Lesson 366: "Planting Seeds"
As I was driving by a plowed field, I noticed a man sitting on the turn row crying. Concerned that the old farmer might have been hurt by his machinery I stopped and asked why he was crying. He held out his hand filled with seed and said that it broke his heart to put these precious, high-priced seeds into the ground where they would decay. “I will never see them again”, he moaned! I made this little story up of course because everyone, especially a farmer, knows that unless the seed is planted it will be useless. Plant the seed, water and nourish it and in time it will sprout and pop out of the soil you covered it with. With more time it will grow and produce a crop.
This is an example of the death of an unbeliever when he enters the life of a Christian. “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” (John 12:24). “When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else” (1 Cor. 15:37). In the same way, Christians must die every day to sin (1 Cor. 15:31), because we have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20). The “field seed” is God’s example of death, burial and resurrection. After salvation we have a new spirit, a new life; not a new body but you will be known by your fruit (Matt. 7:20) so some may appear to actually have a new body. Be careful though because there are two kinds of “fruit” and you could very well “show the wrong body” to those watching (Gal. 5:19-23).
The regenerated, transfigured body is yet to come upon our physical death and resurrection to be with Jesus since to be away from this body is to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). A Christian’s citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), but now here on earth we live in a “tent” (2 Cor. 5:2) which will be destroyed. When we are young our tents are strong and sturdy but as the years add to our grey hair and take away our muscle tone, these lowly bodies lean in the wind and is ripped much like the curtain of the temple (Matt. 27:54). We cannot envision our new bodies as this remains one of the “mysteries of God”. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9) but we do know that upon resurrection we will have an imperishable, strong, glorified spiritual body and we will bear the likeness of Jesus (1 Cor. 15:42-49) .
Knowing the glories and the rewards and blessings in eternal heaven, don’t you want to bring someone with you? Are you a worker for God? Then you should be planting seeds (1 Cor. 3:8-9). Are you sitting in the field crying over the lost? Perhaps you did not plant, water or nourish but God has sent you to reap what you have not worked for (John 5:38). If no one plants there will be no harvest and thus the Words of Jesus will fall like the seeds on path, the rock, or among the thorns (Luke 8:5-7). Do not become seed for a parable but rather let a parable become a seed in someone’s life (Luke 18:1-8).