Christ Must Increase; I Must Decrease

Help me Lord and Forgive me God for my misguided priorities and my flawed perspective. I desire humility and seek forgiveness for my pride. Lord, I exalt thee!

The secret – at least for me – of knowing your God-given purpose is to spend time communicating (talking, but especially listening to) God. It may mean, like it does for me, that you need to inconvenience yourself to spend time with your King. I have discovered that I am actually pretty selfish. Not with material possessions or even my money, but with my time. I want to “spend” my time on what I want. I want to do what I want to do and in the process I forget about God’s desires and plans for my life…unless or until it is all of a sudden convenient for me to remember. This remembering God or making time for God usually occurs oh somewhere around 10 am on Sunday mornings and 7 pm on Wednesday nights (at youth group), and maybe occasionally during my quiet time in the morning. Forgive me Lord for my misguided priorities and flawed perspective. Forgive me for my selfishness.

In John 1:26-27, John the Baptist tells the Pharisees questioning him, “…among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Upon further investigation I learned that In Bible times disciples would perform all sorts of “acts of service” for their rabbis (teachers). But, loosing sandal thongs was expressly excluded as disciple work for a rabbi because it was considered slave work. In other words, John is saying that he is not even worthy to do the lowest of low tasks for the Son of Man who will be coming after him.

Later, in John 3:30, John responds to one of his complaining disciples who says, “Everyone is going to him (Jesus) – to be baptized.” John says to this disgruntled and selfish/prideful follower of his, “He must become greater; I must become less.” John goes on to say that he is like the friend of the bridegroom at a wedding – who WAITS and LISTENS for him (the bridegroom) and is FULL OF JOY when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. When John heard and saw Jesus baptizing, he said, “my joy is now complete.” Why would he make such a remark? John the Baptise realized that his God-given purpose of preparing the way for Jesus had been fulfilled. John fulfilled his role and moved out of the way to let Jesus do his thing. It’s as if John realized the inter-dependency of his humility and the resulting glory given to Christ.

Application: When people are complimentary to you and thanking you, and praising you, be aware enough to move out of the way of God’s glory and direct the compliments, thanksgiving, and praise heavenward to the King of kings and Lord of lords.