“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit — fruit that will last.” (John 15:16, NIV)
Have you ever wondered what it means to be chosen by God?
Notice what comes first. Before the words appointed, fruit and will last. It is the word Chose.
You did not choose Him. He chose you. And only after that choosing did the appointing come. Only after the appointing did the bearing of fruit come. The whole sequence rests on a foundation God laid before you ever lifted a hand to work, to prove, or to earn.
Heaven set this order. Most of us have reversed it.
Bearing Fruit Is Not How You Become Chosen
You will exhaust yourself if you live as though your fruit makes you chosen.
So many of us walk around bearing. Bearing in the workplace, in our homes, and in every room we enter. We are pressing forward believing that if we just produce enough, achieve enough, serve enough, then maybe we will finally earn the yes we have been chasing.
We are expending energy that opposes this word. God chose you first. The fruit is not the audition. It is the overflow. The fruit grows naturally out of a life that already knows it is held.
You do not bear fruit to become chosen. You bear fruit because you already are.
The Fruit That Lasts Grows from a Rooted Place
Notice the rest of the verse: fruit that will last (John 15:16, NIV).
Fruit that lasts does not come from a striving place. Striving fruit withers because anxiety waters the root. Fruit that lasts grows from a rooted place. The root is your chosenness.
This is exactly the truth my guest Felicia “Febe” Bates Pointer carried into our latest episode of Change Your View. Felicia states she is chosen. Her whole story testifies to what becomes possible when a woman stops trying to earn what God already gave her. Listen to the entire episode, here.
When you know God chose you before you ever produced a thing, you stop producing from fear and start producing from fullness. You stop laboring to earn a seat and start laboring from one God already gave you.
You become enough not because you finally did enough, but because the One who chose you already declared you so.
A Question for Reflection:
What is stopping you from believing in you are chosen?
🎙️ Hear more on this: Listen to Chosen, Not by Chance — my conversation with Felicia “Febe” Bates Pointer — on the latest episode of Change Your View. Listen Now
