Living a life of surrender to Christ
He Must Increase, But I Must Decrease The more room we make for Jesus, the less room there is for ourselves.
Scripture: John 3:30 (ESV) “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
There is something within our human nature that wants to be noticed, appreciated, recognized, and valued. We want our efforts to matter. We want our voices to be heard. We want people to acknowledge what we've accomplished, what we've sacrificed, and what we've contributed. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with wanting our lives to make a difference, there is a danger when our desire to be significant becomes greater than our desire to make Jesus known. Because the Christian life was never intended to be about making a name for ourselves. It's about making much of Jesus.
John the Baptist understood this better than most. John had a remarkable ministry. Crowds were coming to hear him preach. People were repenting, being baptized, and responding to the message God had entrusted to him. He had influence. He had followers. He had a reputation. But then Jesus came onto the scene. And something began to change. People who had once gathered around John were now going to Jesus. In fact, John's own disciples became concerned about it. They came to John and essentially said, "Everyone is going to Him!"
Think about that for a moment. John had spent his life faithfully serving God, and now the attention was shifting somewhere else. For many of us, that would have been a difficult pill to swallow. We might have felt overlooked. Forgotten. Maybe even a little threatened. After all, nobody likes feeling replaced. But John's response was extraordinary."He must increase, but I must decrease." What a statement!
John wasn't frustrated that Jesus was receiving more attention. He wasn't trying to protect his position or hold on to his influence. He understood something that we desperately need to remember. The purpose of his life wasn't to build his own kingdom. It was to point people to the King. And once the King arrived, John was more than willing to step aside. I wonder how different our lives would look if we approached everything with that same attitude.
What if our greatest concern wasn't whether people noticed us, but whether they saw Jesus in us? What if we cared less about receiving credit and more about bringing glory to God? What if we stopped measuring success by how much influence we gained and started measuring it by how faithfully we pointed others to Christ? Here's something I've been learning. Sometimes the greatest evidence of spiritual maturity isn't what we're willing to take on, but what we're willing to let go of.
Our pride.Our need to be right. Our desire to control everything. Our hunger for recognition. Our insistence on having things done our way. Those things have a way of competing for the very place in our hearts that belongs to Jesus. And here's the challenge: We can be busy doing things for God while still making much of ourselves. We can serve, lead, teach, give, and sacrifice, yet quietly become more concerned about our own importance than God's glory. That's why John's words are so powerful. He didn't say, "Jesus must increase, but I need to maintain my position." He didn't say, "Jesus must increase, as long as I still get some recognition." He said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."
There was no competition in John's heart. He knew who Jesus was, and he knew who he wasn't. And that understanding brought him freedom. Freedom from comparison. Freedom from jealousy. Freedom from the exhausting pursuit of trying to prove his worth.You see, when we understand that our lives belong to Jesus, we no longer have to compete for significance. Our identity is secure in Him. And when Christ is truly at the center of our lives, we can celebrate what God is doing through others without feeling diminished ourselves. We can serve without being seen. We can give without receiving credit. We can encourage someone else's success without questioning our own value. We can even step aside when God raises someone else up. Because it's never been about us in the first place. But there's another side to this that I think is equally important. Decreasing doesn't mean that we become less valuable, less useful, or less important to God. It doesn't mean we stop using our gifts, abandon our responsibilities, or pretend that our lives don't matter. It means we surrender the throne of our hearts to the One who rightfully belongs there.
It's not about thinking less of the value God has given us. It's about making more of the Savior who gave us that value. The more Jesus increases in our lives, the more His character should be reflected in the way we live. His humility begins to replace our pride. His compassion begins to replace our selfishness. His patience begins to replace our frustration. His purposes begin to take priority over our preferences. And His glory becomes more important than our recognition. That's what decreasing looks like. Not disappearing, but becoming more like Jesus. The apostle Paul expressed a similar truth in Galatians 2:20 when he said, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." What a beautiful picture of the surrendered life. A life that no longer revolves around self, but around the Savior. And perhaps that's the question we need to ask ourselves today. Am I making more room for Jesus, or am I still trying to make everything revolve around me?
It's a question worth asking in our marriages, our families, our ministries, our friendships, and even in the quiet places of our hearts that nobody else sees. Because the truth is, decreasing isn't a one-time decision. It's a daily surrender. Every day we have opportunities to choose humility over pride, obedience over preference, and God's glory over our own recognition. And every time we make that choice, we are declaring with our lives what John declared with his words. "He must increase, but I must decrease."
One day, all the applause of this world will fade. The titles, accomplishments, recognition, and positions we worked so hard to obtain will no longer matter. But what we have done for Christ will have eternal significance. So maybe today, instead of asking God to make more of us, we should simply ask Him to make more of Jesus evident through us. Because at the end of the day, the greatest testimony of a life surrendered to Christ isn't that people walk away impressed with us. It's that they walk away having seen more of Him. And if Jesus is seen more clearly because we've chosen to step aside, then we haven't lost anything that truly matters. We've fulfilled our purpose. He must increase. I must decrease. And that's not a loss. That's the beauty of a life lived for His glory.
A Thought to Carry With You
The goal of the Christian life isn't for people to see how great we are, but for them to see how great Jesus is.
A Prayer
Lord, forgive me for the times I've made life more about myself than about You. Forgive me for seeking recognition, holding tightly to my preferences, or allowing pride to take a place in my heart that belongs to You. Teach me what it means to decrease so that You may increase. Let my words, my actions, my attitude, and my relationships reflect more of Jesus and less of me. May people see Your goodness, Your grace, and Your love through the way I live. Above everything else, may You receive the glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.