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[ LPM Friday Night Service - 16th
October 2004]
1.
Introduction
Today, we
hear about “men of God” or “anointed men of
God.” Yes there are men of God that are God
approved. But there are also others that are
“man approved.” Scripture describes “David a
man after God’s own heart.” Acts 2:22 also
describes “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God by wonders, miracles, and signs by
God.” I think also that Paul, the apostle
was man approved of God. In this series, we
focus on the theme “When God’s approval is
on a man, there are seven things that
manifest and begin to increase upon the life
of that man.” You may call these “ Seven
indicators or signs that a man is approved
of God.” The message is that every man that
God has ever used and approved always
manifested these seven and operated in the
dimension of the miraculous. These seven are
grace, favour, mercy, anointing,
miracles, signs and wonders. As an
example, all men like Jesus, Stephen, Paul,
David, Joseph, Moses and Noah operated in
these seven dimensions. The series reveal
how you will know if a man has God’s seal of
approval on their face and also leadership
development process in a life of a leader.
The goal is that we will desire as God’s
children to become like Jesus of Nazareth, a
man approved of God, by signs and wonders. 2
Tim 2:21 says that “ If a man therefore
purge himself from these, he shall be a
vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet
for the master’s use, and prepared unto
every good work.”
2.
Scriptural
review
We explore
seven scriptures namely Acts 2:22; Acts
10:38; Luke 4:18; Gen 6:8; Gen 39:21; 2 Sam
7:15 and 2 Tim 2:21.
2.1
Acts 2:22 “Ye men of Israel, hear these
words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders
and signs, which God did by him in the midst
of you, as ye yourselves also know.” To
approve means to authorise or sanction. The
Latin word “approbare” means to approve, The
Latin word “probare” means to test or prove.
A man approved by God is a man authorised,
sanctioned or tested by God. A man who has
stood and passed God’s test of approval or
has God’s authority endorsed on his life and
ministry and has God’s divine signature to
do what God has called him to do. It also
means that the man has been tested and found
trustworthy to stand as God’s representative
on earth. God’s sign of approval on Jesus
life and ministry was miracles, wonders and
signs. I define miracles, signs and wonders
beyond mere performing miracles of say blind
eyes physically seeing but a dimension in
which you as a leader or man of God operates
in the miraculous, irrespective of where God
has positioned you in life and calling, be
it in business, politics or church until
people equate your life and work and
personality as a miracle, sign and a wonder
to the world from God. This dimension only
happens when God captures the heart beat of
the leader and the two walk in partnership
on earth.
2.2
Acts 10:38 says “how God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power:
who went about doing good, and healing all
that were oppressed of the devil; for God
was with him.” God’s power enables the
leader do what God has called him to do.
Divine assignment requires divine power. The
world needs transactional transformational
and not transformational leadership.
Transactional leader give you this if you
give him that”. Transformational leader
reproduces himself in others.
Transformational leadership occurs by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Change only
happens when the leader changes. Integrity
is a vanishing commodity today. Personal
standards are crumbling in a world that has
taken to hot pursuit of personal pleasure
and shortcuts to success. In a cartoon in
the New Yorker, two clean-shaven
middle-aged men are sitting together in a
jail cell. One inmate turns to the other and
says: “All along, I thought our level of
corruption fell well within community
standards.”John Maxwell says that the first
order of things to be changed is me, the
leader. After I consider how hard it is to
change myself, then I will understand the
challenge of trying to change others. This
is the ultimate test of leadership. Stephen
Covey calls it “Seek first to understand,
before you seek to be understood.” A
Middle-Eastern mystic said, “I was a
revolutionary when I was young and all my
prayer to God was: “Lord, give me the grace
to change all those who come into contact
with me, just my family and friends, and I
shall be satisfied.” Now that I am an old
man and my days are numbered, I have begun
to see how foolish I have been. My one
prayer now is: Lord, give me the grace to
change myself.” If I had prayed for this
right from the start, I would not have
wasted my life.
2.3
Luke 4:18 God anointed Jesus or equipped Him
with the tools to enable Him fulfil His
mission on earth. Mission statement is the
reason why you exist or the purpose for
which you were born.. Scripture says it was
for this very purpose that the Son of Man
appeared to destroy the works of the devil.
Most people simply exist but do not live or
occupy. Dr Myles Munroe said it well that
the greatest tragedy with man is to be alive
and not know why. Dr Tayo Adeyemi says that
most people die at the age of 25 but only
get buried at 75. What actually dies in them
is the vision God put inside them. The
leader dies when his vision dies. David
having served God’s purpose in his own
generation died.(Acts 13:3) The mission
statement or purpose defines what business
you do and what you don’t do. It also helps
you to focus on your core business or
mission whilst you are on earth.
2.4
Gen 6:8 says “But Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord.” You as a leader need
grace or divine ability or favour in order
to complete God’s assignment for your life.
2.5
Gen 39:21 says “But the Lord was with
Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him
favour in the sight of the keeper of the
prison.” Not only was the Lord with Joseph,
but Joseph was with the Lord. Every man that
has walked with God entered into a covenant.
God’s favour only shows up when a covenant
is cut and man is walking within the
confines of that covenant.
2.6
In
2 Sam 7:15 we read “ but my mercy shall not
depart away from him, as I took it from
Saul, whom I put away before thee.” This
means that God can put on you His mercy and
favour and anointing but can also take it
away from you because of disobedience.
2.7
In
2 Tim 2:15, Paul says “Study to show thyself
approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word
of truth.” In verse 21, he says “If a man
therefore purge himself from these, he shall
be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and
meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto
every good work. God’s approved man is a
perpetual student in God’s school of
leadership. Leadership development, as Bob
Clinton says,is a dynamic process in which a
man or woman with God-given capacity
influences a specific group toward His
purposes for the group. Development includes
all of life’s processes, not just formal
training. Leaders are shaped by deliberate
training and by experience. Leadership
development is a much broader term than
leadership training. Leadership training
refers to a narrow part of the overall
process, focusing primarily on learning
skills. A leader is one who influences a
specific group of people to move in a
God-given direction. In order to influence
and motivate people, a leader must learn how
to relate to people effectively. He or she
must also learn how to work within existing
organisational structues and create new
structures to enhance ministry. Matthew
Henry comment on 2 Tim 2:15: Ministers must
be workmen; they have work to do, and they
must take pains in it. Workmen that are
unskillful, or unfaithful, or lazy, have
need to be ashamed; but those who mind their
business, and keep to their work, are
workmen that need not be ashamed. This calls
for excellence in leadership.
3.
Leadership
development process:Bob Clinton
For the past
four years I have been researching on the
subject of leadership and have read books on
leadership and management. I was a guest
lecturer for the MBA programme at the
University of Botswana in 2003 in strategic
management course. In all my research,
almost every author in leadership defines
leadership as influence. I have a company in
South Africa called “International Centre
For Strategic Leadership (Proprietary)
Limited(ICSL) which focuses on strategic
leadership development at all levels in all
organisations. My passion is strategic
leadership development for business,
political and spiritual leaders. As I talk
to corporate executives or leaders about
ICSL, they want to know how leadership
development will add to the bottom line
profits of their company after their
leadership courses at ICSL. Companies want
courses like MBA which directly contribute
to profit. I have now come to a conclusion
that leadership development is a lifetime of
lessons. It is not a set of do-it yourself
correspondence courses that can be worked
through in a few months or years. Leadership
is your life. You can not separate the
leader from his life.
1.
Leadership
development should be looked in terms of
life’s processes rather than learning a set
of techniques or skills or quick fix
techniques in leadership. God uses these
processes and patterns to develop you as a
leader. As you take time to understand these
processes, you will begin to sense a
continuity of God’s working in your past to
develop you as a leader. When you look on
leadership development in terms of life’s
processes, you quickly realise who the
academic dean really is. It is God. Each of
us has leadership courses that are
individually tailored for us by the Academic
Dean. Each learner, a potential leader, will
graduate with honours-the right knowledge,
skills, and character needed for the
specific job God has in mind. John Mason
says “ You are born an original, so don’t
die a copy.” Just as different and unique as
our faces look, so are our experiences in
life, and our tailor made leadership courses
from God in life will be. Our visions and
destinies may be common but different.
2.
Effective
leaders recognise leadership selection and
development as a priority function.
Everything rises and falls on leadership.
Even in business, stock prices rise and fall
when there is a change in the corporate
leadership or board. Change in government
may cause investors to leave a country due
to investor confidence uncertainty. Jesus
took the whole night to pray for his
leadership in his selection process.
Strategic or visionary leaders invest their
time in identifying one good leader. Strong
leaders gather strong people around
themselves.
3.
Effective
leaders increasingly perceive their
ministries in terms of a lifetime
perspective. They think long term instead of
short term effects of their decisions in
leadership development.
4.
God develops
a leader over a lifetime. That development
is a function of the use of events and
people to impress leadership lessons upon a
leader(processing), time, and leader
response. Processing is central to the
theory. All leaders can point to critical
incidents in their lives where God taught
them something very important. Every time
you experience crisis in life, ask not why
me God but rather what lesson do I learn
from this crisis, mistake, failure or
setback.
5.
God uses
personality characteristics, experiences
good and bad, and the time context to
develop you as a leader
6.
Leadership
can be taught by formal training or ministry
experience or mentoring. However, the real
training program is in the heart of the
person, where God is doing some growth
testing. Don’t kill yourself but skill
yourself. Attend seminars, read books,
listen to tapes. In 5 and 6 above, God is
primarily working in the leader(not through
him or her).
7.
You minister
from what you are. In other words, you can
not give what you do not have. Although
there may be fruitfulness in ministry, the
major work is that which God is doing to and
in the leader, not through him or her. Most
emerging leaders don’t recognise this. They
evaluate productivity, activities,
fruitfulness, etc. But God is quietly, often
in unusual ways, trying to get the leader to
see that one ministers out of what one is.
God is concerned with what we are. We want
to learn a thousand things because there is
so much to learn and do. But He will teach
us one thing, perhaps in a thousand ways: “I
am forming Christ in you.”
8.
God uses
one’s life as well as gifts to influence
others. This is a period in which giftedness
emerges along with priorities. One
recognises that part of God’s guidance for
ministry comes through establishing ministry
priorities by discerning gifts. The key to
leadership is priorities. It is your gifts
that open a door for you and usher you
before great men and not just education.
God’s calling and gifting in my life is
summarised ”As you study scriptures, God
will put messages for specific individuals
and groups who will be encouraged and
blessed by them.” Everytime I have obeyed
this calling, I have prospered personally,
financially and spiritually whether at home,
work, business or profession.
9.
God’s
approach is to work in you first, and then
through you. Here the leader is moved by God
into a role that matches gift-mix,
experience, temperament. Geographical
location is an important part of
convergence. The role not only frees the
leader from ministry for which there is no
gift, but it also enhances and uses the best
that the leader has to offer. Not many
leaders experience convergence. Often they
are promoted to roles that hinder their
gift-mix. Further, few leaders minister out
of what they are. Their authority usually
springs from a role. In convergence, being
and spiritual authority form the true power
base for mature ministry.
10.
Learn to say yes or no as a leader. This
will determine your success or failure in
leadership and your being effective.
11.
Integrity is foundational for effective
leadership; it must be instilled early in a
leader’s character. Integrity is considered
to be the most important ingredient of
leadership. Integrity is not what we do as
much as who we are. Image is what people
think we are. Integrity is what we really
are.
12.
Faithfulness in a small responsibility is an
indicator of probable faithfulness in a
larger responsibility.
CONCLUSION
God’s goal
is a Spirit-filled leader through whom the
living Christ ministers, utilising the
leader’s spiritual gifts. The fruit of the
Spirit is the mark of the mature Christian.
The gifts of the Spirit are a mark of a
leader being used of God. God wants that
balance. His approach is to work in you, and
then through you. Methods are many,
Principles are few. Methods always change,
Principles never do. As a perpetual student
in leadership look for principles relevant
to your mission in life. Apply these to your
life. God will never move you to the next
leadership class until you have learned and
mastered the principle He has already given
you. If you keep on failing the same test
with God, you will keep on re-sitting the
same test till you pass. Begin today, a
lifelong search for principles, the
foundational truths that never change and
yet always have a fresh principle behind.
Learn to evaluate men and ministries on the
basis of the principles that motivated them
as well as on the basis of the fruit they
produced.(Wiersbe 1980:81). Dawson Trotman,
man behind the worldwide spread of The
Navigators was a dynamic person who did
everything with all his might. He called the
church back to authentic Christianity by
focussing on committed discipleship. Dawson
began to preach ”God can do more through one
man who is 100 percent dedicated to Him than
through 100 men who are only 90 percent.”The
need of the hour is to concentrate on
building leaders and labourers on whom God
could depend. Are you that leader or man?
God bless you.
John Kauya,
MBA, FCCA, FCPA(Bots.), BCOM, DIPBUS
DESTINY
CHRISTIAN CENTRE,
Gaborone,
Botswana
References:
Bible, KJV; Developing the Leader Within
You, by John Maxwell; The making of a
leader, Robert Clinton; You are born
Original, Don’t die a copy John Mason; Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen
Covey; Maximising your potential by Myles
Munroe. |