To Encourage You

John 15:7 “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

From our earliest years we’ve learned to wish for things. It’s like when we blew out the candles on our birthday cakes as little children and were told to first “Make a wish!” Seems like we wish for things all the time. We might wish for good weather, wish we felt better when we get sick, wish we had more money so we could do or have more things, or wish we hadn’t done this or that because of the consequences that came along with some bad decision.

We all know about Aladdin’s lamp and the wishes made possible when the genie appeared.  We’ve probably thought at one time or other how cool that would be. Well in the verse above we have a real promise from a real person, rather than a genie, about wishes. And this person is none other than the Son of God who has all power – the ability to create the world, to calm the wind and the waves with a few words, to raise the dead, and to turn water to wine. Consider that it is this person who has said “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

Sounds incredible, to say the least. But note the condition he places on this promise: “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish . . .”  These words were spoken in the context of the analogy of the vine (Christ) and the branches (believers). The believer abides, i.e., remains connected to the Christ by love, and that love is expressed by obedience to His words. So, the “if” here is that our requests of Him, our wishes, be based on our love of Him – that is our sole motive.

So, what does someone that truly loves Christ wish for. He wishes to glorify Christ in all that he does. He wants this more than anything else in life, and he realizes that to actually do this he is inadequate in and of himself. He needs the help of the Savior to live a life that actually glorifies the One who died for him. He wants to live out Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. He wants to be joyful and thankful no matter what the circumstances of life, and he wants to reach others with the gospel in the face of the inevitable opposition that will result.

It is these things that the one who loves Christ, who abides in Him, will wish for. And it is these things that Christ promises to fulfill in the lives of those that ask.