Daily Devotionals

Devotional: April 24th

SELF-ABNEGATION BEFORE JESUS CHRIST

He must increase, but I must decrease. - John 3:30

There is nothing that I know in biography anywhere more beautiful, more striking, than the contrast between the two halves of the character and demeanor of the Baptist: how, on the one side, he fronts all men undaunted and recognizes no superior, and how neither threats nor flatteries nor anything else will tempt him to step one inch beyond the limitations of which he is aware, nor to abate one inch of the claims which he urges; and, on the other hand, like some tall cedar, touched by the lightning’s hand, he falls prone before Jesus Christ and says, " He must increase, and I must decrease." " A man can receive nothing except it be given him of God." He is all boldness on one side; all submission and dependence on the other.

You remember how, in the face of many temptations, this attitude was maintained. The very message which he had to carry was full of temptations to a self-seeking man to assert himself. You remember the almost rough "No!" with which, reiteratedly he met the suggestions of the deputation from Jerusalem, that sought to induce him to say that he was more than he knew himself to be, and how he stuck by that infinitely humble and beautiful saying, "I am the voice’" - that is all. You remember how the whole nation was in a kind of conspiracy to tempt him to assert himself, and was ready to break into a flame if he had dropped a spark, for "all men were musing in their heart whether he was the Christ or not," and all the lawless and restless elements would have been only too glad to gather round him if he had declared himself the Messiah. Remember how his own disciples came to him, and tried to play upon his jealousy, and to induce him to assert himself. " Master! he whom thou didst baptize," and so didst give Him the first credentials that sent men on His course, has outstripped thee, and "all men are coming to Him." And you remember the lovely answer that opened such depths of unexpected tenderness in the rough nature. " He that hath the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom heareth the voice; and that is enough to fill my cup with joy to the very brim."

And what conceptions of Jesus Christ had John that he thus bowed his lofty crest before Him, and softened his heart into submission almost abject? He knew Him to be the coming Judge, with the fan in His hand, who could baptize with fire, and he knew Him to be " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Therefore he fell before Him. We shall not be " great in the sight of the Lord " unless we copy that example of utter self-abnegation before Jesus Christ. Thomas Kempis says somewhere, "He is truly great who is small in his own sight and thinks nothing of the giddy heights of worldly honour." You and I know far more of Jesus Christ than John the Baptist did. Do we bow ourselves before Him as he did? The Source from which he drew his greatness is open to us all. Let us begin with the recognition of the Lamb of God that takes away the world’s sin, and with it ours. Let the thought of what He is and what He has done for us bow us in unfeigned submission. Let it shatter all dreams of our own importance or our own desert. The vision of the Lamb of God, and it only, will crush in our hearts the serpent’s eggs of self-esteem and self-regard.

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