John 12:24-25 (NIV): 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.
God’s command to each of His people is to go and make disciples – in other words, multiply yourself. Every single Christian knows people – family, friends, coworkers, neighbors – who are not yet in the kingdom. To know an unsaved person IS God’s call to save them from spiritual death, as much as to see someone drowning IS a call to pull them out of the water. A Christian needs no stronger or more definite call than to know that a person is headed for an eternity in hell.
But, in order to be effective in reaching others with the good news, the reacher must first die. Not a physical death, but a death to the old life, so that they can experience the new birth – a second birth. So many want to receive God’s new life while holding onto their old life with both hands! But each person can only live ONE life, so they much choose, once for all: will they hold onto their old life, or will they die to that life entirely so that they can take up God’s life, eternal life? A large chunk of Christians’ ineffectiveness in the world is that they are trying to live out their old lives in the kingdom economy, and the two are totally incompatible! The old must die, must go away, must be firmly laid on the altar as a living sacrifice, so that God can instill in that person the new, kingdom life that has in it many seeds that will each grow into new kingdom lives in others.
Father, I give you my life – ALL of it. I lay anything that remains of my old life on Your altar. Do what You must do to it in order to make my whole life into a new, kingdom life that will bear much fruit; fruit that will last for all eternity. Amen.