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A couple of passages stood out to me today. The first is verses 14-15, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” When the Israelites were suffering through their plague of deadly snakes, they needed to turn their eyes to the bronze snake that Moses had made in order to be healed. With Jesus, we must do the same thing. We must turn away from ourselves and turn to the one who has given us eternal life. I think I do that sometimes, but I need to do that on a consistent basis. It is easy to forget how much more He must become in my life. Which brings me to the second verse I loved in today’s reading, verse 30, “He must become greater; I must become less.” I love how humble John the Baptist was to recognize the greatness of Jesus. It really does come down this; I must humble myself to allow His light to shine through. Others should see less of me and know it is because of Jesus in my life.
Jesus response to Nicodemas in v 3, “I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3 HCSB) still stands true today. We can’t simply add Jesus and God to our lives and expect everything to be great. We have to be changed by Him, we truly find new life in Him. I think because we’re selfish, we just want to add Jesus to what we already have going and then call on Him when times get tough. We need to realize that we must be changed to really experience life in Christ.
It’s so true, we are lucky to serve an extravagant God. “Don’t think that He rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces. The Father loves the Son extravagantly. He turned everything over to him so he could give it away- a lavish distribution of gifts. That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever!” As Christians, we are very lucky to be on the receiving end of all of those gifts. Out of gratefulness, I’m challenged to take what I’ve been given and follow Jesus’ lead…give it away! From the Father to Jesus, then from Jesus to me, then from me to everyone who will let me be a witness to them. I hate sounding cheesy, but it’s honestly the gift that keeps on giving. And what an extravagant gift indeed- I can’t think of a more valuable one! (God, give me the desire to witness more!)