Living Counter-Culturally

First off tonight, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU for all the lovely birthday wishes last Thursday. Wow. I was absolutely blown away by your outpouring of love. So thank you for making me feel so special! I’m grateful for you!

This morning, I was having kind of a slow morning. I had just finished breakfast, and sat down with my tea to write tonight’s post, and I wanted to have some divine inspiration. So I opened up today’s Gospel reading, which I often do to find some sort of direction.

And I came upon a very familiar verse, that to be honest has always been hard for me to grasp.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jn 12:24

To be honest, whenever I read verses about death, it always is challenging to understand. How could Jesus be calling us to die? That doesn’t seem to be a very loving or Fatherly thing to instruct someone you care about.

But the more I thought and prayed about this, I had another perspective put on my heart, and I thought I’d share.

Jesus isn’t calling us to death – but rather, to die to self.

Which is, not only a horse of a different color, but also exceedingly difficult to do. In a world that glorifies and celebrates self, and self expression and — more recently — this obsession with self identification that pushes boundaries…the concept of “dying to self” is not only a foreign concept, but is about as countercultural as you can get.

But then, Jesus never promised us that a life following Him would be mainstream, and on a wide, paved, toll-free highway.

To die to self is to surrender our lives to Him. To give back to Him, that which He gave to us in the first place.

Because in doing so, we are allowing Him to work, and lead us in the life that He has planned, and that He created us for.

But back to the wheat.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

This is such a powerful verse, because not only is an allegory to Christ as the grain of wheat, but is also an image of what our life is to be as well.

And here’s what I think is the most powerful thing to take away from it:

The wheat must die before it bears fruit.

I’ll say that again, because it was hard for me to stomach the first time: the wheat must die before it bears fruit.

If that doesn’t sober you up right now, I don’t know what will.

In order for God to use our life, we must hand it over. We must let go of, and die to the selfish wants and desires and earthly allures that are so often chased after in this life, and instead chase after Him.

And only then, will we bear fruit.

And therein lies the freedom. And the peace. And the joy. Because a life spent chasing and pursuing things that are fleeting and fickle and passing away only leaves us in a constant state of want and dissatisfaction. There is always the next best thing to strive for, or the next greatest accolade, or latest model of this or that. But when we extract ourselves from this earthly ratrace, and surrender our lives to Jesus, we will be shown what is truly worth pursuing: Him.

I am nowhere near having successfully done this yet. Every day, I try to chase after Him, but I am fully aware that there are areas – big and small – in my life that I’m holding tight to, and reluctant to hand over.

But that’s where His grace comes in. And I am grateful for the help He offers us every day.

And in the meantime, I can offer myself grace that I’m doing the best I can.

So today – it is my prayer for me and you that in this coming week, we can simply recognize the areas in our lives we are resistant to surrendering to Jesus. So that that we can continually work towards a total and complete death to self, so that we can produce much fruit.

What’s one thing you can do to die to self today?

“This is what the Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” Ez 37:5

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