“Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, 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. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his 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 12:23-26
I picture Jesus saying this very calmly and confidently. I can just see Him standing there and calling people to live like He does. Totally surrendered, totally ignoring Himself. In fact, I picture Jesus standing there, and as He is saying this He is hardly able to contain the excitement of following His Dad’s call. This is where I stopped the first time reading this. I thought, “Wow, that is how I should be. That is the key. I should just ignore what I’m feeling and try to make myself excited about it.” Then I asked God for a bigger piece, something more from this. He said to read on a bit further.
“Now my heart is troubled…” - John 12:27a
Wow! Jesus might have been calm, and He probably was confident, because He knew His Dad. But His heart was troubled. His heart was aching at what He was going to go through. But disregarding His pain and disregarding Himself, He was able to say:
“…and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” - John 12:27b-28
Jesus was dying to live. He knew that life wasn’t in the physical. He knew that life wasn’t about feeling, about nerves, about us. He knew that life was in the Father. He died to Himself so that HE could live from God’s life. He died to the world so that WE could live from that same life. If He had chosen to live for Himself, we would have never had the opportunity to live in God’s life.
"I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” - John 14:12
I think every time that I have read this verse; my thoughts have gone straight to His miracles. We will heal more than He did, we will raise the dead more than He did, we will prophesy more than He did. I believe He was talking about that, but I think He was talking about something even deeper than that. The One who died so that the whole world had the opportunity to live is telling us that we will do greater works than Him. Maybe there is something there. He is saying if we believe in Him, we will do the same things He has done and even greater. Wow! I’m not going to try and say what that means, because I don’t know, but I do know that Jesus wasn’t just giving a pep talk that He didn’t believe in.
The only way we can figure out what that looks like is to do what Jesus did. He surrendered His troubled heart, He surrendered His reasons why He shouldn’t do it, He surrendered himself, because He knew that what His Dad had was greater than what He could do out of Himself. I want to live like that. It’s kind of scary, because it involves letting go of my walls, my protection, but it’s exciting because I know that God has the only true life.
