You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
John 15:16-17
Andy The Lyft Driver Continue reading
Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife, Simone Contarini, Italian, about 1640 (Photo Credit: AlainTruong.com)
Today I started reading Drew Dyck’s excellent book Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets of Self Control from the Bible and Brain Science (A guide for sinners, quitters, and procrastinators). And tomorrow I’m going to NBA Summer League with my nephew Kassidy, so inspired by Drew Dyck, here’s one from the archives: Continue reading
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:15
My Three Best Friends Continue reading
“I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
Exodus 3:3
Another Setback In My Quest To Love Like Jesus
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:12-13
If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
John 15:7-11
“Ask Whatever You Wish . . .” Continue reading
If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
John 15:6
The Meaning Of Fire
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:4-5
Love Letters From Kathy Continue reading
“Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.”
John 15:3
In the last few posts from the book of John we talked about how every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. That word “prune” from last post’s text, in the original Greek, is the same word that’s used in today’s verse for the word “clean.”
I think cleaning is another way God can help us to become more fruitful. But I don’t think it’s an either or situation. To me it seems apparent that God uses both pruning, or taking things away from us (as we discussed in the last post from the book of John) to help us become more fruitful, and, He uses cleaning too. Continue reading
