Greetings;
Being a leader is not merely about the skill of leadership. It is about presenting who God is to others and leading others into the reality of who they are in Christ. Our view of God and our view of people will influence our prophetic voice to the world. Our view of God determines our view of others and ourselves and it affects how we lead. I believe that there are some key things to knowing who God is.
As a leader I must believe that God is good and that He loves people. If my perception is that people are bad and they need a savior, it will affect how I lead people. People do bad things, get themselves into bad situations, and can even become bad in their character and actions towards others, but this is not the main point of humanity. The main point of being human is that God loves people and He wants to give them the true eternal life of heaven that only comes from Him. This is true for bad people as well as for good people. It is true when we are bad and it is true when we are good. It wasn’t that the world was so bad that God had to come as a Savior; it was that God loved the world and therefore Jesus came to reconcile people to God their Father. This included His salvation in every situation of their lives. What does that salvation look like? God wants people to know His peace and grace. He wants them to be blessed with every spiritual blessing from their Father in heaven. It is those heavenly blessings that make people holy and blameless before Him. It is the power of His love that causes us to become who we were meant to be, not a discipline of the flesh. God wants all people to know the power of His adoption as His sons and daughters in this world. He has redeemed us all through the blood of Jesus Christ and He has forgiven us of our sins.
Ephesians 2:1-3 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
The world is under the influence of the prince of the power of the air who seeks to inspire them to conduct themselves according to the lusts of the flesh and their carnal thinking. The disobedience of people is not their wickedness. It is their failure to recognize the love of God, to seek Him, and find Him. When we believe Jesus we find the life of God that comes to make us alive. He has made a way for us to be above the deceptive spiritual powers of darkness that seek to keep us bound to believe that true life is in the flesh of men. Jesus gave every drop of the life of the flesh so that all people could know the love of God and have every drop of His life-giving Spirit of grace. His shed blood at Calvary was God’s triumph of mercy for all men that enable us all to come boldly to the throne of God’s grace that we might find the life of His Spirit and live. True life is in the Holy Spirit of God and this is what God has made possible for all people.
Ephesians 2:4-10 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
God wants to show the riches of His grace in our lives. He wants to show His kindness toward us in Christ. He wants to give us a testimony of faith. Our good works come out of who we are in Christ; they do not qualify us to be in Christ. They are the testimony of changed lives by the power of God’s grace.
As leaders in the body of Christ we must lead with the power of God’s grace and demonstrate His kindness towards humanity. Hearing God is the source of faith, not demanded rules of discipline. We must help people find their destiny in Christ. When they know who they are they will do the things prepared for them to do.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
