Christmas According to Kids Part 2 — John the Baptist Knew - Friday
TODAY’S VERSE
John 3:30
“He must become greater; I must become less.” (NIV)
If there were a movie made about your life, what actor would you want to play you? I really don’t know who I’d get to play me, but they’d have to be comfortable with repeatedly microwaving their coffee, schlepping a toddler all over God’s green earth, and almost exclusively wearing yoga pants and my husband’s sweatshirts. That’s the REAL depiction of 98% of my life these days.
There was a lot on social media this year about people living with “main character energy.” It’s basically the idea that I should adopt a thought pattern that makes me the central figure in my life. It's about prioritizing yourself, taking control of your own narrative, embracing your unique identity, writing the story the way you want it to go, and having the confidence to do things that a “main character” would do.
But the irony and the freedom of the Christian life is that we are not the main character in our own stories. Jesus is. We were made for Jesus. We were made to enjoy Him. To know Him. To follow Him. To love Him. To glorify Him. HE is the central character in our story. It sounds so backwards from how the rest of the world tells us to find our purpose and meaning in life. Our culture could no more understand John the Baptist’s words now than it did 2,000 years ago when he said, “HE must become greater, I must become less.” But it is in the release of our own need to be at the center of our world that we actually find freedom, and meaning, and the reason why we’re here. When my life is about Jesus more than it’s about me, I am no longer burdened by the discontented striving of figuring out what will make me happy, or finding my sense of purpose, or knowing why I’m here.
When we claw our way through relationships and money and jobs and status and sex and expression and titles and talents in the search for who we are, we end up on a hamster wheel of trying to maintain our happiness and our identity based on external circumstances. And anytime we try to “find ourselves” or identify our life with outside things, we end up more lost than we were to begin with when they change or fail or are taken away. But if we lay down the need to be recognized or fulfilled or admired or satisfied with anything but Jesus, then we find thatin Him is everything we need and everything we are. Because whether our world is chugging along pretty good or whether everything around us is on fire, Jesus is the same. It’s all for Him. It’s all about Him. And we are the most “ourselves” when we are the most like Him.
APPLICATION
Listen to this song today.
PRAYER
Lord, make me more like Jesus. Just as John lived his life to point to Christ, let me be a living example of your gospel power too. More of you, less of me. I love you, God! Amen.
