John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘˜I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.  He must increase, but I must decrease.” John 3:27-30

Here is the well-known passage where John the Baptist calls himself the friend of the Bridegroom.  Where Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride (Rev 19:7-9; Eph 5:25-27), John the Baptist is what we call the “best man”.  And there is so much meaning in the comparison of the Church and the Bride that I will have to come back to that another time.  The Word that spoke to me today was about John’s example of humility.

John had his own ministry going on, his own followers.  But his end goal was not to gain popularity or influence but to “prepare the way of the Lord”.  He did not let earthly concerns interfere with the message of Christ.  His number one objective was to point to the Christ.

True confession: I must decrease and He must increase.  Often my personality, my feelings, my agenda act in concert to obscure the view, so that others do not see Christ when they look at me.  Yet:  From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God,who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:16-18).  Jesus gives us something beyond salvation.  He gives us the ministry of reconciliation.  We must move beyond consumption. We are partakers of the gift of salvation.  More and more, we must become givers.  Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  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.  These things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15:15-17).

I found myself thinking today about how, somehow, I am still clinging to things that do separate me from the love of Christ…fear, hurt, pain, my own shortcomings.  These are idols.  They, rather than Jehovah Jireh, occupy my thoughts lately.  This is the way of the world where, for too long, I have been a student.  This is the way I learned first.  My will resists the Way of Christ.  My will resists my own decrease.  My will struggles for its own survival, suffocating at the thought of decrease.  Are you stuck there too sometimes, dear one?  How often we forget it, what the Truth really is…we have a New Teaching:  We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin (Rom 6:6).  

The body of sin…brought to nothing…achieves freedom.  He must increase, we must decrease.  It is pride that causes us to dwell on ourselves.  It is humility that causes us to seek the Lord and His will rather than our own.  Letting go of our expectations, of our plans, of our boundaries, of our wounds…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:1a-2).

For our own sake, for the sake of others, for the sake of the Cross we must decrease and He must increase.

justAgirl…just like you