My seminary lesson covered several miracles, some missionary work, some disciples of John seeking Jesus, and the inspiration for this post (Matt 11:7-19; Luke 7:24-35, 16:16; JST Matt 11:13-15), Jesus' sermon on John the Baptist.
When I prepare a lesson I always try to look for all the lesson(s) from the verses. There are usually many lessons in each scripture block. It was obvious that Jesus was sharing his testimony of John as a prophet, but I wondered was there more I should learn from this story and how would I apply it.
At one point Jesus states: "For verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater prophet than John the Baptist:"
So what made John a greater prophet than Moses or Elijah? I came across some information about John that stunned me:
As far as we know John had performed no miracles and the approximate length of his ministry at the time of Christ's baptism was only six months. And from that time until his arrest, his ministry decreased as the Savior's increased.
John does not appear to be the poster child of success. His childhood was not exceptional as we would see it. He lived in the wilderness eating locusts and honey. He wasn't a snazzy dresser, in fact, he was dressed extremely humbly. For most of us we see his achievements as:
He was entrusted to prepare the way before Christ and declare Christ's divinity to all men (which he did)
He had the privilege to baptize Christ and witness the Holy Ghost descend upon him
He baptized other people
I think those are amazing achievements, but it doesn't mean much by the worldly standards. That's when it hit me: this story also presents the opportunity to discuss how we measure success. That would be the topic of discussion in class.
It was interesting to talk about how we measure success and how the world measures success, then to discuss how the Lord measures success.
My students quickly caught on to the fact that it wasn't about the numbers; it was about John fulfilling God's will to the best of his ability.
To remind them of this message I gave each of them a ruler. The ruler is flexible (representing our willingness to bend to God's will) and written on the back are the words: Be careful of the standards by which you measure your success.
The class experience made me think about how we tend to attach our happiness to the world view of success and not through God's view of success. Which in turn took me back to the 'seeing things through God's eyes' challenge. It is nice when you start to see the connections between the things that are going on in your life.
My goal today: To measure the success of my day by my willingness to do God's will.
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