The Opposite Life

"I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains [just one grain; it never becomes more but lives] by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces many others and yields a rich harvest. Anyone who loves his life loses it, but anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. [Whoever has no love for, no concern for, no regard for his life here on earth, but despises it, preserves his life forever and ever.]" John 12:24-25 (Amplified)
 
         What an oxymoron the Christian life is sometimes, huh? To lead you must serve. To receive abundantly you must give abundantly, and on and on. The one that really gets people though is the simple fact that in order to live you must die. Now we all know that we don't refer to the literal death (although in some cases when someone is a martyr for Christ their influence carries life for many others) rather it is the death of your own desires, and to assume the life of God's desires for us.
 
          It's not an easy death by any means. I mean we want what we want. But Jesus puts value in our death. By using the parable of a grain of wheat He establishes in our hear that a result of our willful submitted death, we can produce a harvest (Not just any harvest buy a rich one at that). What should amaze us even more is that He just didn't tell us this command without establishing His example first. When He tells His Father, "Take this cup from me," (Mark 14:36) we are well aware that His fleshly desire didn't want to succumb to death, but He saw the life it would have brought to the world and said, "Not my will but yours be done."
 
           We can impact the world through our willful submission in ways we can't even fathom. But with every great achievement comes an even greater cost. When we say to God, "Not my will but yours be done..." you put yourself in rarified air because submission to the point of death (of your inner desires), it maybe the single hardest thing any one is asked to do, but Jesus did it and we have the power to do it as well. Choose to live the life you were meant to live!