I wish I could have seen your reaction when you read that title.  Chances are, most of you are thinking that you’d never have what it takes to be a leader.  Yeah, right about now you’re probably pulling down that mental checklist that says:

1. I’m not bold.
2. I’m not loud.
3. I’m not outgoing.
4. I’ve never led anything.
5. Even if I led something, it’d probably fail miserably.
6. Who would listen to me?
7. Who would want to follow me?
8. I’m the one who needs to be led!

As surely as you’re reading this today, God wants you to know that He’s called you to be a leader.  Yes, you.  He’s called you to stand up and take your place in a time when great leaders are hard to find; in a time when people who’ve spent years gaining a high position end up using that position to abuse power, lord over others and gain something for themselves.

Before we go any further, I need you to crumple up that checklist, stomp on it a few times and toss it in the trash.  Why put it in the trash?  Because that’s where you put something you want to get rid of, something you never want to see again.  The reason why a lot of us haven’t stepped into our role as leaders is because of that old checklist.  So today we’re getting rid of it.

What does it really mean to be a leader?  The dictionary says: to go before or with, to show the way.  That’s it.  It doesn’t say you have to be popular with people.  It doesn’t say you have to have a loud or outgoing personality.  In order to be a leader, you simply have to be willing to go somewhere that the people you’re trying to lead have never been before.  You have to know the way, then show the way.

Think about a parent.  They teach their kids manners because they already know manners.  They know the value of manners.  They don’t want their children to grow up to be rude, uncaring individuals.  What’s that parent doing?  They’re showing their children the way.  They’ve already been down that particular pathway and now their leading their child down that pathway.

It’s the same in all realms of leadership.  Think about your pastor.  What qualifies him to lead the church?  He’s been somewhere you haven’t.  He knows God better than you, he knows the Word of God better than you and now he’s leading you to the same place that he’s at now.  Have you ever visited a church and been bored by the level at which they teach the Word of God?  Perhaps the pastor was teaching how to crawl and you already knew how to walk.  You kept your time there at nothing more than a visit because of it.  You didn’t go back.  You didn’t take notes.  You didn’t get any deep revelations.  That pastor couldn’t lead you because you’d already been where he was trying to lead you.  You didn’t need him.

Each one of us have been called to be leaders.  But that invitation is followed by a challenge to go higher and deeper.  God’s called some of us to disciple and train others.  He’s called some of us to go into other nations to preach and live the gospel.  He’s called some of us to raise up children that will set people and nations on fire.  He’s called some of us to lead armies into battle.  He’s called some of us to run businesses and write books and invent new things.  But how can we do that when we’re still sitting in the playpen, messing in our diapers (figuratively speaking)?

Now is the time to stand up and venture out from among the crowd.  Some of us are so comfortable just believing everything we hear and read and see.  We’ve got to stop.  Now is not the time to “go with the flow”.  Now is not the time to let our hearts and our minds and our emotions be formed and influenced by whatever comes along.  Now is not the time to be the person that other people tell you you are.  Now is the time to get face-to-face with God and His Word and let it alone form who we are, how we think, what we do and how we lead.

Yeah, you have been called to lead.  You’ve been called to rise up and take your stand for such a time as this.  But if we don’t draw close to God and look squarely into the truth and see ourselves as He sees us, we will never live out what God has for us as people, leaders and dearly loved children.

There’s no 10-step plan that will teach you how to be a true leader.  There’s no short-cut to success or victory or prosperity or anything worth-while.  To lead others, you’ve got to be willing to go where others aren’t going long before they’re willing to go there.  You’ve got to be willing to do the right thing when it doesn’t feel good.  You’ve got to be able to look into the face of lies and see truth, speak truth, live truth.

It’s not always going to be easy or popular or comfortable, but we’re going to go there.  We’re going to look at the leaders who succeeded and the leaders that failed.  We’re going to look into the truth and see who we are in Him.  And as we do that, we will step out from among the crowd and take our stand for Him by being who He made us to be.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. -James Crook

Tags: Christian leaders, God, lead, leader, Leadership, leading God's way

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