Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, October 5, 2024
We know that everything, everything, that dies in Christ comes to life. That includes all that ‘wasted’ effort on self-denial that didn’t bear fruit we could see. We need new creation eyes to learn that nothing done for God is wasted, no seed dies without bearing fruit, even if it isn’t the fruit that we were aiming for.

The seed that dies is the one that bears fruit. That’s what Jesus said in John 12,

Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12.24
A biologist might take issue with us saying a seed has to die before it grows, but they shouldn’t. That’s exactly what happens. It we take a seed and bury it in the earth, something that was once part of a living plant and is now pushed under the earth, what are we to call this but death? Quibbling here is, I think, a symptom of a brain that doesn’t read enough poetry. We could call it a kind of ‘modernist madness’ where everything is defined in the precise mechanistic categories of the natural sciences.
A grain of wheat—a seed—must fall into the earth and die. If it doesn’t it remains alone. If it does it bears fruit, it multiplies. In other words, when we look at the natural world, we learn a principle of the cosmos: things that keep on living die, things that die will live in multiplied life. That one seed grows into a plant that is full of seeds. If those seeds are planted, even if only a quarter of them grow as in Jesus’ parable of the soils (Matthew 13—often called the Sower, but it’s the Soils and the Seed that are in view), the number of seeds grows exponentially. It doesn’t take that long to go from one apple to an orchard, or from an orchard to a world dominated by apple trees, but each step requires the death of that seed.
Jesus was, of course, talking about himself. The seed (think Genesis 3) that dies bears much fruit. After death comes life, if you can be brave enough to submit to it. Jesus continued:

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
John 12.25
We have to be willing to lose our lives in order to gain them. Not just in martyrdom, which seems an unlikely prospect in the west.
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God allows us to be in places or in situations where we would prefer not to be, but he sovereignly allows them knowing that these things may be the only way to cultivate the virtues; for Christians to grow and mature in the fruit of the Spirit. Next time you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam, or being abused by others, or having people speaking ill of you, or not getting that job or pay rise that you so desired, keep in mind that God may be behind such things. God is so very much concerned to develop our Christian character. And if that means allowing us to get into rather unpleasant situations, then so be it.

Christians want to be (or should want to be) better believers, and to be better people. In other words, they want to be more Christlike. That is a major calling for the Christian: to grow in maturity as a believer. It is not about just being happy but about being moulded into the likeness and image of our Lord.
The New Testament is full of these ways of thinking of course. And while we have our own obligations and duties in this regard, at the end of the day it is God at work in us developing Christian character and spiritual maturity. Consider for example the importance of the fruit of the spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 offers us a list of nine items: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Four general things can be said about them first, before looking at the fruit in a bit more detail. One, this is not about how to be a better person, or how to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. These are fruit of the SPIRIT, and if you do not have the Holy Spirit, you will not have these fruit – at least to any real and substantial degree.
Yes, a non-Christian can sometimes be a nice person or good person or a patient person. But to see these fruit fully on display in your life as God intended, you must be connected to the source of that fruit. And that comes from God alone. As Jesus put it in John 15:1-6:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Two, these fruit stand in opposition to the works of the flesh. There are some 15 of these listed in Galatians 5:16-22:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Three, I am hardly a role model here when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit. So when I write devotional and hortatory pieces like this, I am of course including myself in what is being said.
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The 2026 General Conference would focus on re-establishing connection within the United Methodist Church, lamenting, healing and recasting the mission and vision for the mainline denomination after years of strife over the ordination and marriage of its LGBTQ members, according to a press release published Monday (May 8) on the Council of Bishops’ website.

CHICAGO (RNS) — United Methodist bishops have proposed a five-day meeting of the denomination’s global decision-making body, the General Conference, in May 2026.
The announcement comes at the end of the Council of Bishops’ spring meeting last week in Chicago and a weekend that saw hundreds of United Methodist churches in the United States leave the denomination.
The 2026 General Conference would focus on re-establishing connection within the United Methodist Church, lamenting, healing and recasting the mission and vision for the mainline denomination after years of strife over the ordination and marriage of its LGBTQ members, according to a press release published Monday (May 8) on the Council of Bishops’ website.
Delegates to the General Conference also would consider a more regional governance structure to better support the remaining denomination, which currently numbers about 30,000 U.S. churches.
“I admit to you I’m eager to get past all this. I want us to stop talking about disaffiliations,” Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the Council of Bishops, said during the bishops’ meeting, which ran April 30 to May 5.
“I’m worried genuinely that we’ve spent more time on those that are leaving than focusing our energy on those who are staying.”
Delegates to the 2020 General Conference meeting had been expected to consider a proposal to split the denomination over its disagreement on sexuality and help create a new, theologically conservative denomination called the Global Methodist Church. That would allow the United Methodist Church to change language in its Book of Discipline that bars same-sex marriages and LGBTQ clergy.
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