- Not The Only One !
- Post #111
- 24 Dec 23
- ” The Seed “
- Howdy ,
- Welcome once more as the year rapidly comes to a close. A couple of post back, I had made mention of a friend of mine, who’s mother had been placed on hospice. Well she past, peacefully in her sleep at 4:30 on a Saturday morning. She inhaled and exhaled her last breath upon the earth. We all grieve together and at the same time, separately. Personally, I am one of those people who believes that we are all eternal beings and that we all exist beyond the feeble existence that we know now upon the earth. That being said, the difference is whether we spend our eternity in the presence of God, or our existence apart from God. So , for my bonus mom, she left here and was ushered into the presence of Jesus, her Savior, and I will see her again.
- I come from a humble background and I grew up remembering my grandparents having a garden. They weren’t farmers, but they enjoyed growing a lot of their own fruits and vegetables. I think that is a time that has gone far and away for most of us. Now !, while I grew up with that, I can tell you that I’ve given very little consideration to what actually happens to a seed once it is planted into the ground. . Most of us are familiar with the germination process, and how most things need an adequate supply of sunshine and water, and a couple of other favorable conditions, such as fertilizer to keep off bugs and to help with growth, and hopefully Peter Cotton tail doesn’t make to many visits to the garden ☺️☺️, but more so the squirrels. The seeds that we plant must actually die first, before it can grow and produce into something else. It’s a metamorphosis of sort, a little similar to what takes place before a caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly.
- There is this beautiful picture of life and newness that comes from death. We catch a glimpse of that with the changing of the seasons . The leaves fall off of the trees and things die in the bitter cold of winter. When the seasons change and as winter slowly releases its grip and gives way to spring, we see the newness of life. We usually take that for granted unless we live some place where the summers are really short in comparison to some places, or if we just dread allergy season ☺️☺️, and trust me , that I feel your pain. This is the same process for spiritual human beings. We die to the physical body to a physical death and we are raised as spiritual beings with a spiritual body, free of decay , disease and corruption. The saying is everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.☺️☺️ . We can not have one without the other. As we age and grow older , we are acutely aware of the limitations of the human body. Things begin to not work the way that they once did , or were designed to. We literally begin to fall apart. The eyesight goes, hearing loss, joints begin to wear out and need to be replaced. The aging process shows itself both inwardly and externally as well. On some level we are just like everything else on the planet and we depreciate ☺️☺️. The blue book on these models never goes up in value, even though they go from classic to antiques and eventually becoming obsolete, or the thing that no one wants to see without clothes☺️☺️, stay away from the beach☺️.
- This shouldn’t be looked upon as dire or as some kind of a dead-end, because it is not. I think for most of us we are just to connected to the things that we experience with our senses, especially our eyes and our hearing. For others it may be about what we can touch and feel or experience. These senses drives us to indulge heavily into the things of this world. We loose sight that we came into the world with nothing and we take nothing with us when we leave. We lack that eternal focus of what lies a head. I also believe that it is hard to connect with things that we no so little about. Most of us have no expectations of heaven other than to just show up.☺️☺️ How many of us have ever brought a house or a car , Without some kinds of expectations of what you were hoping to get. ? You probably did some research to make sure you weren’t buying a money pit of a house, or a lemon automobile , yet when it comes to the after life we give it very little thought at all, if any!. Most of us are firmly rooted here in this lifetime . If You go a hundred years here, it only registers as a tiny tiny blip on the continuum of eternity, that’s right a mere speck. It’s probably not hard to see why we invest so heavily here, because for most of us, that is all we know. I don’t know when it got to be a thing in our culture about paying things forward, but Jesus said a lot about this over two thousand years ago. He said to save our treasure up in heaven, where moth, rust and corruption have no place. I know that there are different interpretations as to what that means, but basically it’s about enriching the Kingdom of God. Things that are done here to show the love of God to others. Now, that can take many forms and a lot of the times we want to think of or view it in grand ways, and it can be, but Christ said it can be as simple as offering a cup of water to someone who is thirsty. Truth be told, we never know how the smallest acts of kindness can play out and have the most significant effect for the kingdom. A small example, someone donates a hundred dollars to a charity, and that charity uses that money to dig a well , so that a village can have some clean drinking water, and because one child from that village didn’t die of thirst or contaminated drinking water, they were able to continue on, go to school, become an engineer and return to that village and reproduce wells across the region a hundred times over, so that other kids could grow up and make a difference. We take clean drinking water for granted, but many in the world can not.
- So, to get back on topic, let’s just call that hundred dollars ” seed money “, since we are talking about seeds. So, it’s an investment, and what is the number one thing that we can invest in and get the maximum ” ROI “, return on investment? The answer to that question , should be people. There is nothing more important than people. Jesus always made people His number one priority, and so should we. He had an agenda and was on mission, but He was always interruptible. He would stop and make eye contact and pier into the depths of humanity which He came to save.
- Tomorrow we celebrate the “seed ” of a woman. There was nothing special or Devine about the virgin Mary, other than she was available for God to use. She said yes to something that would Ostracize her from her culture. Something that would make her a laughing stock , and the whisper of sly remarks and gossip. She said yes to the thing that would make her the subject of ridicule, and honestly something that could have cost her , her very life. She was available and made her life interruptible and said, ” let it be”. God once again used the ordinary to do the extraordinary. All the way back in the beginning, in the garden, God made this promise, that from the seed of a woman, would be one born, that would be King of the world. All throughout scripture God reaffirmed this. After four hundred of silence, God made good on His promise , and sent forth His Son. His birth changed everything and two thousand years later is still changing everything. God gave us Immanuel, which is God with us. God stepped down into His creation to be with the lost and the broken, and those two little words covers all of us.
- At some point we will all be that perishable seed that will be buried in the ground. We will all spend our eternity somewhere, so maybe we should give some thought to something other than the here and now. Christ once described heaven as a mansion with many rooms. If we are going to have a new home with Him , shouldn’t we show up with a house warming gift?. I think the best gift that you can show up with is telling as many people as possible about the “Way” to follow you there, which is ultimately to follow Jesus there, because He led the way. I don’t know of any place on this side of heaven where the streets are paved with gold. I don’t know of any place on this side of heaven where there is no need for the sun or the moon. I don’t know of any place on this side of heaven that is free of pain and suffering, no tears, no pain, no I can’t think of a single place like that. Honestly it’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around that, but that is true about most things when it comes to encountering a living, loving God. Who would send His one and only Son, for a person like me, and I mean someone deeply flawed ☺️☺️. It’s not window dressing, I just know who I am. I’m not alone, but even if I was , God would have still sent His Son, because He loves extravagantly like that. We should all be grateful and look back at all that God has done and not just big picture stuff, but in your own individual lives. We should also be thinking and looking a head, and giving some thought about eternity. If your mind leads you to, or your idea of eternity is seventy-two virgins, well all I can say about that is, good luck with that ☺️☺️.
- Tomorrow is Jesus’s birthday. Just for a second stop and think about if it was your birthday and people went all out with food and decorations, and let’s just call it a world size party, because you are just that popular ☺️☺️. So, everything is all set and people are giving and getting gifts galore, but no one gets a gift for you. I wonder sometimes if that is how Jesus views Christmas at times. It’s probably a sad indictment on some of us that we don’t even know where the whole gift giving thing came from in the first place. Well, it was God’s idea, when He gave us the gift of His Son.
- I have some good news if you don’t have time to bake Jesus a birthday cake, or any idea about how to get it to Him☺️☺️. I get that Jesus could be a hard person to shop for, but I do have a few ideas about possible gifts for Him, so where some may see a problem, I like to think of it as an opportunity for possibilities ☺️☺️. Hmm, what to get the person who has everything? Maybe that is debatable, does He have everything? How about we give Jesus the gift of our trust. Faith is a choice, God will never force His way into your life, so do you trust him? How about we give Jesus the gift of first place in your life? First place is all encompassing, first place in your relationships, in your home, and do I dare say, in your finances, does He have first place? He even wants to have first place in your pains and sorrows. I don’t know about you, but that’s not always the first place that I run when I experience difficulties in life. And here’s a novel idea, not to be confused with a novelty ☺️☺️. How about this Christmas, you give Jesus your heart. Our hearts can be bound up into so many things and even more so at Christmas. God says that from the heart flows all areas of your life. This Christmas!, if you are struggling with anything at all, and especially if you don’t have a gift for Jesus, your heart is a great place to start.
- I’m hoping and praying that all of you guys have the most amazing and wonderful Christmas ever!!
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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