Is this Anti-American?

He must become greater; I must become less.  John 3:30

Make sure you read the passage above.  Read it close.  Pay attention to the words.  He must become greater and I must become less.  Is that the American way?  Is that the way we’re taught in school, business, books, anywhere? 

We don’t teach this mentality anywhere that I can think of.  I hesitated to include the title that I did to this devotion.  Jesus is not anti-American.  He’s not anti any specific country that I know of, but he is anti selfishness.  And John knew it.  These words come from John the Baptizer.  His disciples weren’t sure what to think about this Jesus dude doing what John was doing.  He was stepping on John’s turf!  He was going to steal John’s sheep.  What was he up to anyway?  John’s reply – it’s cool!  I’m not God so I’m not going to pretend to be him.  That dude who’s stealing “my people” is Jesus, and they are his people.  He’s the one who is way better than I’ll ever be!  As a matter of fact I am going to shrink into the background and let him take center stage. 

We’re a lot like John’s disciples in this story.  We panic when people from our church start going to a different church.  We have a hard time with turf wars of our own.  We want to be the biggest and the best!  We want the greenest yard, the cleanest car, the most well-behaved children, and the list goes on and on.  We don’t want to become less no matter what! 

Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:8 that those who are pure in heart, aka thinking of others first, keeping God’s desires at our heart – that they will see God.  When we decrease, God will increase.  When we shrink into the background of our own lives, we’ll be able to see God more clearly.  When we put our own junk away for a little while and let Jesus become the central portion of our lives, we might actually get to experience something cool.  We might actually get to see Jesus!  We might actually be able to experience the greatness of God. 

Jesus, we pray that we might be able to decrease so that you might increase.  Help our thoughts to be more aligned with yours.  Help us to experience your way of living as we live our lives this week.  Amen.