Friday: Further Thought – Servant Leadership
A great example of the servant leadership of Jesus is found in His behavior at the Last Supper. At that time, Jesus was fully conscious of who He was (the Son of God) and that He was about to return to His Father (John 13:1).
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
After the meal He washed the feet of the disciples. He then said, “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15). Each time the followers of Jesus wash one another’s feet, they not only re-enact this scene; they remind each other that to be a leader in Jesus’ kingdom one must become as a servant. No doubt, for the rest of their lives, especially after they better understood just who Jesus really was, the disciples remembered this act of humility on the part of their Master. No doubt, too, it was in Peter’s mind when he called on church elders not to lord it over others but to be “clothed in humility.”
“In consenting to become man, Christ manifested a humility that is the marvel of the heavenly intelligences. The act of consenting to be a man would be no humiliation were it not for the fact of Christ’s exalted pre-existence. We must open our understanding to realize that Christ laid aside His royal robe, His kingly crown, His high command, and clothed His divinity with humanity, that He might meet man where he was, and bring to the human family moral power to become the sons and daughters of God.
“The meekness and humility that characterized the life of Christ will be made manifest in the life and character of those who ‘walk even as he walked.’” – Ellen G. White, Sons and Daughters of God, p. 81.
Discussion Questions:
|
(20)
Q3. Another contrast in how leadership is perceived between secular society and in christianity, is to help, support and develop those you lead for them to be a success. Through their success, the leader is also seen as being successful. Where as in secular society you often see leaders doing what ever it takes to succeed, even to trample under foot those that they lead.
Q4. While it is true that our human nature can make us sin, The battle for our hearts is from external forces, Christ and Satan. Where one chooses not to change their human nature, there isn't much of a battle going on. But when we have decided to surrender self and allow Christ to take charge of our lives, that is when our hearts become a battle field, where Satan tries to use our sinful nature to dominate our lives and lies to convince us that our sins are too disgraceful to be forgiven. But we know in our hearts that Jesus Christ, our risen Saviour died and rose again to forgive us all from all sin no matter how bad.
I thank God for not being able to see the spiritual battle surrounding us. I do prefer to focus on His mercy! I'm not perfect, but my Lawyer is! I do take full responsability for what I do, and my only hope us to trust in my Lord's love! I need to focus on Him... Everything else will fade away...
Because when reality strikes I see myself naked, lost and devastated!
I think that Satan is the author of selfishness. I think God is the author of Love. We are the work place of these two basic motivations. Naturally, we are given over to selfishness as our motivation, but we can choose Love as our basic motivation which will give us victory over our sinning.
I think Jesus, like Adam before he sinned, was given to the motivation of Love via the Holy Spirit. This is why Jesus knew so much scripture and used it so well. He was motivated by His Holy Spirit of Love instead of selfishness.
Satan was trying to entice Jesus (as he does to us) to choose selfishness as His basic motivation to gain the things He was interested in.
As we choose to walk in the Holy Spirit of Love we walk the opposite direction of the the selfishness that naturally would motivate us. This is our justification with our Creator. As we continue in this motivation we become more naturally motivated by it until it seems strange to us to act in the motivation of selfishness. In this, we are following the example of Jesus and we are resisting the Devil.
To do this we must be always vigilant and opening our hearts to the motivation of God's Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "Watch and pray lest you fall into temptation."
Humility is not weakness, it is strength! But some may ask how can this be? A meek servant of Christ is one confident of who they are and where they are going...as was Jesus. Their self worth is found in the love of the Father, sacrifice of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. But, a meek person puts others (saved or lost) before themselves. The meek are not afraid to call sin by its right name, but it is done with pathos and a desire for the good of those entangled in the web of death. They are wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove. The meek know the path to righteousness and eternal life and have the strength of heaven at their disposal. Earth will belong to them and not the weak. Thank you Lord!