What does a leader look like? What are those qualities which are most important for one to have in order for him to develop so as to lead others to greater service to our Creator? Think about the difference in how the world looks at potential leaders and the way God sees them.
What would the world have ever seen in a man who was a failure at age forty and guilty of murder? What would the world have ever seen in that man who fled to a foreign country, took a meaningless job and dropped out of sight for decades? Who would have ever thought that lying dormant within him was the ability to lead a group which numbered in the millions? The world would never have seen Moses as a leader, but God did!
Who would have ever thought that a man who was described as “ignorant, uneducated, common, unlettered, untrained, common, ordinary, illiterate, and an ignoramus and unlearned” (various translations of Acts 4:13) would ever have any future? Yet when Jesus called James, this is the way the world viewed the lowly fisherman. James, along with Peter and John, became part of the “inner circle” of the apostles! Who would have seen that!
Would the world have ever looked on a young man as having any potential when his own family did not see that in him? When God sent His prophet to Bethlehem to sanctify a particular family in which the next king of Israel was to be found, the youngest son was not there when the time came to anoint the new king! His own family had left him at home to tend the sheep. It appears they thought he might be a good shepherd, but that was about all! God said of him, “I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel” (2 Sam. 7:8).
God looks at men far differently from the way the world does when it comes to great leaders. Paul was slow of speech; Peter crumbled and denied Jesus at the most critical time; Amos was a fruit gatherer; Levi was a tax collector. Yet God saw in them far more than the world saw in them.
Now think about yourself and the Leadership Workshop planned for this weekend. Let me urge you to stop seeing yourself through the eyes of the world and see in yourself what God can create there. The beginning step for a great leader for God is a willing heart, dedicated to Him. That kind of heart is up to you. The rest, being molded and shaped into a great leader, is up to Him. Think about this!