📖 The most important words in human history

How Jesus’ words in John 15 reveal the goal for all human life

January 20, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

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The most important words in human history

All humanity was gone in a flash, taken up in blue flames, and merged into an entity beyond our comprehension.

That is the ending to Arthur C. Clarke’s 1953 novel Childhood’s End.

I sincerely apologize if I spoiled it for you but… 1953. So, yeah.

In Clarke’s novel, the purpose of humankind was to evolve to the point where they’d be ready to merge with the “Overmind,” a transcendent hive mind-like entity composed of other species that have reached their own evolutionary peak.

I thoroughly enjoyed Childhood’s End. I found it imaginative, challenging, and thought-provoking.

As a follower of Jesus, however, I have a different view of humanity’s destiny.

“Abide and Bear Fruit”, the Goal of All Humankind

Childhood’s End got me thinking about, well, the end. 

What is human experience leading to? What were we made for?

This whole life is leading to something.

Not long ago, I was having lunch with a friend, an older man I consider something of a mentor. As we ate together, we discussed all the different discipleship methods present in an endless stream of Christian books.

Then he made a point I haven’t been able to shake.

He said that all these different methods could be boiled down to one point Jesus already made…

Abide and bear fruit.

That’s it. That’s the goal of human life. That’s what our collective experience is leading us to.

John Chapter 15

Jesus spelled it out for us two thousand years ago.

Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

(John 15v4, emphasis added)

For Jesus, a complete human life is one in which an individual abides in Him and bears fruit.

Of course, that poses the question… what does it mean to bear fruit? And how is it done?

We’ll spend the coming week exploring that very question. You’ll find that bearing fruit is transcendent and common; divine and rather human. It’s a flowing paradox that takes us to the same destination…

…life and life to the full.

I highly encourage you to read the rest of John 15.

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” -Jesus

For now, be blessed.

Jon,

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