You Were Chosen to Bear Fruit

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John 15:16

Jesus told His disciples something that completely changed the way they could look at their lives: “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit.” These were ordinary men. Fishermen. A tax collector. People without impressive religious résumés. Yet Jesus looked at them and said, I chose you.

And He chose them for a purpose. Jesus said their lives were supposed to bear fruit—fruit that would remain. Their time with Jesus wasn’t only supposed to change them. What Jesus was doing inside of them would eventually spill into the lives of other people. And it certainly did. Two thousand years later, we’re still talking about Jesus because those ordinary people carried His message into the world.

That’s worth thinking about because we sometimes measure the impact of our lives by things that won’t last. Titles disappear. Possessions wear out. Accomplishments are eventually forgotten. But when we encourage someone, introduce someone to Jesus, love somebody through a difficult season, teach our children to follow Christ, forgive when it would be easier to remain angry, or plant a seed of faith in someone’s life, we may be producing fruit that outlives us.

You don’t have to have a platform to have a purpose. You don’t need thousands of people listening to you. Jesus can use a conversation, a text message, a prayer, an act of kindness or the way you love one person. We may never know how far those seeds travel. Our job is simply to stay connected to Jesus and keep planting.

Today’s thought: What kind of fruit am I leaving behind in the lives of the people God has placed around me?

Circle up!