September 16

The Gentleness of Leadership

Not at all surprisingly, the world defines leadership almost totally backward from the Word of God. But the goal of leadership in the world and in the Word is exactly the same. The goal is power. The world seeks its power through effective leadership, which is money, attention, political position, and pride. But in the Kingdom of God, power is defined in altogether different terms. Here is how God defines an effective leader in His Word: “temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money." (1 Timothy 3:2-3)

What is the major difference? The difference is in the focus. In the Kingdom of God, leadership is focused outward, not inward, so that the Kingdom may be advanced. True supernatural power is achieved by God's grace and distributed only to those leaders who will focus it out into the Kingdom, to the direct benefit of God’s Kingdom, not inward like the world's power to the benefit of self and selfish ambition. And note that one of the key characteristics of God's leader is the peacekeeper who is also gentle. The Hollywood hero-worshipping world and a planet full of false religious zealots celebrate the warrior hero who takes no prisoners.

But God empowers the heroes of His true Kingdom who fight and struggle not against flesh and blood, but against “the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12) In the universe, these are the true heroes. These men and women of God are those who are supernaturally endowed to sacrificially love and protect all flesh with their very lives. And like our Lord Master, we have been specifically commissioned to lead people and to love them all gently, without distinction, using our very lives as their shield.