Author: admin

Credibility is one of the greatest challenges for leaders. Why should people believe what we say or do what we tell them? It matters not what our vision is if we cannot convince people of the need to go to that place. Our long range goals and most elaborate plans are meaningless if we cannot convince people to embrace them. Spiritual leaders move people on to God’s agenda. Yet one of the greatest frustrations for leaders is being unable to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be.

God may lead us to undertake tasks that seem far beyond our leadership ability. We tend to gravitate toward assignments we feel capable of accomplishing with our own skills and experience. But when we succeed in such undertakings, we are the ones who receive the glory. God is not concerned with magnifying our name, but His. When God invites us to join in His activity, we will inevitably feel inadequate for the undertaking. God tends to position us into situations where our inadequacy is magnified so we find ourselves dependent upon Him.

Not everything God leads us to do will necessarily make sense to us. It might seem ludicrous to attempt something we are woefully inexperienced at doing. It may seem foolhardy to try something when we don’t know where the money or manpower will come from. Some people have become consumed with worry as they over-analyzed and fretted about how to accomplish what God told them to do. Our responsibility is to accept God’s assignment and trust that, in giving us the task, He will also make the provision. We don’t need to devote ourselves to figuring out how to accomplish God’s will. That is His responsibility! Instead of becoming paralyzed by fear and worry at what God asked us to do, we must seize the opportunity to join God in His work and to see God use our ordinary life to accomplish something extraordinary.

We are often closer to a mighty work of God than we realize. Sometimes we only need to turn half a degree to the right or left to discover that God has been at work beside us all along. Moses might never have known the amazing work God was preparing to accomplish if he had not turned aside. Moses was a busy man with numerous responsibilities. He had to singlehandedly monitor a flock of sheep that was prone to wander into danger or difficulty. Predators and thieves were lurking nearby. Locating adequate food and water on the arid slopes of Mount Horeb required his constant attention.

The sight of a burning bush, while interesting, might not have been enough to motivate Moses to turn aside from his multitudinous tasks. Moses could have satisfied himself by glancing at the shrub from a distance. He might have reasoned that being the solitary staff person on site prevented him from satisfying his idle curiosity. After forty years of leading sheep in the blazing Middle Eastern sun, Moses could have been excused if he had planted himself under the nearest shady tree and surveyed his surroundings from a comfortable vantage point. But Moses sensed that this was something he had to turn aside to see.

God could have shot forth a lightning bolt to garner Moses’ attention. God could have produced a clap of thunder that demanded Moses’ focus. Instead, God waited to see if Moses would turn aside. Was Moses so preoccupied with his daily work that he was oblivious to God’s activity in his workplace? It was only after Moses allowed God to interrupt his busy day that God spoke to him. The subsequent conversation changed Moses’ life.

You are, most likely, a busy person. People want your attention. Problems are constantly surfacing. Opportunities demand your response. Yet God may choose to interrupt your frenetic schedule at unexpected or unusual moments. At that point you must decide if your itinerary outweighs the burning bushes you occasionally pass by. Are you sensitive enough to God and His activity to recognize when He has intervened into your day and workplace? How many burning bushes have you raced past because you were late for an appointment?

Moses was going to work just as he had for the last forty years. After four decades of performing the same tasks for the same boss in the same places, one does not generally anticipate encountering anything new or exciting. At eighty years old, this son of a princess was still laboring for his father-in-law. Any dreams of becoming a leader and a deliverer of his people had long since dissipated. Now Moses was simply putting time in until his retirement. The dreams of his youth now seemed like nothing more than a fairy tale.

Mount Horeb was merely a work place. For Moses, it was like going to the office. He had worked there for years. Nothing unusual had ever happened there before. Mount Horeb is better known to us as Mount Sinai. But at this time, the mount did not carry with it connotations of thunder, lightning, smoke billowing up into the heavens, and the awesome presence of almighty God. It was merely a workplace where Moses’ sheep foraged for food.

The reality was that God had always been on that mountain, just as He has always been present in your workplace. God waited forty years for Moses to come to a place in his life where he could be entrusted with a divine assignment. Moses had no idea that those forty tedious years of leading sheep through a wilderness were not a waste of his time or life, but preparation for one of the greatest undertakings in history. His workplace would become a highway over which Moses would lead God’s people to the Promised Land. Having proven himself faithful in leading sheep, God would entrust an entire nation to his care.

Don’t assume that nothing of spiritual significance is happening at your workplace. God is present and He is constantly moving to carry out His purposes. What appears to you to be an ordinary Mount Horeb can be transformed by God at any time to become an awe-inspiring Mount Sinai. Many of the greatest movements of God in history have not commenced from the temple or cathedral but from the workplace. Could it be that God is preparing to launch a movement from the place where you work that will impact the world?

There is some benefit in studying followers, but they can only teach you how to follow well. Jesus did not ask his disciples to set the course for His ministry, nor did he poll the crowds that clamoured to be near him to learn what they wanted, for they were all followers. Christ did not attend business schools, take leadership seminars, or come from a family with a long line of well-known leaders. He did, however, have access to the greatest of all leaders, His heavenly Father, who showed Him how to lead.

Christ was able to command the attention of thousands of people at a time because He was a leader they wanted to follow. He confounded the religious leaders of the day because he led so completely differently than they had ever experienced before. He had studied under the undisputed leader of leaders. Comparing ourselves to other leaders may make us look good, but comparing ourselves to Christ challenges us to take our leadership to another level. Even as leaders, we are to be Christ’s followers. He deliberately left us an example that was for our benefit. Today His Spirit resides within believers to guide them daily. Following Him will influence all of our relationships: family, work, leisure, wherever we are and in whatever position we hold. If we are unwilling to study the life of Christ and the way He walked while He was among people, we will be disoriented to Him when He seeks to lead us today. Christ is your Lord and He is prepared to help you lead today.

Every person has shortcomings. We all live with skeletons in the closet, consequences of bad choices, or memories of events we would just as soon forget. Some leaders, because of past hurts, determine never to get burned again so their natural tendency as they lead is to protect themselves. Others, perhaps from dysfunctional pasts, accommodate their personal insecurities through their administrative choices. For example, a leader who lacks confidence may perceive self-assurance in colleagues as threatening rather than beneficial to the organization, and feel threatened by them.

For spiritual leaders, Christ makes all the difference in this regard. The Holy Spirit is available to free you from a bondage to the past that might otherwise haunt you and limit your ability to lead. The past certainly influences the future, but it should not direct it. For Christians, God determines the future as they walk in obedience to Him. Your future is in God’s hands. Past mistakes do not limit the Lord. The Apostle Paul said that with God, all things become new. There is nothing that is hurtful or negative in your life that cannot be turned around so it brings glory to God. Paul’s past was anything but praiseworthy. He persecuted Christians and thus mocked the very God he thought he was championing. But as a repentant, humbled new creation, Paul was determined to leave his guilt and scars in the past. Was Paul still a passionate, zealous leader? Yes But God took his misguided religious fervor and redesigned and refocused it to build up the church instead of tearing it apart. That is the powerful redeeming nature of the God we serve!

Should people follow someone who has not earned their allegiance? You may think your personal life choices have little to do with your job, but they affect your followers’ opinion of you as a person. Whether it is personality issues, character flaws or general ineptness, people are weary of following those they do not trust or respect.

Character matters more than you might imagine. To attract highly motivated, quality workers you must be respectable and worthy of being followed. Charm, charisma and propaganda may attract a following, but integrity, honesty, work ethic and fairness will determine whether those people stay on board. Christ’s style of leadership was not about doing as He said, or even doing as He did, but rather being like Him. A Christlike character in a leader exemplifies everything followers need to know about how to conduct themselves.

Don’t justify your character deficiencies or make excuses for your poor lifestyle choices. Ask God’s Spirit to work in your life so your weaknesses become strengths through which the Lord brings glory to Himself.

Managers assist people to do better and more efficiently what they are already doing. They help implement the strategies and visions of leaders. Good management is necessary in an organization so people can accomplish what they have been hired or enlisted to do. But management and leadership is not the same thing.

Leaders take people to a place they have not been before. Spiritual leaders guide those who follow them to experience fresh dimensions of serving God. Would-be leaders who are reluctant to challenge the status quo may be equippers, facilitators, enablers, or managers, but they are not really leaders. God calls spiritual leaders to take people from where they are to where He wants them to be. It will be a new place, a challenging place, and a place of dependence on God.

As a leader, are you in motion or are you just spinning your well-greased wheels? Do you have a God-given direction or are you force-marching your followers to wander in the wilderness until you find your way? Take time to know where God wants you to lead your people and then take your people on the journey of a lifetime. Seek God in your prayer time, in your worship time, and in your time in His word and you will find Him. Then you will know His ways, and His plans for you and for those whom you lead.

God has infinite ways to accomplish His purposes. Legions of angels are eager to do His bidding. Yet, when He wants to do a great work upon the earth He habitually calls out ordinary people and transforms them into leaders.

Could God have delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage without Moses, a man who considered himself in every way to be unworthy? Certainly. Could the people of Israel have been freed from the Midianites without Gideon, or protected from the Philistines without Samson’s services? Of course. Did the Lord have to call Deborah or Esther to help save their nation? No. These were all fallible people who served God imperfectly. If God had wanted perfection, He would have commissioned angels, such as Gabriel or Michael. Instead, He chose unremarkable mortals and helped them to fulfill His purposes.

Just as God fully equipped people in biblical times to accomplish His purposes, so He will enable you to do whatever He asks you to do. If God is calling you to serve Him as a leader, don’t be intimidated. You follow a long line of commonplace people who have enjoyed the amazing adventure of participating in the Lord’s activity.

As time passes, our earlier resolve can begin to wane. In years past, we may have set ambitious personal goals for ourselves as we entered each new year. We established bold resolutions. We raised the bar for our job performance and physical health. But after years of falling short or failing, we may have grown timid, or weary. Perhaps striving year by year to better ourselves has become discouraging, or demoralizing. It may be that we are simply meekly entering the new year without any real plans to advance in our life. But that should not be so.

God has a unique purpose for your life. He intends for you to become like Christ. He wants your life to produce much fruit. What He began in you, He intends to complete. So it may be that you need to buckle down and press on. It could be that this coming year might be a breakthrough year, if you don’t lose heart. It could be that you are on the cusp of a significant advance, if you persevere. So as you enter this new year, take time to consider those things you know God has been trying to do in your life. Has He completed it? What about your relationships? Is God seeking to bring healing? What is God seeking to do in your family? Are you trusting Him for it until God brings it to pass?

In what areas of your life do you need to keep pressing on? Will you commit to do so?

What is in your life that is holding you back from greater fruitfulness for God’s kingdom? What habit or doubt or attitude or fear is limiting your effectiveness for God? What is keeping your Christian maturity in the same place instead of allowing you to move forward to a greater level? Whatever it is, it must die.

You ought to hate anything in your life that is keeping you from being more like Christ. But in actual fact, we tend to excuse and hold on to those issues. We can become so protective of our life that we cling to the very things that are keeping us in bondage. We would be happy to do more for God, or to take on additional responsibilities, but dying is wholly unappealing.

 As you draw near to the end of the year, take an inventory of your life. Are there habits, practices, attitudes that need to be cast aside before you enter the new year? Don’t carry into the next year the same baggage you had in the previous one. Let God weed out any encumbrance in your life that is holding you back. It may well be that this new year is your greatest year of spiritual advance you have ever experienced.