March 25, 2015

Point Others Toward Jesus

 

"He must become greater; I must become less."

-- John 3:30

John the Baptist understood his role. He was to point others toward Jesus. Period. We're to do the same.

Several years ago a woman with flowing red hair joined our church. She came to us through a mandatory recovery program. We fell in love with her joy and the way the Spirit seemed to flow through her. She was so determined to make it this time. She wanted to remain a recovering addict rather than fall back into addiction like she'd done several times before.

We prayed for her and with her. We all wanted her to succeed so badly. Maybe she has. She graduated from the program and moved on to live with her son in another state. But I've always had this niggling doubt that began with the last Sunday she was with us.

I didn't realize at the time that I probably would never see her again. Her Sunday school teacher was out of town and that class was told to join other classes that day. I invited her to join ours. She couldn't. She was almost in panic mode. She was "loyal" to her teacher. She couldn't possibly attend another class, even for one day. I assured her -- repeatedly -- that it was okay.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that her allegiance, her grasp on recovery, was tied not to Jesus but to her teacher. That couldn't last, not just because she was leaving, but because other people can't save us, especially not from ourselves.

We want to save others. We do. And we want credit for it. We have the best of intentions. We want to be good friends, good caregivers, good people. But our goal should be to point others toward Jesus and we can't do that if we're taking credit for ourselves.