The Operation

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

If you're relatively familiar with the Bible, you're likely aware of John 3:30. These were the words spoken by John the Baptist when his disciples came to him about the ever growing ministry of Jesus. Previously, it had been John who drew the huge crowds. It was John upon whose words the crowds gave all attention to. Now Jesus, the Messiah, the One to whom John had been pointing had arrived, and those who'd once followed John, now followed Him. No matter how you look at this, it had to have been painful for John. Yet so surrendered to God was he that he willingly gave up his place so that One he knew to be infinitely greater than he could be heard and known. We tend to read his words, "He must increase, but I must decrease," with great admiration, but what of the process for him to come to the place where he could? Where he could be so yielded to the Father that he could become more and more invisible so that Christ could become ever more visible.

I put in my prayer journal recently that "God 'operates' on us without anesthesia.' We may have committed all of ourselves to Him, as John most certainly had, but when we do so, we become the "living sacrifice" of Romans 12:1. We are consciously involved in the process of the total spiritual makeover that He is doing in our lives. And that can not only be painful, it is painful. Sometimes excruciatingly so. He "operates" on us, taking out the diseased portions of our heart and life. All while we are upon the "operating table" that is His altar. Just as undergoing a deep surgical procedure without anesthesia would bring a pain beyond description, so can His working upon us, refining, purifying, cleansing, and expunging. We have given Him ourselves and in the giving, have asked Him to do just that. Being emptied of those things, attitudes, desires, behaviors, and various besetting sins, can be a very painful operation, but He performs it with the most loving of hands. The spiritual cancers that are killing us are removed and replaced with His heart, His mind, and His ways. When Christ enters into our hearts, we are pronounced "new." New men and women, and we are, but remaining in us is a disposition that at root is set against Him. The carnal nature. He then works in us to bring us to the place where we are willing to surrender all to Him. We can look at this as "prep for surgery." This brings us to His altar, His operating table. It's there that the transformation fully takes place, and will continue to take place as we grow deeper and deeper in Him. John continued to minister even after Jesus began His ministry, but he knew it would be a continual yielding up of himself so that Jesus Christ could be exalted.

We will never cease to be a living sacrifice on this side of eternity. He will continue to "operate" on us and always without anesthesia. We will always be "under the knife" of God, but we can trust the Master Surgeon to only cut as deep as needed, and always with the most gentle of strokes possible. The result will be a spiritual life we never thought possible. We will experience what John and all great men and women of God have; a life where all that He is grows greater, and all that is not Him is cut out. All of us may be nervous of a surgical procedure, but all of us rejoice when we see that the procedure was completely successful. His procedures upon us will not fail, and we can rejoice in that. Let the rejoicing begin now....at His altar.

Blessings,

Pastor O