Tuesday, September 15, 2026
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.
Historical Context
John sets this scene on the last night before Jesus was arrested, during a long teaching session he gave to his closest followers. Judas had already left to betray him, and eleven men remained with Jesus as he spoke.
Outside that gathering, danger was already moving. The chief priests and the Jewish council had already decided that Jesus had to die and had enough influence to act quickly once he was arrested. Rome held the power to execute a prisoner, but the local leadership supplied the charge and set the timeline. Within hours, soldiers would take Jesus from a garden outside the city, and by morning he would stand condemned to death.
Jesus knew what was coming, and he used the time to warn them plainly. The world that hated him would hate them too, and soon they would lose him as someone they could see and touch.
He spoke these words of assurance into that coming loss. Whatever kept the disciples steady over the next few days and in the years of preaching that followed would have to rest on more than their own resolve.
Reflection
Jesus tells his disciples plainly that this relationship flows from him to them. He picked them, gave them their assignment, and set them up to produce fruit that keeps growing long after they are gone.
He went looking for them, found fishermen and a tax collector, and put them to work, choosing them for the job rather than waiting to be chosen.
That has a plain use for anyone who ties their standing to how well they keep up their side of things. A life of faith does not draw its strength from how firmly a person feels on a good day. Jesus says plainly that he moved first and that the choosing and the appointing were his to make. That is steadier ground than anything a person can build on their own effort.