He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30
Acquiring Humility
“He must increase, and I must decrease”. How does this apply to us? (verse 30)
John the Baptist understood it was good for him to become less visible and known, and for Jesus to become more visible and known. He knew that it was time for his ministry to lessen and for Jesus’ ministry to flourish. John did not quit his work at this time, but he desired that everything he did point to Jesus. He knew that God had ordained it to be this way. (David Guzik, Enduring Word)
John the Baptist exemplifies for us that we may be popular and successful, and still humble. He is a true example of humility for us.
What about us?
In 2015, this was my theme verse accompanying my ONEWORD365, “Less”. It was in preparation for what was to come. I was dealing with chronic illness and slowly realizing that I had to give up increasingly more of my leadership roles. So many things became less in our lives, right down to Michael’s pastoral position, losing our place to live, having to downsize our lives, and losing salary and benefits which lead to no money in the bank account. God had prepared us to live through this in humility and grace.
Becoming less is a characteristic that applies to each one of us but also to each church. In our ministry, we often trained people to go on and do greater things than us. We were thrilled to see this happening. We have seen this in small churches, as well. We called them “sending churches”. They never rose above 75 people but so many preachers, missionaries, and leaders came through those church doors to move on and do remarkable things.
We have learned that humility is key to a godly life.
To study deeper into acquiring humility see Digging Deeper – John 3 at Gracefully Truthful
I am blessed to write for the women’s online Bible Studies, Gracefully Truthful. The above is just a portion of what I wrote for them this month. Click through to read more on this topic.
Pastor’s Wife (retired) & Chronic Pain Warrior blogs about how to make it through anything by relating her own life experiences to her writing. She is passionate about her love for the Lord and desires to spread that passion to others. She has a great desire to encourage women who are following behind her.