Thursday, March 6, 2008

in the countryside

last night my bible was open to john 3 and there i found something i needed to hear

jesus and his disciples left jerusalem and went in to the countryside where he started baptizing people in water

that verse caught me, i read before it, but didn't get it, i read after it, and this was what i found:

john was baptizing people in a nearby river when his disciples came to him and said "the one you call messiah is baptizing people on the other side of the river, more people are going to him than to us"
and john replied to them saying "my job is only to point them towards the one called messiah, he is the one who should baptize them, he must grow more and more, and i must grow less and less"

that's a paraphrase, but you get it. jesus was doing the baptizing, and john was doing the pointing, if someone came to him, he would baptize them, always doing it in God's name. but rather than running to jesus saying "here let me help you with that!" he said "i'll wait here, and direct people to God, God knows how to baptize people himself"

as a human i naturally want to be involved, be on the frontline, saving people, but that's not my job, my job is to point people to God, prepare the way for God, not save their souls myself, i don't have that power. i've found sometimes i try to take that power, but my only power is to say "you are forgiven because jesus loves you, and has saved you." and to say "jesus has rescued me countless times from death, from sin, from myself, and he wants to do the same for you"

as i direct people to God, i must become less and less, and let jesus be more and more.

my problem is, i always want to be more. but that's not my place.

1 comment:

Daniel Joseph said...

Amen brotha, grace is what it's all about!
Romans 3:22-26
Ephesians 2:4-10

Our job is to be faithful stewards of the good news…
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
2 Timothy 1:8-14
1 Peter 4:7-11

Dan Stackaruk