John 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

Here Jesus speaks to the heart of the germination I spoke of yesterday. You can relate to this spiritual concept in your born again life by comparing spiritual with the natural. In this the first three stages of germination directly relate to being born again.

Those three stages are imbibition, respiration and light. All three must occur before the root grows into a fruit bearing tree. (ref Psalm 1:3)

Consider again that the seed is the gospel being planted in your heart. The nature of the seed is to achieve God’s will in your heart.

Imbibition is a swelling of the seed and causing expansion by the introduction of water. Water spiritually is represented by the spirit. The spirit causes the Word to expand in your heart until like the corn of wheat, the container, bursts.

Psalm 34:18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

Second is respiration and perhaps the easiest to understand. God breathing life back into us.

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

The third is light. God’s Word, Jesus Christ.

John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

This is how God’s love germinates our souls.

But first, the seed must be cast abroad liberally where it might lay dormant until the spirit seizes the right time for Imbibition.

Deuteronomy 4:37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;

This is the first direct scripture indicating that God loves man. Every other love expression before this was man for wife or father for son. If we are to discover any real meaning to the Greek word Agape that we use to express God’s perfect love, then the search begins here. The word in Hebrew is ‘ahab and has no distinction as to how God’s love is any different than that expressed by man, meaning affection.

What distinguishes God’s love towards man is in what He does for man. God saw to it that the seed of them that He loved would be saved from slavery. I think it is important to realize that His love could have been demonstrated without the inclusion of two vital words to my understanding, sight and seed.

Since Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the New Testament was translated into and from the Greek, we have no real sense of what Jesus meant by love other than His actions. This is very much like His Father in that sense. Chaldean and Aramaic are both influencers of Hebrew and very similar in structure. Hebrew and Chaldean would have a clearer understanding of His Aramaic speech.

In the BLB.org I find the Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon has a meaningful word that satisfies my understanding of Agape love. It satisfies my understanding because of what God has done in my life thru His Son Jesus Christ. That meaning is “to germinate”.

If the seed, the Word of God, the Gospel, is planted in my heart, it must be germinated to take root. If there is no root there is no growth, and no production of fruit with seeds of their own. Without germination no life is produced.