He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

John 3:30 gives us the great phrase spoken by John the Baptist, "He must increase, but I must decrease." We say it so much, but it's almost like we think there's a simple little dial we can turn that fades us out, fades God in. But it's far from a one-time thing! Just like we are to daily pick up our cross and daily choose to forgive, we must also choose daily to decrease ourselves.

But what does that look like? For John the Baptist, it meant phasing out his ministry. It was an actual decrease in John's public appearances so Jesus' ministry would be supported. For most of us, however, it takes a very different meaning.

Just as John the Baptist came before Jesus, our physical bodies were around several years (some more than others) before being indwelled by the Holy Spirit. And although we did not know it, every piece of us was preparing the way for the Lord. Our God-given personalities, our special talents, even our appearances were present and crying our, "Don't worship me, I exist only to point to the one who is coming. I am amazing because He made me like this, and when He comes, we will be an unstoppable team!" And then that glorious moment ocurred when our names were written in the Book of Life, sealed eternally by His blood and our acceptance of it. At this point, much like in John 1:29-34, Jesus enters the scene. He purifies us, baptizes us with his Holy Spirit, gives us gifts to build up the rest of the body, and the rest of the story is about him - at least it should be.

But just as there were many who continued to follow, possibly even worship John the Baptist, many people continue to follow and focus on the physical aspects of our bodies. And all too often, our number one fan is ourself. We've been with ourselves for so long that we begin to think, "I created this part of me. My sense of humor existed before Christ was Lord of my life, so it is a part of me, not Christ." We try to split ourselves into sacred and secular, giving the sacred to God and keeping the secular for ourselves. But we are not split like that. 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20 say, "...do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a price."

Our entire body is sacred. Not in the sense that it is to be worshiped, but in the sense that it all was created by, and thus belongs to God. There is no sacred/secular. There is, however, a battle of wills going on. The old self constantly battles with the new self for attention, for worship. For us, the battle-weary Christians, the process of increasing Christ and decreasing self comes in laying down our will to glorify ourselves, laying down the desire to split ourselves into sacred/secular and continuing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God over all aspects of our life, looking less like ourselves each day and more like Christ.