God's invitation to men is broad but not unqualified. The words "whosoever will may come" throw the door open, indeed, but the church is carrying the gospel invitation far beyond its proper bounds, turning it into something more human and less divine than that found in the sacred Scriptures. What we tend to overlook is that the word "whosoever" never stands by itself. Always its meaning is modified by the word "believe" or "will" or "come." According to the teachings of Christ no one will or can come and believe unless there has been done within him a prevenient work of God enabling him to do so. In the sixth chapter of John, Jesus teaches as that no one can come of himself; he must first be drawn by the Father. "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," Jesus said. Before any man or woman can be saved, he or she must feel a consuming spiritual hunger. Where a hungry heart is found, we may be sure that God was there first-"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16).

A.W. Tozer's materials are a mainstay in Evangelical churches in our day and he is one of the most quoted authors. He was a prophet in his day and his writings are even more influential in our day. One of his books: The Pursuit of God, has had over 1 million copies sold world-wide.

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

WHO WILL COME TO JESUS?

. . . No man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, and though they are not easy to detect perhaps we may cautiously name a few. . .Another mark of the Spirit's working is a mighty moral discontent. In spite of our effort to make sinners think they are unhappy the fact is that wherever social and health conditions permit the masses of mankind enjoy themselves very much. Sin has its pleasures (Hebrews 12:25) and the vast majority of human beings have a whale of a time living. The conscience is a bit of a pest but most persons manage to strike a truce with it quite early in life and are not troubled much by it thereafter.It takes a work of God in a man to sour him on the world and to turn him against himself; yet until this has happened to him he is psychologically unable to repent and believe. Any degree of contentment with the world's moral standards or his own lack of holiness successfully blocks off the flow of faith into the man's heart. Esau's fatal flaw was moral complacency; Jacob's only virtue was his bitter discontent.Again before a man can be saved he must feel a consuming spiritual hunger. Anyone who lives close to the hearts of men knows that there is little spiritual hunger among them. Religion, pious talk, yes; but not real hunger. Where a hungry heart is found we may be sure that God was there first. ''Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you . . .'' (John 15:16)

Appointed to Be Eternal Fruit-Bearers

For Reading and Meditation:      John 15:12-27We continue meditating on the eighth and final Beatitude. One of the questions that has often puzzled people concerning this matter of suffering and persecution is this: Why is it that Christians, when they do good, are often persecuted, while non-Christians who do the same kind of good are adored? One commentator suggests the reason for this is that when non- Christians do good, other non-Christians find it easy to identify with them and say to themselves: "These people are just like me when I am at my best." The thinking that goes on below the threshold of a non-Christian's mind when he sees other non-Christians doing good is along the line of: "I am probably capable of the same thing myself if the opportunity came my way." The admiration that is then given is a way of paying a compliment to oneself. The Christian who does good has about him or her the atmosphere of another world, and because of this, the non-Christian observes, not just their act of good, but the different motivation that underlies the act. They sense that there is something different about this person, and because they cannot understand or explain the difference, they react with fear and the fear then turns to hostility. Psychologists have a name for this fear - xenophobia. It means fear of someone we do not know or understand. This is why the scribes and Pharisees hated our Lord so much. It wasn't because He was good; it was because He was different. This is the effect Jesus Christ always has upon the world. And to the extent that you reflect His spirit, to that extent you will experience the same reaction. "A Christian's reason for doing good is different"O Father, I see that if I just try to do good, the world will applaud me, but if I try to become Christlike, it will hate me. Nevertheless I long to be Christlike. Help me, dear Father, for apart from Your grace, I know it is not possible. Amen.<div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>Philippians 1:1-14</li><li>Colossians 4:3</li><li>2 Timothy 1:7-8</li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>How did Paul view persecution?</li><li>What was his charge to Timothy?</li></ul></div></div>

Let a little light into your soul every day with this wonderful devotional from English pastor Selwyn Hughes.

Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

"' you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." (v. 19)

For Reading and Meditation: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;John 13:1-38
What other teacher has taken the Ten Commandments and had the right to add another commandment to them? But this is precisely what Jesus did, as we see from our text today. "A new command I give you," He said. "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."
The Old Testament and other religious writings enjoined loving one another. What was new was this: "As I have loved you." Our Lord's conduct - "as I have loved you" - produced a new code for the human race. Paul, writing to the Philippians, catches the spirit of it when he says: "Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5, Moffatt). Here morality reaches its high-water mark. From the moment Jesus uttered the words that are occupying our attention, there came into human life something more than a code - there came a Character. Now, therefore, our code is a Character - the Character of Jesus.
When someone asks me if I believe in the Ten Commandments I say: "Yes, and very much more besides. I believe in Jesus." The Ten Commandments are an injunction - and a God-given one. But Jesus is an injunction plus an inspiration. To follow an injunction is to obey an imposed morality, but to follow a Person and do the things He does is an inspired morality. One is legalism, the other love. One binds you, the other frees you. One makes you feel trammelled, the other relaxed and spontaneous. Our code is not a commandment but a Character. One greater than the commandments is here.
O Christ, Your law lays upon me an injunction, but Your life entering into my life inspires me to live up to that injunction. It is this that makes Your yoke so easy. I am deeply, deeply grateful. Amen.
<div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around">
<div>
<div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0px;">
<li>John 15:1-17</li>
<li>James 2:8</li>
<li>Matthew 7:12</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
<div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div>
<ul style="margin-top: 0px;">
<li>What was the basis of Christ's love?</li>
<li>What is the basis of our being able to fulfill the Royal Law?</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you...

The margin of the New American Standard Bible reads "…give permanence to the work of our hands." Now that is a thought worth pondering and a request worth praying! We should make it our ambition to spend our lives doing that which will last.This finds an echo in the New Testament when the Lord Jesus said, "I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16).F. W. Boreham said that each of us should provide himself with some honorable occupation that he can do while his body is lying in the grave. But we should advance the thought beyond the grave and say that each of us should be building for eternity.So much of modern activity is of transient importance and of fleeting value. The other day I heard of a man who was devoting his life to a chemical analysis of fifty volatile chemicals in the skin of a Bartlett pear. Even Christians can fall into the trap of building castles in the sand, of chasing bubbles, and of becoming experts in trivia. As someone has said, we can be guilty of spending our lives straightening pictures in a burning house.There are many types of work that are of eternal significance, and we should concentrate on these. First is the development of Christian character. Our character is one of the few things we will take to heaven. It needs cultivating now.Souls won to Christ are of abiding importance. They will be worshipers of the Lamb of God forever and ever.Those who teach the Word of Truth, who disciple young believers, who feed the sheep of Christ are making a deposit in lives that will last indefinitely.Parents who raise their sons and daughters for the service of the Kingdom are assured that their work will endure.Faithful stewards who invest their money for Christ and His cause are engaged in a ministry that cannot fail.Those who devote themselves to the work of prayer will see some day how every prayer was answered in God's own time and way.Anyone who serves God's people is engaged in a work for eternity. The humblest servant of Christ has superior vision to the wisest men of the world. His work will last while theirs will go up in a mushroom cloud.

With reverence, humor and skill, William MacDonald wove a daily devotional tapestry that challenges the reader to think deeply and Biblically, and apply God's Word to their lives.

Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time

"Establish thou the work of our hands upon us." (Psalms 90:17)

Looking to Jesus.... (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)
There is a real touch of Paul in this Letter to 
the Hebrews – "Looking off unto Jesus." Whoever actually wrote this Letter, the 
shadow of Paul is over it. His influence is everywhere. And certainly he was 
called upon to look off unto Jesus. Now that is a very vital lesson for us to 
learn. We have to do that again and again in our Christian life. If we get our 
eyes upon anything but the Lord Jesus we just go to pieces. Have all respect for 
God's saints. I am not saying that you have to eye every servant of God with 
suspicion and be saying all the time: "Well, of course, he is not perfect, you 
know." Give honor to whom honor is due, but never build your faith upon any 
man, however good he may be.
And as for ourselves – well, I think perhaps we 
are more tempted to look at ourselves than anything else! This is one of our 
real Christian exercises. We have continually to remove our eyes from ourselves 
and everything to do with ourselves. There is nothing more discouraging than 
this self of ours, and nothing more misleading. Our own judgments are all wrong, 
and so are our thoughts and ideas. They are not God's thoughts. We must take our 
eyes off ourselves, but not look out into space and be vacant. "Look 
off unto Jesus," and you know how that sentence is finished – "Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith." Did you start this thing? Are you 
a Christian because you decided to be a Christian? Well, the Lord help you if 
that is so! No, He started this thing. Are you not glad that you can say: "It 
was the Lord who found me. It was the Lord who put His hand on me." What He 
said is very true: "Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). 
He was the author of our faith, and it says that He is the finisher – He will 
finish it.

This devotional contains short daily portions from a selection of Mr. Austin-Sparks' messages. In his own words, “Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!” Open Windows messages have been selected and compiled by Austin-Sparks.Net from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the editor and did not always appear within the original message.

Open Windows

The On-High Calling Volume 1 - Chapter 9

 The High Calling 

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. (John 15:16 NIV)

The new creation is in Christ.
It is not in you, and not in me, and never will be. All that it
will mean in time, and in eternity will be through our spiritual
union with Christ. All God's fullness is in Christ. We shall
receive all that fullness, and enjoy it in a practical
out-working. But this, while we are yet here in time, will ever
be by faith's union. In eternity, where the reception of that
fullness will be unhindered, the work of faith, though not its
fruit, will have passed. But we shall never be absorbed in Christ
in the sense that we become so many Christs. It will still be
Himself as distinct Who is to be glorified. We shall never be
glorifying ourselves, neither shall we be glorified by others as
though we were Christ. Christ is not some great widespread
essence, which is going to become the constitution of a great
multitude, so that that multitude becomes a Christ in essence. It
will ever be true that Christ remains apart in His Person, though
manifested in His glory and in His excellence in the saints, and
we shall still, therefore, be worshiping Him as objective and
distinct in His own Person from ourselves. 

Perhaps that hardly needs
saying. But it is very important that we should recognize that forever
God has bound up everything with His Son, and that nothing
will ever be had or enjoyed apart from Christ, while for this
present life that is only by faith in the Lord Jesus. The object
of this present emphasis is to seek, as the Lord will enable,
that there shall be an emancipation from ourselves; for that
occupation, that consideration, is always taking from
His glory. Let us ask the Lord to cut us really free from
ourselves by an unveiling and presentation of His Son to us, as
the sum total of all that ever God desires and wills.

The Essential Newness of the New Creation - Chapter 3

 The Essential Christ 

Daily Light on the Daily Path or Daily Light is a Christian daily devotional scripture reading published by Bagster & Sons about 1875. It has been reprinted continually since then. It consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes—two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. It appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself.

Morning Daily Light

 Bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 

Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? Jesus … saw two brothers … casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me.” § Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit … He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. § We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God.

Evening Daily Light

 Things which are despised God has chosen. 

<blockquote>
It is not you who chose Me, but it is I who chose you and appointed you that you might go and be fruitful" (<a id="verse_1632879864869749" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/John/15/16">John 15:16</a>, Wey.).
</blockquote>We must be born into our ministry, our service; and it must be born in us. Thus it will be a sharing of life, through which others will be born and will "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (<a id="verse_1632879864965083" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/2-Peter/3/18">2 Pet. 3:18</a>)."Our Father will never put work or service in the place of character; and, if we do that, eternity will reveal that, however much we may have done, we are very small amongst the inhabitants of the Land, whose stature will be measured by the measure of Christ.' It would be well if all who contemplate or are engaged in the work of God were governed by this one absolute final law: that, both as to themselves and as to those amongst whom they minister, the ultimate test is - not how much work is done, but how much of Christ is present, or results from the sharing." -T. A-S."The Gospel can never be fully preached by the eloquence of the evangelist; it finds its true authority only in the lives of those it has laid hold of. We live in a day when it is easy to evade the Cross worked out in our lives, and in which we are apt to place our confidence in modern methods, and techniques of evangelism. But lacking the solid evidence of godly living and devotion to the Lord Himself, these will become a fanfare of trumpets or the crashing of cymbals - nothing more' (<a id="verse_1632879864407332" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/1-Corinthians/13/1">1 Cor. 13:1</a>, Phil.) ." -J.C.M."Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen" (<a id="verse_1632879864334314" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Isaiah/43/10">Isa. 43:10</a>).

A 365 day devotional that will help you in your Christian growth and walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.  This devotional is a collection of quotes from some of the best authors in the realm of Christian growth that has been organized by Miles J Stanford.  This devotional study is divided into 12 sections each containing 31 daily portions.

None but the Hungry Heart

 In-born Ministry 

<blockquote>
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ" (<a id="verse_1632878019571288" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Philippians/3/7">Phil. 3:7</a>).
</blockquote>"Whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it" (<a id="verse_1632878019218527" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Luke/9/24">Lk. 9:24</a>). Once we learn this great paradox of the Lord, all will be gain, our good, and His glory."Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ' (<a id="verse_1632878019887977" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Ephesians/3/8">Eph. 3:8</a>). Unto me, who am less than the least.' In spiritual learning we take degrees downward, not upward, as in ordinary universities. It is a great temptation to those who serve to be arriving at something above the common standard, but God gives out His best work to less than the least.' His service wants depth, not height." -C.A.C."The test of genuine revelation is as to whether the one concerned is manifestly well crucified to a desire for power, position, influence. Can that one be resisted, assailed, thwarted, rejected, without in some form seeking to come out even or on top? An element of personal domination or self-vindication will spoil the outreach and discredit the servant. Oh, the peril of getting hold of Divine Truth in order to use it!" -T. A-S."We are wounded in order that we may learn from the great Physician how to bind up wounds and give aid. The Father visits us with trials in order to teach us to carry the burdens of others. We ourselves must first go to school before we can be teachers of others.""Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (<a id="verse_1632878019862836" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/John/15/16">John 15:16</a>).

 The Way Up Is Down 

16 <woj>You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. </woj> 17 <woj>This is my command: Love each other. </woj>

<woj>You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you<cr>1</cr> so that you might go and bear fruit<cr>2</cr> —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.<cr>3</cr> </woj>

John 15:16

<woj>This is my command: Love each other.<cr>1</cr> </woj>

John 15:17

 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you   so that you might go and bear fruit  —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.   17 This is my command: Love each other.  

From Wikipedia: 

The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.

The NIV is published by Zondervan in the United States and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. The NIV was updated in 1984 and 2011 and has become one of the most popular and best-selling modern translations.

OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia; additional sources;
NT: UBS Greek New Testament; Novum Testamentum Graece; additional sources;

New International Version

 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:16-17

<woj>You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. </woj> <woj>This is my command: Love each other. </woj>

 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you   so that you might go and bear fruit  —fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.   This is my command: Love each other.  

Bible Verse of the Day

December 18, 2020

John 15:16-17 NIV

Verse by Verse Bible Study

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