The apple seed kingdom

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15:8 NAS)

By Mark Kelly

Have you ever pondered the power of a seed? An old proverb says, “A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”

The apple seed is small, but a bit of math shows that single seed bursts with imagination-staggering potential. From just one seed springs a tree that will yield a harvest of 100 apples a year. Each of those 100 apples bears five seeds, each of which in turn can produce a tree that itself will bear 100 apples a year — each with five seeds, each producing a tree that will bear 100 apples a year, and so on.

In one season, a lone seed becomes 500. In a second season, 500 multiplies to 2,500, which in turn becomes 12,500 seeds in a third season. A fourth season, and a fifth, and the single seed has multiplied to more than 3.1 trillion seeds — and each tree produced in each previous generation also continued to yield 100 apples a year. Amazing!

Jesus saw himself as the single seed of the Kingdom. John 12:24 records his saying that a seed, planted in the soil and dying, will produce “a plentiful harvest of new lives.” (NLT) He was even more explicit in John 15:8, saying those of us who are truly his disciples will bring glory to Abba Father by yielding a great harvest.

Jesus poured himself into his true disciples, then laid down his life so his powerful spirit could be multiplied. Today, more than 2 billion people worldwide identify themselves as Christians. Granted, many of them are Christian in name only, not true disciples, but you are a true disciple, aren’t you? What is the potential of your life if you brought just one person into the Kingdom each year? My math tells me that if each disciple made one new disciple a year, in 30 years 1 billion disciples could be made.

The Creator told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, and that is one command well obeyed. The Risen One, sent by his Father to multiply the Kingdom of Justice, said to his true disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 20:21 NLT)

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Mark Kelly is editor of Multiply Justice. Copyright © 2012 Kainos Press