You did not choose 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.
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father[4] does, that the Son does likewise.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.[4]
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing -- as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.[2]