Lasting Fruit

Lasting Fruit

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

WHEN WE’RE CHILDREN, we simply want our needs met. But as we grow, we find ourselves in a lifelong search for significance. We want meaning and purpose. We want to do things that last. Why? Because we were designed for eternity.

There’s nothing wrong with praying for our needs and even many of our wants. God loves to satisfy the desires of his people (Psalm 37:4; 145:16). But as we grow, we realize that’s not enough. Our lives are not just about getting by, staying safe, and enjoying ourselves along the way. We begin to long for eternal fruitfulness, meaningful work, and fulfilling results. We crave the shalom of his Kingdom—that sense of wholeness, completeness, and peace—and begin to pray for ways to enter into it. Some of those ways are off target; the things we pray for aren’t going to make everything just right and solve all our problems as we might hope. But the desire is good, and the Holy Spirit has likely stirred it up for a reason. He urges us to pray with an eternal perspective.

This is where God-sized dreams and Holy Spirit movements are born. We may think some of those dreams and goals are our own ideas, and perhaps our specific pictures of them are. But the art of envisioning is from God. He chose us for a purpose. He planted eternal desires within us. He created us for lasting fruit. We can only bear that kind of fruit through him, and one of the ways we accomplish it is by asking and receiving in Jesus’ name—in his identity, with his righteousness, and for his purposes and glory. We become his agents in this world.

Don’t narrow that down to a tight, stereotyped definition of the Great Commission. Our purpose most certainly includes that, but not all of us are extroverted evangelists. We bear fruit by demonstrating the Father’s nature and drawing others into a lifelong relationship of joy, peace, and fulfillment with his Son. “Whatever you ask for” within that vision is enormously pleasing to him.

The Word of God represents all the possibilities of God as at the disposal of true prayer.