John 15:15-16 – No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Jesus has made friends with us. He didn’t hold back any information about what He was doing even though His disciples had a hard time understanding and now His disciples have made those teachings known to us in the Bible. As a result, we are His friends like they are.

Jesus also says here that the disciples didn’t choose Him, but that He chose them. This is the same for us today. When we choose to believe in Jesus, it isn’t because we have figured everything out, it is because Jesus chose to reveal Himself to us and remove the blindness we naturally have. Mankind is in a sinful state in this world. We cannot recognize a good thing without help. The Father had to choose us first so that we could realize that Jesus was good for us.

God wants us to be productive. That’s why we were “appointed.” He wants us to get whatever we ask the Father in Jesus name. Notice, again, that getting what we want is connected with being productive. We need to do what God wants before we expect Him to do what we ask. There are some who don’t read this part of the Bible and only pay attention to the parts where Jesus says He will give us anything we ask for. When they preach things like this they take the words out of their proper context as you can see for yourself here.

Instead of wanting God to fulfill our earthly pleasures, we should be loving each other and asking God to help us succeed at doing that! Then we will get what we want.