SSMT Verse 20 - John 15:16

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

It's funny how some things all kind of dovetail together.

I had posted the first two posts in  the series on 'Lies the Enemy Tells Me'; then days 3 and 4 of the first week of the Finding Eve study guide instructed me to take a long look at... the lies the enemy told me.    On the Facebook page, Rita encouraged us to take as much time as we needed on this part; not to hurry.

There are at least two more posts coming on that series; but when I read "When you were told your first lie it was a direct hit against God's truth about you." I had to go back and look at the first lie.


And I was suddenly confronted with the idea that it wasn't a random attack; that that particular lie was told to me for a reason. What if...that lie was told to me because the Enemy was trying to drive me as far away from the truth as he could?  What if...that lie wasn't just a lie, but was the opposite of the truth?

As I pondered that, I found that a few lines down the page, she challenged us to pray, "Lord, I choose now to believe the opposite of those lies. I commit to you today that I am willing to believe in your purpose for my life. I choose the opposite of what all these lies have spoken."

What is the opposite of a jinx?

I was reeling.  This was new, uncharted territory.

There's a big difference between deciding something is simply not true and deciding that it is the exact opposite of the truth.

How would my prayer life be different if I really believed that the enemy told me I was a jinx because the opposite of it was true?

I looked at that verse I put on that post to counter the jinx lie; I'd used the ESV because that was what was handy at that moment, so I looked it up in NIV, thinking I'd use it for my next SSMT verse.  But somehow, it seemed a little less powerful in the NIV:

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.

That reads as a linear thought -- you do this, then the Father will do that.  But when I read the ESV, it didn't seem quite so linear.  So I dug out my Greek/KJV interlinear and read:

Not ye me chose, but I chose you, and appointed you that ye should go and fruit should bear and the fruit of you should remain, that whatever ye may ask the Father in the name of me he may give you.

As convoluted and backward as that seems, it also appears that these are parallel thoughts, not linear.

For a better explanation, I pulled out the Amplified:

You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you - I have appointed you, I have planted you - that you might go and bear fruit and keep on bearing; that your fruit may be lasting (that it may remain, abide); so that whatever you ask the Father in My name [as presenting all that I AM] He may give it to you.

That breaks it down even more, with the semi colons, the thought becomes very clear:

I have chosen you  so that 1) you might bear fruit 2) that fruit will remain and 3) whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you.

The promise of whatever you ask is not dependent upon the first two phrases, it is parallel to them.  It is part of the reason Christ chose us ...chose me.

Notice, though, the implications of  asking something in Christ's name.  This is not just tacking on a formulaic, 'In Jesus' name I pray, Amen' on to the end of a prayer...this is standing in the place of Jesus in a situation, representing Christ in that situation and asking for what Jesus asks for.  That's a responsibility; that's relationship.

So I am breaking my little self imposed rule that I would memorize everything in NIV.  For this verse, I'm using the ESV:

You have not chosen 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.  John 15:16 ESV