The Process of Transformation Into God’s Children

What!!!!” Whoever loves his life, loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world, will preserve it for eternal life”. Isn’t Jesus who is God, is love itself? then why does He use the word hate? What does hate mean? We make statements like, ‘I hate Chinese food’ or ‘I hate cold weather’ or ‘I hate my workplace’ or ‘I hate that person’ etc, and you can keep adding all the hate statements you have used or heard in life. In the examples given of what we hate, if you carefully listen, I’m screaming for attention, I am screaming for love, I am screaming to satisfy my ego, I am screaming to be the center of the world.

In verse 24 Jesus teaches us that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. Jesus is giving us an opportunity or invitation to prepare us to live a better life forever, by loving and choosing Him instead of ourselves. He is inviting us to die to ourselves so that we can see beyond the carnal and worldly perception of what we think is true joy and happiness. Our love for life is based on our mental and physical satisfaction. But we are called to unite with Christ in spirit. How will our earthly success of power, money, and status qualify us to enter into union with Christ, for all eternity? Jesus sees the depth of our hearts and can see the poor diseased condition of our soul that we have literally chocked with our selfish desires. He is calling us to follow Him in death, aiming for us to acquire things that are from above. Dying to self so that we can rise in union with Christ and live a more free and fruitful life of service of all humanity, along with our fellow Christians in the body of Christ, who are pilgrims along with us to our heavenly home. Let us die today then, die to our own selfish thoughts and rise to start thinking about the well-being and good of others. Let us die to our words of selfish complaining, and rise to words that give glory to God for all that we have and start testifying to His love and mercy. Let us die today through our acts of service and charity so that  we may die to our old ways and be reborn like our master Jesus Christ, and have humility and love come and dwell in us.

Lord, I pray that I/we may joyfully die today in service and imitation of you, so that I/we may decrease, and You increase in us, and be reborn in a more perfect image and likeness of You. Amen.