things. It is the astounding condescension of one aspect of the Good News that makes us flinch. The Gospel is indeed about having a new life. But the path to that Life is death. Our death.
However, the death in the Gospel is not the simple ceasing of our heart and lungs and brain function. It is a painful slaying of our ego. It is the utter destruction of the selfish motivation we used to have for our own lives. And the strength of this death is dealt upon us at the cross where we died with Him. For the blood of Christ surely paid for our trespasses, but the work of Christ on the cross has also dealt with the stony heart that is motivated by selfish desire, and replaced it with a new one that now beats for Him.
This new heart is the seed from which a new and entirely different Life can grow if we let it. And from this new heart, new actions course forth from within. The actions from this new heart are no longer motivated by self, but by Love and a concern to share the goodness and fruit coming to life within and without the life of the believer who has gone through this slaying of the self. Said more simply: the new seed we are begins to undergo preparations for being sown for eternity. And the more preparation the seed undergoes in this life, the more astounding will be the Life that bursts forth on that Day.
Can we see it? Just as a child may be born underweight, or somehow damaged if the mother does not take care of her body and eat properly while pregnant – we are preparing our hearts (this seed within us) for eternity. And a life here that does not nourish and properly grow this heart will have significant consequences for our spiritual (read totally real) and eternal existence in heaven. Get this dear reader: There will be a difference in the quality of life for believers. There will be rewards for yielding to His preparation of our hearts. And there will be consequences for failing to yield.
Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. But the great mistake that many believers make, is that it is His Life that is the abundance. He did not come to improve our lives or to make us simply happier. He came to live His Life in us and through us. And the only way this can truly happen is for us to reckon that we no longer live – but Christ lives in us.
So beloved, hopefully the question is obvious. Who is it that is driving our lives. Is it us? If so, the new seeds of our new hearts are not undergoing the proper treatment and preparation for eternity. It is only the seed of a Life fully given over to Him, for life, that will gain the most purchase in the soil of the Kingdom.
Tonight is your beloved. Let Him have you. Let the seed of your heart be prepared to burst forth forever.
