Monthly Archives: August 2015

You may remember the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids movie trilogy about a scientist father who accidentally reduces his family to the size of insects with his electromagnetic shrink ray. Today I’d like to offer a word of encouragement about a different kind of shrinking, the kind that comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This supernatural shrinkage causes us to decrease while our Lord increases.

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30 ESV)

These words are contained in the final discourse of John the Baptist in the New Testament’s fourth gospel. God raised up John to be the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. To say that John’s ministry was “successful” would be an understatement of gargantuan proportions. And yet we can find no selfish ambition or self-centeredness in John anywhere. When asked who he was, John made it clear that he was totally content to be what he was not. He asserted that he was not “the Prophet” or “Elijah” or “the Christ.” John was utterly devoid of any narcissism as he played the divine role God had called him to play as a “voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (John 1:23 ESV).

John the Baptist possessed the supernatural strength to shrink because he had Jesus. His identity was in his Messiah, not in his ministry. He found his significance only in his Savior. His purpose in life was rooted in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John was just like the apostle Paul when it came to his understanding of life: to live was Christ . . . and Christ alone. John’s heart beat for nothing smaller than Jesus, right up until it beat its last at the hands of the sword of the wicked King Herod.

Only those who have their identity in Jesus can say, “He must increase and I must decrease.” John found joy in this truth, the kind of joy that simply cannot be shaken by outward circumstances. John’s joy was an inside job, created by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

One more thing about this incredible shrinking man. John the Baptist said he was unworthy to untie the laces of Jesus’ sandals, a job that only a gentile slave would be required to do prior to washing his master’s dirty feet. This godly man, of whom Jesus said, “Among those born of women there is no one greater than John” (Luke 7:28), considered himself lower than the lowliest slave in comparison to the King of kings and Lord of lords.

How is it with you? How are you doing in the area of decreasing? And is Jesus increasing in your life? Remember that these two actions—decreasing and increasing—go hand in hand. Jesus will not increase in your life if your life is too full of yourself. But the more you decrease, the more He will increase; and that, beloved, will make your joy complete!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN! 

Today I’d like to lift up a biblical model that comes from the life of the One who was constantly engaged in what I call “errands of eternal encouragement.”

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. (Acts 10:38)

Jesus spent His short time here on this earth in the ministry of going around doing good. Wouldn’t that be well said of all of us . . . that we poured out our lives going around doing good? I want to call your attention to a few particulars that can be a source of great inspiration to you today, right where this finds you. Jesus went around doing good . . .

INTENTIONALLY – Jesus was intentional about everything He did, especially as it related to going around and doing good. I have always found it remarkable to find these words at the beginning of John’s account of Jesus meeting the woman at Jacob’s well: Jesus “had to pass through Samaria”! Whatever the reasons that Jesus had for going through Samaria, which certainly included His divine appointment with the Samaritan woman, He passed through intentionally. It was no accident or a random roll of the dice that Jesus met this woman and offered her the gift of eternal salvation; our Lord’s entire life was marked by doing good intentionally.

PERSONALLY – Jesus went around doing good personally. He could have sent any or all of His disciples on His behalf to do all the good He intended to do, but He did not. He went around personally. He spoke with the woman at the well; He traveled for days to raise Lazarus from the tomb; He dined with Zacchaeus in his home; and He recruited the fishermen on the shoreline. Jesus personally touched the eyes of the blind and the skin of the leper; He changed water into wine at the wedding at Cana; He cleansed the temple in Jerusalem; and He talked late into the night with the religious leader Nicodemus.

Our Lord Jesus Christ engaged in His errands of eternal encouragement both intentionally and personally. He not only left us with a picture of encouragement but also with a model to follow. We must be intentional about going around doing good, or we will simply never find the time to get around to doing it! And make no mistake, it is one thing to have a good thing done on your behalf; it is another thing altogether to do good and do it yourself.

If we are to be models of our Master in living out the truths of the Gospel, we must not grow weary in our well-doing (Galatians 6:9). We will look for ways to meet people in their place of need and we will do the work ourselves as much as it is within our power.

In only 3 ½ years, how busily was our Lord engaged in the lives of others! But don’t miss this important truth: He often retreated to quiet places to spend time in prayer with His Father in heaven. He was always operating in the strength of His Holy Spirit, and if we are to live lives marked by going around doing good, we too should often retreat to spend time in prayer with Jesus.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!    

We have a responsibility to pass on the exalted truths of God from generation to generation. And that includes not only proclaiming His hand of mercy, but His hand of judgment. The combination of these divine attributes provides us with a full-orbed picture of God’s eternal plan of redemption, offering important life lessons for Christian believers

.Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. (Joel 1:2-4)

The Word of God instructs us to be students of God’s story. And the only way we can be students of His story is to read it, meditate on it, and come to know it. God inspired the prophet Joel to urge parents to take the time to know God’s story and to pass it along to their children.

The locusts Joel referred to were agents of God’s divine judgment on His people for their rebellion and disobedience. And when the destroying swarms of locusts were understood to be an instrument of redemption in the hands of God, His people would respond in repentance and return to their God. This is the pattern throughout the Old Testament history of God and His people: things would go well for a while; the people would grow complacent and turn away from God; God would send judgment; and the people would repent and return to God.

So . . . how well are you at telling God’s story to those around you? Are you spending adequate time in the Word each day to know it well enough to tell it? Sadly, many in the church today neglect the rich history of God’s story in the Old Testament. Yet the New Testament doesn’t make sense without the Old! It has been well said that “The Old Testament is revealed in the New, and the New Testament is concealed in the Old.” Both the Old and New Testaments make up one single story of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The key is to see the Bible as a metanarrative—one single, overarching story—from beginning to end. Scripture is not comprised of 66 disconnected books offering stories with moralistic messages to keep us in line; it is the incomparable saga of God’s redemption and His pursuing love for rebels on the run. And God wants us to know it so well that we can share it with our children . . . so that they will share it with their children. With all the “stuff” we can pass along to our kids, there is nothing more important to give them than the story of our Savior.

Finally, in telling God’s story to our children, we are also to share how our story intersects with it. We can share the lessons we have learned in life from both our victories and our defeats. And we should explain how, through it all, God has loved us with an everlasting love that would lift us out of the ashes of defeat, dust us off, and send us back into the game of life. Now that is a story worth telling, over and over and over again!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!