FOLLOW THE LEADER- “True leaders must be willing to suffer for the sake of objectives
great enough to demand their wholehearted obedience...”^7 - “To aspire to leadership in God’s kingdom requires us to be
willing to pay a price higher than others are willing to pay.
The toil of true leadership is heavy, and the more effective the
leadership, the higher it goes.”^8
Sanders also quotes Samuel Zwemer, who founded one of Christianity’s
earliest missions to Muslims – and faced much suffering in the process.
Zwemer pointed out: “...the only thing Jesus took pains to show after His
resurrection were His scars.”^9 Sanders concludes that:
Scars are the authenticating marks of faithful discipleship and
true spiritual leadership...Nothing moves people more than the
print of the nails and the mark of the spear. Those marks are
tests of sincerity that none can challenge, as Paul knew well. “Let
no one cause me trouble,” he wrote, “ for I bear on my body the
marks of Jesus”^10 (Gal. 6:17).Authentic spiritual leadership is prophetic by nature. It is oriented toward
receiving and revealing God’s perspective of the future. Prophetic leadership
does not primarily come from a study of current events...popular
trends...prevailing theories...majority polls...or statistical analysis – but
from a study of the Bible. Prophetic insight does not come from human
reasoning but from divine revelation. It is only when a leader peers into the
future through the lenses of Holy Scripture that he can have an accurate
diagnosis of current events – and an absolutely trustworthy forecast of
coming world events. It is only the Spirit of God who can reveal to the
spirit of man through the Word of God what is in store for the people
of God. Whether in the world or in the church, whether individually
and collectively, prophetic leadership is desperately needed in our world
today.
Prophetic leadership has one ear tuned to the spirit of the age, and the
other tuned to the Spirit of God. He lives in two worlds simultaneously –
one earthly, and the other heavenly...one corporeal, the other spiritual...one
seen, the other unseen...one temporal, the other eternal.