More of Him; Less of Me

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

At some point, most believers will be or have been asked, “What is your life verse?” Growing up in a Christian household, I always put pressure on myself to have a life verse. I thought that I was not as good of a believer as others if I did not have a life verse. Because of that I always tried to force a life verse upon myself. I would test different verses out to see if it was the perfect verse. Needless to say, I have had a lot of “life” verses! 

Now that I am older and more mature in my walk (though still more immature than I’d like to admit), I realize that whether you have a life verse or not does not determine how “good” of a Christian you are. I mean, where in the Bible do you see anyone claiming to have a life verse? Maybe some did have a life verse, but it certainly is not mandatory. So eventually I stopped worrying about trying to find my life verse and learned to just enjoy God’s Word. There were certainly some specific verses that stuck out to me (Psalm 33:15, Isaiah 64:6, and Isaiah 40:28-31 to name a few), but I didn’t claim any of these to be my life verse. 

One day that changed. I don’t remember exactly when, but suddenly John 3:30 was my life verse. I had read it several times, and had appreciated the verse, but I had never considered it my life verse. However, in a flash, I began to see the verse in a whole new light. 

John 3:30 says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” It is simple, but profound. It is a short verse, but it proposes a challenge to believers that we must face every day. That challenge is to stop focusing so much on oneself, stop living for Self, and start doing everything to see Him lifted up and yourself laid down. More of Him; less of Self.  

The truth is our sin nature still exists. Even after getting saved, our flesh continues to battle against us. Even our good deeds are filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Everything is motivated by Self, unless we make a conscience effort to submit ourselves to God and die to Self daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). I want to share something I read just yesterday that I think would apply well here.

Dane Ortlund, in his book Deeper, writes, “The painful exercise of honest self-examination surprises us. We discover that in much of our lives, so much even of the ways we are blessing the world around us, flows subtly from the fountain of Self. The gift is given, the service is rendered, the sacrifice is made, not out of the large-hearted motives we present to others, but for self-serving purposes.”i Even good deeds that help other people can be motivated by Self.  

I found this to be true in my own life, and there is one time specifically that I remember where God showed me my selfishness. I was at college, watching a soccer game with some friends, sitting next to a girl that I liked (by God’s grace she became my wife). I decided to show her how loving and caring I was by offering to help her study, even though I wanted to focus on the game. To be honest, I did want to help her, but I was certainly motivated by the thought that she would see how thoughtful I was and maybe would start liking me back. 

The game finished and we all got up to leave. I recall walking to my dorm feeling pretty good about myself, but then I started to feel a little nagging. It was the Holy Spirit, and I realized that my motivations were not out of love for God and desire to help her, but they were ultimately for Self. Did she know that? Probably not. But God did, and I sinned against Him by being selfish.  

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 talks about this. We may do all these good, wonderful deeds, but if it is not done out of love it means nothing. A person’s deeds do not determine if what they do is good, it is the motivation of the heart that makes that determination. Remember, God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). 

He must increase in our lives, and this is done through submission. We cannot allow Self to be a part of our lives. We need to let our heart be purified by God and His Word. The more that this is done the more we will decrease. This is where we need to be. This is how we fulfill our purpose, to glorify Him (Isaiah 43:7; 1 Corinthians 6:20). This is how we become Holy. This is how our good deeds can glorify Him rather than feed our flesh. 

i Dane Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2021), 16