“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
John 3.30
Earlier this week, a popular blog posted a list of “24 Things You Learn Living in Washington, DC.” Number five was, “You’re never the smartest person in the room…”
The way you respond to that could say a lot about whether you’re living your life according to what the Bible calls the flesh or the Spirit.
When you’re living according to the flesh, you’re likely to feel insignificant when you’re around others who are more gifted than you are. A perfect case study of this is the saga of King Saul and David, his future successor. The prophet Samuel anointed David the future king while Saul still sat on the throne (1 Samuel 16.11-13). From then on, recognizing David’s bright future, King Saul was consumed with anger, jealousy and insecurity in the face of David’s gifts. He even went as far as to exile David in an attempt to take his life.
A flesh-filled life leaves you longing to be the “star”—or at least to be able to claim you know the stars. For an example of this, you need look no further than Harry Potter’s Professor Slughorn, who Horace “likes the company of the famous, the successful, and the powerful. He enjoys the feeling that he influences these people. …”
But the mark of a fruit-full life is knowing that God has given you a unique contribution to make and being secure in whatever that contribution is. Living by the Spirit leads to knowing that God works in ways that extend beyond your gifts and genuinely wanting to see others excel.
For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
1 Cor.3.3