He Must Become Greater
I have an enemy. He is a cunning & ruthless enemy. He confronts me and challenges me at every turn I take. His tactics are subtle at times and blatantly obvious at others. He constantly seeks to distract me from my calling & mission. His goal is to turn the gaze of my attention away from heaven and direct them towards the things of earth.
I have an enemy and that enemy is me.
One of the greatest challenges I constantly face is to make my life about God and not about me. Rick Warren begins his seminal work, The Purpose Driven Life, with a similar sentiment: “It’s not about you!”
Rick understood what many of us know but don’t want to admit. All too often, we make our lives about us and not about others…about us and not about God. Even when we have a deep relationship with Jesus and a clear understanding of our calling — to love God and love others — we all too often make this life about us. It’s simple to understand why.
Everywhere I go, I am there.
When I wake in the morning, I am there.
When I sit at the breakfast table with my family, I am there.
When I go to work, I am there.
When I prop my feet up at the end of the day, I am there.
When I lay my head on my pillow and drift to sleep, I am there.
I am everywhere I go and — despite my best efforts — I am all too often the center of my world. Even when I try not to be. Even when I try to make God and others the center of my world.
This is the sin of self. And it is a sin I have been wrestling with since I was born. It is the sin mankind has been wrestling with since the Garden.
One of the reasons I am captivated by the life of John the Baptist is because his life was rarely about himself. He lived with his gaze constantly directed towards the coming Messiah. And when he witnessed the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus that day in the Jordan, John’s gaze narrowed even further. He turned the spotlight away from himself and redirected it towards Jesus.
It could be said that the mantra of John’s life was simple: “It’s not about me.”
When the religious leaders of the day came in droves to listen to John teach and to drill down into his message, John would simply reply: “It’s not about me.”
When the crowds would gather round to hear his message and then respond en masse to his call for repentance & baptism, John would say: “It’s not about me.”
When his own followers would become envious of the crowd that Jesus was attracting, John would say: “It’s not about me.”
John the Baptist was baptizing at Aenon, near Salim, because there was plenty of water there; and people kept coming to him for baptism. (This was before John was thrown into prison.) A debate broke out between John’s disciples and a certain Jew over ceremonial cleansing. So John’s disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us.”
John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom’s friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.” (John 3:23–30)
“It’s not about me. It’s all about Jesus. Don’t follow me…follow Him!”
It’s easy to write this off as a passing moment in John’s life but he carried this belief even to his beheading in Herod’s prison. (We’ll save that story for another day.)
John’s singular focus challenges my constant self-focus.
John’s singular focus upon Jesus causes me to ask myself some unsettling questions. When people look at my life, do they see me or do they see Jesus? When people look at my life (or my social media feed), do they see me directing the spotlight on myself or do they see me consistently shining the light on others? When people look at my life, do they see me celebrating the success of others or do they only see joy on my face when I celebrate my own achievements?
A life that emulates John the Baptist is a life fully-surrendered to the things of Jesus with the things of self being constantly cast aside. It is a life that seeks to make Jesus greater and self less.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.” (Matthew 16:24–25)
I have an enemy and that enemy is me.
