Spiritual Leaders
By Kevin Thompson January 2nd 2022
If I were to offer you the following promotion, would you take it?
This promotion will in no way improve your compensation, and it might require you to have more non-reimbursed expenses.
It will in no way improve your standing or reputation among others.
It will mean far less freedom regarding your schedule and flexibility. It might even require being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It will mean far more responsibility, including for issues in which you never imagined being involved.
It will mean listening to and being concerned about every complaint communicated, no matter how petty the complaint or how personal it is. It will guarantee conflict.
It will mean never complaining or venting about an issue unless it is done in private and with the sole purpose of being part of the solution. It will mean a sacrifice of personal preference.
If things go right, you will rarely be given credit.
If things go wrong, you will always receive the blame.
Who would take such a promotion that in no way furthers your financial well-being or your reputation?
WHO WANTS TO BE A LEADER?
When we think of leadership, we often think of money, prestige, and, most of all, power. Yet leadership rarely includes more money and prestige, and it is never about control. Leadership is the opposite of power. Leaders often give the power of their own lives away to assist the lives of others. Leadership is about sacrifice and service. It is about a call to a mission and a willingness to accomplish it at any personal cost.
God desires you to be a spiritual leader. He doesn’t simply save you just for you. Instead, He hopes that you have an impact on those around you. He wants you to follow his lead and give of yourselves to influence others. But it’s not an easy call. We desire the fame of leadership, the power of leadership, or the control of leadership. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, submit to something bigger, give up the glory, and love those around us. He has been placed in a unique setting with specific gifts and the opportunity to make a lasting impact. Yet to become a spiritual leader you must focus on being a spiritual follower. Only as you follow Jesus can you lead others in a meaningful way. Yet as you follow Jesus, you will be amazed at how God will use you to initiate change in the lives of those around you. Few things are as life-giving as being a spiritual leader. Let go of the trappings of leadership and start making a difference in the lives of others.
PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11 (NIV)
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Reflection Questions:
1. What is the hope about God?
2. How is that hope for you?
3. How can you share hope with others today?