LEADERS ARE PROPHETICgroup pressure...play to the crowd...march in step with the masses...
sing the group songs...parrot the party platform...chant the hollow
slogans...live by majority vote – than be different. They choose to be
popular leaders rather than prophetic leaders. They end up speaking for man
rather than speaking for God.
Principle:
“Popular leaders speak for man;
prophetic leaders speak for God.”The pain barrier...the popularity pull...the fear of rejection...the possibility
of suffering are prophetic leadership issues that cannot be avoided. That’s
why Jesus said that we should “...count the cost” of following Him (Lk.
14:28; KJV). In his book, The Other Side of Leadership, Eugene Habecker
writes:
Leadership is a fairly high-priced calling and persons are
advised not to rush headlong into it unless, after counting the
costs, they are persuaded that God has still called them into such
a position. Perhaps the attitude should be one of a reluctant but
willing servant.^6In my opinion, one of the greatest books on leadership was written
by the late Oswald J. Sanders, entitled Spiritual Leadership. In it he has
much to say about the pain and suffering that almost always accompany
authentic spiritual leadership. He exhorts the would-be Christian leaders
to spend much time pondering the words of the Lord Jesus to James and
John about the cost of leadership. As you will recall, in their youthful
enthusiasm and spiritual naiveté, they were confident of their readiness
to take their places of leadership shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lord
Jesus. One would lead from His right, and the other would lead from His
left! Jesus sobered their thinking with a penetrating question about the
suffering that inevitably goes along with true spiritual servant leadership:
“Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am
baptized with?” (Mk. 10:38). With that question in mind, let me share a
couple of quotes from Sanders about suffering leadership: