I chose you....

You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. --John 15:16 NLT

Since we were in Greenville this morning I went to the church we went to while we lived there. It was good even though I went by myself. (Annie was not feeling well, so I went to "pray for her soul.") Dr Paige mentioned the verse above as kind of a foot note. And like all the other foot notes in life, it spoke to me at a decibal of 10 (in case you were wondering, 10 is like jumbo jets, and rock concerts.)

There are a few things that jump out at me with this verse.
1.) You didn't chose me. I chose you.
--Are you kidding me? Can it be possible that the GOD who created everything from aardvarks to Zebras picked me? That's better than being picked first for a pick-up game of basketball! (Not that I would really know what that feels like. ) You know what else? This portion of the verse puts the emphasis back where it needs to be on HIM. HE CHOSE US (or at least me).
2.) I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit...
--Here where this verse screams at me. The NIV states: I chose you to bear fruit. (This was the version Dr Paige used this morning. ) So wait. I need to bear fruit? What does that mean exactly? This isn't a 10:30 type of question ("if you could be a tree, what type of tree would you be?") What exactly does bearing fruit mean?
God has really been convicting me of this lately. Let's just say, my tree probably doesn't look much different than that of a non-christian. (It's more of a shrubbery, than a tree at this point.)
I have to thank my hot, thought-provoking wife. God used her blog about being less like Martha to speak to me. (I would link to it, but what's the point? If you are reading this, you probably found it by jumping from her blog.) Because, I am not even Martha, more like Martha's lazy husband who wants the hoopla to die down so he can watch the game, or take a nap.
Not much fruit there huh?
So, back to the question at hand. What exactly is fruit? Discuss it amongst yourselves. We will reconviene tomorrow. Same Bat-time. Same Bat-channel.