We Are Chosen, And...

The other day I was going through my morning devotion and one of the texts for reading and prayer was John 15:12-17.  This chapter of the Gospel of John contains Jesus’ commandment to love one another.  Verse 16 jumped out at me, and with this being a new year, I thought it would be a good memory verse to undergird the year.

You did not choose me but I chose you.

And I appointed you to go and bear fruit,

fruit that will last,

so that the Father will give you

whatever you ask in my name.

We are chosen and loved.  The love is of God.  Because we know God first loved us, we are invited to be in relationship with God in Christ and also with the human race.  In relationship we are called to bear fruit that is not the throw away kind that our society often espouses.  It is fruit that will match the deep and abiding love of God.  On top of that, when we pray for fruit that will last, God will give it graciously in Jesus’ name.

The fact that we are chosen is only the beginning.  It’s the part about the relationships and tasks to which we are asked to engage that the going gets harder.  Jesus says we will never be alone when we have to love the unlovely and when we are asked to endure something difficult for his sake.

I am going to be more intentional this year about praying to God so that the fruit I bear, by God’s grace, will be of the lasting kind.  Perhaps you could join me in that endeavor.  Someone once told me that when you meditate on a verse like this and say it slowly in your mind, it drops like pearls into your deepest being.  May it be so for you and for me.

In Christ,

Anne Clifton H

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