Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
The secret to leadership is found in the relationship and the following. We cannot lead unless we ourselves choose to be followers first. Who are you in relationship with? Who do you follow? Our ultimate relationship is with God by the power and intimacy of Holy Spirit within us. Leaders don’t decide where to lead based upon their own desires and vision. To lead God’s people we must agree with what Holy Spirit desires to do and is doing in the hearts and minds of those we lead. We don’t lead according to human purpose and strategy. Our gifts and anointing serve the authority of Holy Spirit. Our gifts and anointing don’t define our authority, they serve it. Our authority is a God-given responsibility to live our lives in a life-giving way to our world.
In everything we do as followers of Christ and leaders in the body of Christ, we have to be willing for God to interrupt us. When King David sought to bring the presence of God into Jerusalem, he had to learn a lesson of letting God be the one who determines our process and plan of carrying God’s presence.
When David became the king of Israel, he knew that he needed the presence of God in Jerusalem in order to rule as God’s sent king. He understood that the direction of God’s government is by God and not by men alone. In the history of David’s life the Ark of the Covenant had been missing from the Tabernacle of Witness for twenty years. The Ark of the Covenant was representative of the presence of God, and it was filled with the presence of God. In the beginning days of David’s rule there was a form of godliness in the Tabernacle, but God was not there. David understood that godly ritual is not a substitute for the presence of God. We must know this as well. Doing things designed to fulfill the purposes of God will not give us God’s presence. We must have God’s presence to discover God’s purpose and to lead for His purpose. A form of godliness is not enough to accomplish God’s purposes in the earth. Only God’s presence can bring about His kingdom will upon the earth. King David, as the governor of the government of God in the earth, recognized that in order to lead God’s house he had to have the presence of God (2 Sam. 6:1-15).
There are many hidden secrets in this story of King David. A profound secret is revealed in the death of a man whose name meant “strength” (Uzzah). He was struck dead for trying to steady the ark while it was being transported to a prepared place known as Nachon’s threshing floor (Nachon means “prepared”). David was attempting to move God’s presence without the instruction of how to carry it. It didn’t matter how spiritual of a procession he orchestrated or how much he had prepared to succeed. His means of transport was a human method and form for moving it, not a relational response to God’s instructions. The stumbling of an ox, and the death of the man who tried to control the presence of God in the task, interrupted David’s means of transport. God expects us to do things His way. Human strength and preparation are not a substitute for the way of God. In all the form that we have of God, we have to be willing for God to interrupt us. When God interrupts us, it’s not a correction to shame us. It’s a correction to keep us in the path of life for the glory of God in and through our lives.
Uzzah’s death was symbolic of the death of strength. We have to be willing to allow God to change our form of operation if our form of operation is absent God’s presence. The blessing of God is found in the presence of God. To get the presence of God we have to desire Him more than any work we may think we are doing for Him.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
