Loving life?
Day 401, Tuesday, Sept. 16
John 12:12 – 13:17
Most of us would consider loving our life to be what success is all about, but Jesus has other ideas.
Now, this isn’t about being miserable. Instead, it’s about realizing that life in this world is just a transitory phase—just one part of a much greater and eternal life we will live through Jesus Christ.
He used the image of a seed, which must undergo apparent death in order to become what it was meant to be.
“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. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Here Jesus is speaking both of his own death and resurrection and of our death and resurrection.
Like many truths, this one has layers.
From an outside perspective we can look to a statement attributed to second-century Christian writer Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
The death of Jesus didn’t stop the spread of his message; it accelerated that spread. Likewise, the many who were later martyred for their faith only led to more and more conversions to the Christian faith.
But there is also the internal literal truth that physical death in some way allows us to transition into what we are meant to be from our birth: a creature wholly devoted to God and no longer subject to the pain and limitations of this world we now inhabit.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Tuesday meditation

Job 34:31-37
“Suppose someone says to God, ‘I am guilty but will offend no more. Teach me what I cannot see; if I have done wrong, I will not do so again.’ Should God then reward you on your terms, when you refuse to repent? You must decide, not I; so tell me what you know.
“Men of understanding declare, wise men who hear me say to me, ‘Job speaks without knowledge; his words lack insight.’ Oh, that Job might be tested to the utmost for answering like a wicked man To his sin he adds rebellion; scornfully he claps his hands among us and multiplies his words against God.”

Prayer focus
Lord, as we move daily closer to our inevitable eathly death, let us be confident in the life that comes beyond it.