Dave's Diary

Prayer

Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this simple prayer based on Psalm 40:8,

Lord I desire to do your will.
Please write Your law on my heart,
and help me to obey. Amen.

Reading

John 12:20-26

Every so often, in John’s Gospel, Jesus referred to the fact that “His hour” had not yet come. But now, as he was approached by a group of Greeks, Jesus somehow recognised that “the hour” had now come for Him to be “glorified” (v.23).

Coming hot on the heels of the “triumphal entry” (John 12:12-19), this announcement must have excited the disciples. But their excitement would have been very short-lived because, in the very next breath, Jesus alluded to something that He had explained to them a few times before. And this was not what they wanted to hear: His glorification was going to be accomplished by His self-sacrificial death.

Jesus said,

²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Before a grain of wheat can produce a plant which in turn produces more grains of wheat, that seed must be buried/planted in the ground. Before Jesus could be glorified by God’s resurrection power, and by producing the fruit for which he was born (viz., billions of eternally tranformed human lives), He needed to lay down His life in self-sacrifice on Calvary’s Cross.

Going even further, Jesus reminded them that just as a “buried” grain of wheat will always produce more wheat once it has germinated and grown, Jesus’ self-sacrificial life would produce others who would live self-sacrificial lives.

He said,

²⁵ “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ²⁶ Whoever serves me must follow me.“

If we would truly be disciples of Jesus who live the eternally abundant life, we are called to follow Him daily on the road of self-sacrificial living. Only that road leads to true life!

Contemplation

Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ:

• I will follow Him on the path of self-sacrificial living!

Holy Spirit, please empower me to find my fulness of life in Christ, by laying it down on the path of self-sacrificial living. Amen.