Hosanna Restoration Church

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. (John 3:30 NLT)
In a world where self love, self acceptance, and self promotion are what is promoted, the Bible may appear to be way out of whack, but actually it is right on. Think about it. When we are actually free to love our neighbor as ourselves, we are in a good place. However, when we are so busy loving ourselves; we do not have time to really love others. There are of course exceptions and times when we do what we were created to do, but without Christ at the top of our lives we really have just one focus and that is us. We are what is mostly on our minds.
That is why it is so important that He becomes greater and greater in our lives. The more He displaces me, the more of Him I have. The more of Him I have the better off I am and the better off everything and everyone around me is. This is how we change the part of the world around us. As we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, we in turn can transform the world around us. Think of the woman at the well. Jesus talked to her and turned her shame into fame. She was so excited that she took what she learned and transformed her city.
John the Baptist had a perfect response when they came to tell him that he was losing the competition to Jesus. John was not in competition. He understood his role and so instead of giving in to the temptation to make it about him, He made it all about Jesus.
I can see him with a big smile jumping up shouting about how awesome the news was, explaining to them that this was perfect; just what the Father ordered. It was probably one of the greatest moments of his life. You see, when we are on the throne, we are all alone. We have to keep trying to keep everything stacked up nicely. It is like trying to stack marbles on top of each other. Things just keep rolling off. We can think we are doing pretty well, then something shakes the table and it all falls apart. Jesus is the glue that can and will keep things together, but until we see that, we live a life of frustration.
Thirty-five years ago, I was frustrated and did not know it. I had no idea that I had a short time to live. I never suspected that in six months Jesus would come to life in me and I would die. In my mind I was fine. I was getting more miserable without noticing it. Then I met Jesus! I had no idea what happened, but I knew something did. I knew I just had to have more of Jesus. I really understood very little of what was going on, but I did see that I liked the space He filled in my life more that the space that was filled by me.
Now after all those years, I find that there is still a lot of room that needs to be filled by Jesus. The greatest moments in my life are those when I see that He has increased and I have decreased.