Christ increase - Me decrease
When John the Baptist said, “Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. [Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29-30), he wasn’t talking about his inner life. He was talking about his ministry calling as a prophet and his public influence. He delighted that Jesus’s influence was eclipsing his own. But he could only delight in his public diminishment because in his private life, in his heart, Christ had become supreme. And since the Bible shows that it is never easy for a sinful person to come to such a place of joyful submission, it is safe to assume that John’s public joy was likely the result of much wrestling with God and hard fighting against sin in the private place. A mark of our increasing maturity as disciples is an increasing experience of joy in Jesus’s influence eclipsing our own, both internally and externally. And God delights in such humble joy, which is one reason Jesus said that no one born of women was greater than John the Baptist (Luke 7:28 )