Take Out The Trash!
Monday's Devotion (5-26-08)
"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30 (KJV)
This is a great verse. It's telling us that we must no longer live to ourselves, but Jesus must live through us. He must increase, but I must decrease... It's a simple right to the point message. The message is simple, but the process of decreasing ourselves and increasing Christ in us isn't so simple. I can always tell when I'm increasing and Jesus is decreasing, it's sometimes the opposite of what it's supposed to be! Jesus can't live through us if we're taking up all the space! It's like renting a hotel room, you can't rent a room that's already being rented by someone else. If we're living unto ourselves and not unto Christ then He is decreased... But if we live and do the things that He would have us do then He is increased and we are decreased, and that's what we need.
The problem comes with this: When we feed our flesh it gets stronger! In other words when we give into our sinful desires then those desires grow stronger, we become more corrupt, and it becomes harder to follow Christ and increase Him and decrease ourselves. We can't decrease ourselves if we're feeding the flesh. It's like saying, "I'm going to lose weight," right before you stuff your gut with 20 pounds of food. If you do that then you're not going to lose weight, you're going to gain weight. You have a spirit, and you have the flesh and they're both hungry... BUT you can only feed one of them, the other has to starve. Are you going to starve your eternal spirit or your temporary flesh? Which is more important to save? Feed the spirit, let the flesh starve because it's going to die anyway! It's only temporary, but the spirit is eternal. Now, increasing Christ and decreasing ourselves does involve some changes. We have to give up things that are sinful in our life, we have to start doing things that are right. When we see people in need then we have to do something to help, we can't just walk away. We have to make positive changes and get rid of all the negative garbage in our lives in order to increase Christ. We have to take out the garbage! I can't tell you what garbage you need to take out, because just like with real garbage... Everyone has different things to throw away! I'm pretty sure you won't find any two trash cans with identical trash inside. You might find a couple of items that are the same, but as a whole the garbage is different. It's the same with our lives, I have different items (sins) to throw away than you might have. I have different things that I need to change than you, but rest assured that we ALL have things that need to be thrown out. If you look close enough you'll probably find that we all have bad habits, and bad addictions... You might be addicted to money, another guy addicted to pornography, and another addicted to drugs. The bottom line is that we all have issues to deal with in order to INCREASE Christ and DECREASE ourselves.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've sinned against us. Please help us to increase your Son in us and decrease ourselves. Help us to overcome whatever we are struggling with. In Jesus name. A-men!
God bless!