LEADERSHIP is defined as a person who guides by going in advance and directing people on a specific course or particular way. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ declares that He is the way (John 14:6). True Christian believers know the Lord’s way; “…men or women there belonging to the Way [believers, followers of Jesus the Messiah]” (Acts 9:2 AMP). Jesus told us that while he was going back to Paradise to be with the Father in Heaven, God the Father would leave a person here on earth to comfort us and guide us along the Lord’s way (John 14:6). Although God gave us examples of leadership when Moses’ father-in-law Jethro explained to him how to choose good men to be leaders over God’s people (Exodus 18:17-27) and the Apostles gave the Lord’s followers the criterion for choosing leaders in the church (Acts 6:3), a leader is still truly defined by his or her character. Many people hold titles of leadership but very few people are genuine leaders. There is only one perfect example of a good leader and that is God, Himself. The Lord tells us Himself that He is perfect (Matthew 5:48). God gave us an example of how to be a good leader through the life of Jesus Christ. God is the Creator, so the obvious question is being like Jesus, the perfect leader, attainable for us? God the Father is a person, God the Son is a person and God the Holy Spirit is a person. We were made in God’s image; “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27 KJV). The author of the book ‘The Holy Spirit’ by Charles C. Ryrie says that we define “human personality by what we know but all human personality is imperfect so it is impossible for us to know a perfect personality in and of ourselves. True personality must start with a study of God’s character because God alone has perfect personality.” Jesus Christ demonstrated God’s character when he walked on earth to give us an example of a perfect person. Like Father, like Son. Jesus and the Father are one (John 10:30). We must try to be like Jesus and as a result, we will be exhibiting godly character. Can we achieve it? The Holy Spirit is our guide, but the Lord left us a performance metric to evaluate ourselves to see how we are doing. It is our mouth; “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body” (James 3:2). It is not what goes in our mouth that causes problems, but it is what comes out of our mouth that hurts our effort to be more like Jesus. We make many mistakes and stumble in many ways but to be good leaders we need to demonstrate good leadership by controlling our tongues. As leaders and examples to God’s people, let us make sure that what comes out of our mouth brings life to the Body of Christ.
Submitted By Trustee Stan Ridley