From a few decades ago, I recall reading a wall hanging with the wording that captured my being, “Day by day, three things I pray: To see Thee more clearly, to love Thee more dearly, to follow Thee more nearly.” Years afterward I would learn this was a portion of a prayer by St. Richard of Chichester.
The Gospel song, “Jesus Be Jesus in Me,” written by Eddie Carswell and Gary and Shawn Mc-Spadden and made famous by Jimmy Swaggart, words this sentiment so beautifully: “I empty my cup of all that it holds, and I lay it down at Your feet. My life is Yours, please take control. Fill me and make me complete. Jesus be Jesus in me. No longer me, Lord, but Thee. Resurrection power, fill me this hour. Jesus be Jesus in me.”
The Bible records the humility of many of God’s servants throughout its pages. Jacob in Genesis 32:9-10 prayed, “O God … I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which Thou has shewed unto Thy servant.” To that, most of us can humbly say, “Oh me, too, Lord!”
Paul never got over his humanity and verbilized it in several Scriptures. He said in I Corinthians 15:9, “For I am the least of the apostles.” In Ephesians 3:8, when he spoke of the ministry God had given him, Paul said, “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given.” Oh, how humbling those words are to our own hearts! Finally, we hear Paul say in I Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” And we want to say to Paul, “Oh no, not thee, Bro. Paul, but me.”
The humility of John the Baptist is so aptly displayed in his words concerning Jesus. He said of Him to the people as recorded in John 1:27, “He it is, Who coming after me is preferred before me, Whose shoe’s lachet I am not worthy to unloose.” He said again of Jesus in John 2:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” When the Jews sent priests and Levites to John the Baptist to ask him who he was, he did not give his name or his lineage as a son of a priest, he simply answered, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” (Ch. 1, V. 23).
I am reminded of an ironic event in my life that took place during the time my wife and I were living in Pine Bluff, AR, in the 1980’s while I was serving as associate to Pastor B. G. Bowden at the Maranatha Baptist Church. Pastor Bowden had informed me that he needed me to preach in his place on a Sunday when he would be out of state. Naturally, I studied and prepared for the occasion. However, when I awoke on Sunday morning, I could barely whisper from a severe case of laryngitis. I was able to communicate enough to my wife that she needed to call some fellow ministers in Little Rock to find someone to fill in for me. The Lord was gracious and we found that a friend and evangelist, Bro Virgil Graham, was in town and would be glad to preach for us that day. The sermon I had prepared had a very interesting title, “I am the Voice of One,” but I had no voice whatsoever.
More than anything else, we need Jesus in every area of our lives every day. May our prayer for 2026 be, “Let us see more of Thee, Lord, more of Thee, in our homes, in our churches, in our country and in our world.” Happy New Year!
— Randy Zinn is pastor of Russell Missionary Baptist Church, Russell, Ark.; formerly of Okmulgee.
