Our Eternal Destiny

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. John 15:16

I once worked for Pan Am, America’s Airline to the World.  Though the airline was floundering financially I remember thinking, “ There will always be a Pan Am.”  I was wrong! The airline went out of business in 1991.  The fruit I bore for Pan Am did not last. But in the passage quoted above Jesus says he has appointed me, and all of his followers to bear fruit that will last. He was talking about work that advances his eternal kingdom, starting right now.  What an awesome destiny – to do work that has eternal consequences!  If I had been there when Jesus spoke those words I think my response might have been, “Not me, I can’t do anything that important!”  But now, as I reflect on Jesus’ next statement I am humbled. Jesus was not talking about something his followers would do because of their own natural strength and wisdom, but something the Father would give them if they would just ask in faith, believing!  Then I think of that other scripture by the apostle Paul, “… we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). If God himself has prepared each of us uniquely to do something good that has eternal consequences, then I am just being faithless if I say I can’t do the things He prepared for me to do.

But how can I know what God has prepared me to do?  True wisdom has been the topic of some of my earlier meditations and now it comes up again.  In general the way any of us know what God has been preparing us to do is by knowing God and knowing ourselves in Christ. But I must be more specific than that. To be continued…