John 12:20-26

John 12:20-26 
English Standard Version (ESV)

  In the realm of verses that belong on greeting cards, this isn't near the top of the list.  Churches and preachers who peddle in pop psychology to keep everyone happy won't be reading this from the pulpit very often, and it's unlikely to get quoted on social media very often.
  But it's so important that we grasp how complex and complete the call of discipleship is.  I wish it was easy and simple, but it's not -- Christ has called us into something wonderfully deep  Splashing around in the surf at the beach is fun, but for us to grow into the Christians we are called to be, we've got to leave behind the surf and head out into the deep waters of Christianity, where we wrestle with hard concepts and struggle to die to ourselves.  It's only there that we realize that our very survival is dependent upon abandoning all hopes of securing our own future, for there in the deep we recognize that life itself depends on dying to the self and rising in Christ.  He, and he alone, has secured the victory over the enemy, and the punishment that we deserved was absorbed by him so that we might find eternal life.
  It's a challenging concept for us to grasp, especially if we're simultaneously trying to buy into the concept that if we just try a little harder, we can do anything we like.  No, we are lost, but the wonder of faith is that God loves us just the same, and that while we cannot save ourselves, we also don't need to.  Our mission is to follow Christ wherever he might lead, and in so doing we will discover a life that is deeper and richer than we might have been able to imagine on our own.