Manna Moments

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From Seed to Harvest: The Process of a Promise

“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

Death and multiplication seem to be a pattern we see throughout Scripture, yet so difficult at times to fully grasp in our daily lives.

The Word as Seed

Jesus often compares the seed to the Word. This Word can come in many forms: through reading Scripture, a sermon, observing nature (Rom.1:20), a conversation, even a dream or vision. The Holy Spirit can speak to us through anything. It’s a promise that the Holy Spirit wants us to hide in our hearts and not let it go.

The Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13 illustrates the various kinds of soil where the seed—the Word—may fall. If you haven’t read it recently, I encourage you to do so. In this blog, however, my focus is on what happens after the Word or promise given by the Holy Spirit has been received in your heart.

From Burial to Sprouting

Later in Matthew 13, Jesus explains that the seed falling on good soil produces a harvest. While this is true, the parable doesn’t detail the journey of the seed from burial to harvest. That process, however, is described by Jesus in John 12:24:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

It’s remarkable that Jesus compares the seed to a word, because a seed marks only the beginning of a greater process.

Death of the Word

First, we must embrace the promise and secure it within our hearts—this is the seed’s ‘burial.’ Next comes a stage that resembles death, as the seed loses its original form, splitting and transforming to make room for new life as a sprout.

This part of the word’s journey—the death process—is the toughest to go through. Every promise the Holy Spirit gives us has to face it, because it’s part of God’s divine order. Have you ever had God speak a promise, and then life seems to move in the opposite direction? That’s when doubt can sneak in and keep the seed from sprouting. In those moments, we need to respond like Mary did in Luke 2:19 - “But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Mary hoped* for and treasured these words spoken to her.

Jesus, the Living Example

The most powerful biblical example of this process is Jesus Himself—the Word made flesh—who died and was buried. His followers must have felt devastated, much like we do when circumstances seem to contradict God’s promises. Yet three days later He rose again, presenting the Firstfruits of a harvest to His Father.

Don’t lose heart, my friends. Keep hope alive by reminding yourself of His word, even in the darkest moments, so that the promise can come back to life and bear fruit.

*Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Heb.11:1).

Manna Moments

A Den of Thieves

About eighteen years before the destruction of the First Temple, Jeremiah was sent to the people of Judah with a message of repentance. Because of God’s promise to David - that his house and kingdom would remain, and that his throne would be established forever (2 Sam.7:16), the priests and the remnant in Judah thought that the temple was invincible. The fact is, the people of Judea had turned their back on God once again.

Jeremiah 7 contains some interesting information as the prophet relays God’s message to the people of Jerusalem. We will address these points of interest one by one.

The first one is that God tells Jeremiah to stand “in the gate of the Lord’s house,” when prophets typically stood in the city gates. In fact, the people in this time had been practicing idolatry including child sacrifice as referenced in several places in the book of Jeremiah. They continued in their idolatry, yet believed that they were invincible since the temple could never be destroyed. They placed all their trust in the “Temple of the Lord”, so this seems like the appropriate place for God to relay His message.

Second, in verse 4, Jeremiah seems to chant when he says, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord,” as though they were under some sort of spell. Then we read in verses 10,11:

“You stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ - that you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.

In Hebrew, the phrase, “which is called by My name,” is very interesting because according to the grammar, He is not saying that He is calling it by His name, but that someone else is calling it by His name. He also accuses them of making it a “den of robbers,” which was a cave on side of a frequented path that thieves would hide out. As people would pass by, they would burst out suddenly on the unsuspecting travelers and rob them. This is what God is accusing the Judeans of making His house into. He instructs them to change their ways so that they could continue to dwell in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount.

He then tells the people that He will do to that temple in which they trust just what he did to Shiloh, the first place of the tabernacle within the land of Israel. We know, according to the story in 1 Samuel 4:10-22, the ark of the covenant was taken by the Philistines, and Jeremiah 7:12 implies that Shiloh was destroyed.

The situation isn’t much different today. Many assume that simply attending church or serving within it guarantees salvation. Yet, just as in Jeremiah’s time, even the church itself can become an idol if we lose sight of what truly matters. At the core, it is our relationship with God and the way we love and treat others that carries eternal weight. “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

Manna Moments

Clothed in White: The Testing of the Priests

Alfred Edersheim, in The Temple: Its Ministry and Services in the Days of Christ, explains that candidates for the priesthood in Jesus’s day had to meet strict qualifications. The very first requirement was to prove their genealogy. Records kept in the archives at Zipporim were carefully examined, and if a man’s lineage could not be verified, he was clothed in black and dismissed. But if his father’s name was found, he advanced to the next stage, where the court inspected him for any physical defects. Those who passed were clothed in white, and their names were formally recorded.

This practice echoes the promise of Revelation 3:5: “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”