“For they all contributed out of their abundance but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:4 ESV1
Read Mark 12:41-44 & Luke 21:1-4
During my life, I have never lived more than twenty miles North or South of the Western half of the Wisconsin-Illinois state line. It is a land of bright, green grass and dark, rich soil. In the warmer months, this area looks like God spread a monochromatic, patchwork quilt, stitched in forest green and tied in barn red, over the rolling hills. It is a land meant for growing things. I live in the country and if I look out any of the windows in my house, I can see flourishing fields.
Last Fall, my husband purchased a roto-tiller to pull behind his tractor. I watched him work up four separate areas in our lawn to prepare them for planting grass. It was beautiful, the way that roto-tiller worked up the ground. It broke up the soil into pea-sized or smaller chunks, evened out the dirt, and made these little tracks to collect the seeds and the water. My husband sowed grass seed in each of those areas. And every day, I watered those sections, dreaming about how beautiful our lawn was going to look when Spring came.
When Spring arrived, three of those sections had green, grass shoots appearing. But the fourth area produced only weeds. Even though that fourth section was given the same treatment as the other three, the seed in that place, for whatever reason, didn’t germinate.
Germination Gets Personal
Like the area in which I live, God has designed you for a purpose. You are meant to grow things. The Bible calls this “bearing fruit.” Jesus told His closest disciples:
“By this, My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.” (John 15:8).
It takes more than good soil and proper care to produce fruit. Similarly, you could have every spiritual advantage known to man and still not produce the spiritual fruit that is necessary to prove that you are Christ’s disciple. You must take an additional step.
Producing fruit requires something that the grass seed in that one section of my lawn was unwilling to do. To produce grass, the grass seed sown in that area needed to germinate. To bear much fruit, a disciple of Christ must go through a spiritual germination process. Jesus put it like this:
“‘Truly, truly, I say to you unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies [germinates], it bears much fruit’” (John 12:24).
Germination is the death of one thing to produce life for others. Germination requires a single seed to sacrifice itself to produce many seeds. A seed must be willing to decrease to give rise to an increase. It is obliged to take a loss to make gains. It is expected to be destroyed to reproduce. What is true for a seed in the physical realm must also be true for the Christian in the spiritual realm.
Giving it Your All
If you are a Christ-follower, you must be willing to germinate spiritually. The Bible calls this “dying to self.” This extraordinary, self-sacrificing attitude was illustrated by an unnamed and largely unnoticed woman who lived centuries ago. Though she did the very thing God expects of all His children, her exceptional act is recorded in just a few verses of Holy Scripture.
“[As] He sat down opposite the treasury” (Mark 12:41a), “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and He saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins” (Luke 21:1-2) “which make a penny. And He called His disciples to Him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, all she had to live on’” (Mark 12:42b-44).
Did you catch what impressed Jesus about this lady? She gave everything she had, all she had to live on. Though it was only two small copper coins worth very little, she was willing to part with it all for the glory of God. She did not hold what she had in higher esteem than she did her God. She did not consider caring for her life of more worth than supplying for the house of the Lord.
This poor widow’s offering would hardly be recognized by those who counted the money that day. But her sacrifice didn’t go unnoticed by the One to whom she gave her all. Though others gave more in terms of money, no one gave more than she in terms of value. The others contributed a portion of their wealth, an amount that most likely was not a huge loss for them. But the poor widow gave everything; she didn’t hold back anything.
Now, this isn’t a command to give all your money to the church. But it is a call to give up something significant for Him who made the ultimate sacrifice for you. Don’t we tend to give Jesus the bare minimum, just what we will hardly miss anyway? According to Jesus, that kind of reserved giving isn’t Christianity.
Handing Over Your Most Valued Possession
The necessity of giving all was a significant theme throughout Jesus’ teachings. The Gospel writers recorded several instances when Jesus taught the essentialness of dying to self, denying one’s self, and forsaking all to be His disciple. (Check out: Matthew 5:29, 10:37-39, 16:24-25, 19:21; Mark 8:34-35, 9:43; Luke 9:24-25, 14:26-27 & 33; John 3:30, 15:13). Let me exhort you concerning just one of Jesus’ statements:
“And [Jesus] said to all, ‘If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me’” (Luke 9:23).
Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me.” “If” means coming after Jesus is optional. Though there are serious consequences to not following Him, Jesus is not going to make anyone come after Him. But if you are going to follow Him, there is a right way to do it.
To truly follow Jesus, you must deny yourself. To be His disciple, Jesus is asking you to take your hands off of your own will and give it up to Him. When you received Him, you entered into Christ’s service. He is your Savior and Lord. As His servant, you should answer His call with, “Yes, Sir. I will.”
Denying yourself isn’t about trying harder to be a better person; instead, it is about allowing the Holy Spirit to work through you to do God’s will. If you deny yourself like Christ is leading, you’re not becoming a doormat but an arrow pointing people to Jesus.
Next, to be one of Jesus’ disciples, you must take up a cross. Bearing a cross is not easy but that isn’t even the hardest part—a cross is an instrument of death. I am sure no one who was forced to carry his cross escaped dying on it. Jesus is asking you to die to your selfishness, your rights, your agenda, and your sin. Christ gives you a cross to take up before ever He gives you a crown to wear.
Notice, though, that you must take up your cross. This is the cross Jesus designed for you specifically. Christ has perfect knowledge of your calling and creates a cross for you that will help you achieve His goals for your life. Jesus does not mean for you to make your own cross and run headlong into trouble of your making. Nor does He ask you to carry your cross alone. If you let Him, the Holy Spirit will help you bear the cross Christ has designed for you.
Additionally, Jesus added the necessity of this process being a daily one. Every day, you must make the renewed decision to deny yourself in favor of God’s will for your life. Your fleshly desires can resurrect themselves if you don’t make a point of continually mortifying them.
You will not need to come up with your own ideas of ways to deny yourself. When you submit to God’s leading, you will have plenty of opportunities each day to choose to love God and serve Him with your all and to put yourself aside to love and honor others. The more you allow God to work through you, the easier self-denial will become.
Lastly, Jesus instructed, “Follow Me.” As His disciple, you are to follow Christ. You’re not to run ahead or lag behind. You are not to go where He has not gone nor run back to where you came from. Following right behind Jesus, no matter where that path leads, is the safest place to be because whatever gets to you has to have gone through Him first.
Life Out of Death
Dying to yourself is not an end; it is only the beginning. Just like when a seed germinates, it produces abundant life. When you give Jesus your all, you get Jesus’ all. You exchange your life for His. Christ gets your weakness; you get His strength. Jesus takes on your sin; you get Jesus’ righteousness. This is not a loss for you but an ultimate gain.
Bearing fruit, denying self daily, and following Jesus, is not something you can do in your limited power, you must access Jesus’ limitless power. Jesus told His disciples:
“‘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’” (John 15:4-5).
Mrs. Cowman, in her classic devotional, Streams in the Desert, included this meditation. It gives us a picture of the kind of fruitfulness that is available to us when we deny ourselves and access all we have in Christ.
“Straining, driving effort does not accomplish the work God gives man to do. Only God Himself, who always works without strain, and who never overworks, can do the work that He assigns to His children. When they restfully trust Him to do it, it will be well done and completely done. The way to let Him do His work through us is to partake of Christ so fully, by faith, that He more than fills our lives.
A man who had learned this secret once said: ‘I came to Jesus and I drank, and I do not think that I shall ever be thirsty again. I have taken for my motto, “Not overwork, but overflow”; and already it has made all the difference in my life.’
There is no effort in overflow. It is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life of omnipotent and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ invites us today and always.”2
You being in Christ is not Jesus saying, “I am here if you need Me.” But Jesus saying, “I am here because you need me—for everything.” It is not Jesus saying, “I am here to fill in your gaps.” But Jesus saying, “I redeemed you because you are nothing but gaps.”
If you are truly operating in Christ, you will not be prideful, because Jesus is doing the work, not you. If you are fully operating in Christ, you will not be fearful, because Jesus is doing the work through you. If you are actually operating in Christ, you will be fruitful, because Jesus is doing the work in you.
But to operate in Christ, you have to spiritually germinate.
It Takes All
If you do not die to your rights and submit to Christ as His servant, you cannot call yourself His disciple. If you do not forsake your sin and put on Christ’s righteousness, you do not belong to Him. If you do not allow yourself to germinate in Christ’s power, you cannot produce the fruit that proves your connection with Christ.
Mrs. Cowman also included in her devotional, Streams in the Desert, the following:
“This is the happy season of ripening cornfields, of the merry song of the reapers, of the secured and garnered grain. But let me hearken to the sermon of the field. This is its solemn word to me. You must die in order to live. You must refuse to consult your own case and well-being. You must be crucified, not only in desires and habits which are sinful but in many more which appear innocent and right. If you would save others, you cannot save yourself. If you would bear much fruit, you must be buried in darkness and solitude.
My heart fails me as I listen. But, when Jesus asks it, let me tell myself that it is my high dignity to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings; and thus, I am in the best of company. And let me tell myself again that it is all meant to make me a vessel meet for His use. His own Calvary has blossomed into fertility, and so shall mine. Plenty out of pain, life out of death: is it not the law of the Kingdom?”3
Given to Christ
You are not composed of wonderful abilities that are too grand with which to trust Jesus or insignificant qualities that Jesus does not want. You are not a mixture of strengths Jesus can use and weaknesses He pushes aside. Jesus wants all of you!
Some people don’t have more potential to be used in God’s Kingdom and others have less. Your ability depends on how given you are to Christ. In Christ, you get your strength from Jesus. Compared to Jesus, the strongest, smartest, wisest, most talented person on Earth is not much different than the weakest, new-born infant, who is struggling to thrive.
And some jobs in the Kingdom aren’t more important than others. If all you are ever called to do in the Kingdom of God is clean toilets, if you do it in Christ and for His glory, there will be more joy in Heaven over your ministry than that of the most well-known Christian of our time who is doing anything in his/her own strength.
In all reality, you only have one thing Jesus wants. You only have one thing He needs. You’ve got just one thing that He doesn’t have. That is a human body here on Earth.
Jesus purchased your body with His blood. Christ is calling you to be and to do something for His glory. But to accomplish God’s goals for you, you have to die to your agenda. When you truly stop trying to save yourself and are crucified to your desires and habits, you become Jesus’ hands and feet in this world and you are empowered to do His work on this Earth.
Evangelist, Stephen Manley, often quotes his father saying, “It doesn’t take much of a man to be a Christian; it just takes all of him.” It is not how much you give to God that impresses Him; it is how much you give out of what you have.
Some bodies are impressive, others not so much. But everyone on Earth has a body. Jesus can take any body belonging to anyone who is fully devoted to Him and use it as He sees fit for anything that advances His Kingdom on Earth. More often than not, He takes what, humanly speaking, is seemingly less desirable and transforms it into something grand in the spiritual realm.
And remember, dying to yourself isn’t about loss; it is about gain. It isn’t about what you are giving up but about what you are receiving. It isn’t about death; it is about life.
Though Scripture doesn’t record it, I am sure, with as dear as widows and orphans are to the heart of God, Jesus somehow blessed this faithful lady in honor of her abundant sacrifice. Especially considering what is recorded in Scripture concerning those who have sacrificed for Christ. Jesus promised:
“‘Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for My name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life’” (Matthew 19:29).
Everyone who sacrifices for Jesus will be abundantly compensated. So, I challenge you to take a step of faith. Die to yourself. Choose to spiritually germinate. Watch and see what God will do with what you put in His hands. Let Jesus have access to all of you and go change the world (even if that means just changing toilet paper).
1 Scripture quotations marked with ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All Scriptures are taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted. To aid in understanding, I have capitalized references to God.
2 https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/streams-in-the-desert-september-3rd.html
3 https://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/desert/streams-in-the-desert-september-21st.html