“EXCEPT a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,” said the great Teacher, “it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” John 12:24. This is the root secret of Christian life and character. It is one of the many seeming paradoxes or contradictions of the Bible which express the profoundest truth. In the commerce of Christianity, to give is to obtain; to withhold is to lose. To die is to live; to seek to live is to die. He who gives himself receives Jesus Christ. He who lays his own life upon the altar, receives the life of God. He who seeks to retain his life “abideth alone,” and so cuts himself off from the eternal Source of life, and is bound to die. He who lives for self, dies forever. He who lives for God and the purchase of the blood of Christ, lives forever. *Every man must die. The important thing is as to how he should die; for what he should die.* Every man must die on account of sin; but it makes a vital difference as to what his relation is. Shall he die to sin, or die in sin? Shall he count Christ’s death for the sins of all his death, and so be separated from sin; or shall he hold to his own vain life, and retain the sin? The difference is eternally vital. Man’s own life is selfish, self-centered. The life of God is beneficent, peripheral. Man’s life is converging; God’s life is radiating. Man’s life gathers to consume and keep; God’s life flows ever outward to give and bless. He who gives his own life in blessing is fed by the Life of the Universe in proportion to his giving. But he who receives of all the gifts of God for self-service, dies in the using. He whose life is given in blessing, is blessed by all; for “all things work together for good to them that love God.” More than this, as in the Revised Version, “God worketh all things with them for good.” It is no mere fortuitous combination working for man; it is the active working of God in the great channels of righteousness. Surely, who is more blessed than the one who is blessed of all? Then die to live, like the grain of good wheat. It falls from the seemingly careless hand of the sower or drops from a mouth of the insensate seeder. It seems to be lost forever. The dark soil covers it; the moisture softens it; the sun calls it; from it springs forth the tender shoot, which thrives by wind, and rain, and sunshine. The harvest comes, and, lo, the one lost seed is found a hundred seeds. So God will multiply the life of every one who lays all upon the altar for Him. Keep in mind the harvest.