Christian Devotional – January 10, 2017

Several of the people in the Bible had great purpose, but few were more clearly spelled out than John the Baptist. His coming and the work that he would be doing was prophesied about in the old testament. His birth was foretold by angels and was a miraculous birth. He had a following of people who would hang on every word that he said. You can read about him in many places of the New Testament, but we’re going to look at him from Joihn 3:22-36.

As you read through this, you see John giving an overview of his purpose to other people. Interestingly, even though he had all those great and amazing things going for him, he never lost sight of the fact that he was there to point people to Jesus, not become the Savior himself. No matter what his followers asked of him, he continually pointed them to Jesus. He even makes the great statement in verse 30 that Jesus must increase and John must decrease.

We all would have difficulty thinking about a scenario where our own personal following or the measure of success must decrease, yet that was exactly what John knew. John never lost sight of his purpose and that was to point other people to Jesus. Do we lose sight of our purpose. No matter what we are doing, our purpose is to point people to Jesus. Jesus should always be bigger in our lives than our opinions, than our plans, than our personal measure of success.

Our ultimate purpose is to point people toward Jesus and anything else in our life that gets in the way of that is sin. No matter what our personal feelings and thoughts, we have to understand that Jesus must increase and we must decrease. Is that what we are focused on daily? How can we emphasize Jesus to others more today?