I recently heard a Christian song that contained a familiar chorus:
More of You, Lord, and less of me
That phrase and its variations is basic Christianese, found in dozens of praise and spiritual pop songs. But apart from the sappy sentimentality it can evoke, what does it really mean?
Does it mean that I am a bad person and that the less I am myself the better off I’ll be?
Sure, John 
the Baptist said, “He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3:30). But the context clearly had to do with prophetic roles (John was the forerunner to Christ and relinquishing his mantle to Someone greater). The apostle Paul talked often about “Christ in you” (Col. 1:27), putting off our “old self” (Eph. 4:22), and being “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). In fact, Jesus said we must deny ourselves and take up our cross (Matt. 16:24-25). And crosses were made for one thing. So clearly, Christians must release something inside them and replace it with something they are not.
Question: Wouldn’t this make me less, not more, myself?
The greatest people I know, the ones I would most like to emulate, are uniquely themselves; they have embraced the essence of their God-giftedness and individuality. This idea of “uniqueness” is intrinsic to the Christian worldview.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26 NIV)
Each one of us is uniquely “God-like,” or if you prefer, “like God.” So when we sing, “More of You and less of me,” aren’t we denying something central to who we are? Of course, you need “more of God.” But, being that you’re fused with His DNA, you also need “more of you” — at least, THE REAL YOU.
Yet Christians are to be emptied, you say, vessels that can be filled with God’s presence. Amen. But it begs the question. For what would people look like who were completely empty? They would look like… themselves.
So we are more of us when we are less of us — at least, we are more of who we are meant to be when we aren’t full of ourselves. But what “self” should I be less of? And in being “less myself,” isn’t it possible that I’m being “less like God”? I mean, if we are created in the image of God, shouldn’t we be MORE like ourselves, not LESS?
Okay. So I’m overthinking this. This is nothing more than hair-splitting, an exercise in semantics. But which one of me is asking the question?
Mike: for your readers, the book Desiring God is a great place to start with the whole what does “God’s glory” mean question, and other issues such as whether we really “lose ourselves” as some sort of duty-driven quest to please God. “Christian Hedonism,” I believe, is even more important for fiction-enjoying Christians to look into and apply to how they read and write stories.
I’m willing to bet this is a holdover from that one or two sentences C.S. Lewis write about Christians becoming “little Christs” in heaven. I don’t like Lewis’ Mormony turn of phrase but I can see where he was going with it. Like you said, if anything we would become more like our true selves (i.e., the way God had designed us to be with a unique identity of some kind) than a replica.
Not ever part of the body is supposed to be a hand.
Like you, Mike, I am always trying to dissect these paradoxes and understand them. I’m trying to get better at simply living in the paradox.
Good questions – I need to think this over.
I think you might be right, Mike — except Jesus told us the way to find our lives was to lose our lives. (Matt. 10:39 – “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.”)
I understand this to mean that my sinful self who reigned before Christ came into my life was the person I was not meant to be. The life I find by losing my life is the me being shaped in the image of Christ — a make-over, if you will, of the me God created in His image.
It seems counter intuitive, to be sure, but that’s because God’s ways aren’t our ways, I think.
Becky
I think you are on the right track, Mike, except maybe for the DNA being God’s DNA. But, if I recall my Greek right, the word for Christian does mean, “little Christs”. In my theology, we are as Christians one with God in His energies, but not His essence which is wholly unique and different from us.
But we are fully ourselves as God created us, untied to Him. At the fall, we lost that and so became less than what we are supposed to be. With Christ’s grace, we regain that original self as God intended, so in that sense, becoming a Christian certainly makes one more of what he/she should be, more fully what the “self” was created to be. Not less. We are less before Christ.
But I’m sure the song writer has a valid application of that as well. “Self” tends to be what we call selfish, focused on our own wants and desires, driven by our own passions instead of “walking by the Spirit.” So I would take it as speaking to humility before God, so that not only do we seek to lose our own lives so we can find it, but find the most self-esteem as treating everyone else as more important than ourselves–because we see Christ in them, see His light, His glory.
This type of thing is why i prefer hymns. The language is both richer and more precise.
So much of the more recent Christian worship music sounds like a vapid repitition of bumper stickers that doesnt do much for actual WORSHIP.
I mean….doesnt this say the same thing we thing the songwriter in your example was trying to get at?
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
Hi Katherine,
You should read Matthew Lee Anderson’s new book “Earthen Vessels”. He mentions that true worship has been replaced by strobe lights and a rock concert kind of effect and real worship has been lacking. I sort of agree with him.
Thanks!
Hello, Mike. I believe that the phrase More of You Lord and Less of Me, is simply another way of reiterating what Jesus put forth as the most important commandment and that is to love God with all of your heart. The second most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.
How many people can actually claim to do this? Not many I would think.
I’m with you. The love of God always makes more of us than we can make of ourselves. Being Christian is a celebration of the good changes he makes in us, not a long string of misery and self-denial.
“The greatest people I know, the ones I would most like to emulate, are uniquely themselves;”
Mike, you reference Paul and his writings about “putting off the old self”… Whatever the “self” means in this context (selfish desires, impure motives, sinful nature, etc?) , it does not mean uniqueness and individuality.
Paul himself is a prime example. Prior to the Damascus road, he was driven, ambitious, scholarly, forceful, and sometimes cold and unforgiving. After his experience with the risen Christ, he was driven, ambitious, scholarly, forceful, and sometimes cold and unforgiving.
Good point, Alan.
Like Rebecca, I’ve always understood that song to refer to my old, sinful nature. A worship song can be a catalyst for examination but not the foundation for doctrine. Like Katherine, I have a preference for older songs and hymns like “Be thou my Vision” and the original “Amazing Grace”.
I’ve always been fascinated with the use of the phrase “remission of sins” in the N.T. Like cancer, our sin nature is still present but no longer active and spreading.
I think only in Christ can we find our Original Intent, when we are empowered by His Spirit and our defiant, destructive self-centered-ness is abated.
Hey,
This phrase came on my heart lately and the revelation I received is this:
God created us each one of us as unique wonderful beings – with an intent to have us serve and reach all people but also to reach a certain demographic.
So that’s all good – we are who we are and we are who we are cause God made us this way.
What I feel God has revealed to me is much deeper than this – it is on the level of living our lives – as servants to the Lord – rather than self serving ourselves – hence less of me – more of you.
We live in a society of self and even as Christians we often do not live up to the calling on our lives – the simple call to preach the gospel – feed the poor – defend the widow and the orphan…
So we must feed our spirits – be filled with MORE OF GOD and deny our flesh – LESS OF US.