28.Jan.2009 Self-Leading
II Peter 1:5-8 (NLT): 5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone has the potential to lead. Before you can lead anyone, however, you have to be able to lead yourself. Leadership at its core level is about me leading my own life. You need to start by taking a hard look at yourself. Stop blaming other people for why you are not where you want to be. People are going to let you down. If you look to them, you won’t go anywhere. Take responsibility for your world and move forward from there. Self Lead.
The Bible is full of principles that you can apply to your life. Peter, in the verses above, is saying that you need to take these timeless principles and apply them to your life in order to gain moral excellence, growing closer to God, endurance, godliness, and love. The more you grow like this, the more productive you will become.
Self-leadership is challenging. It is pushing your flesh beyond its limits until it breaks down completely. God comes in after the breaking and rebuilds you; He makes you stronger and more capable to lead. Leadership is like working out. God wants to make you productive in His kingdom. He wants to get you to a place where you can produce fruit in powerful ways. Leaders are not reliant on external motivation to drive them. Leaders self-motivate.
To lead yourself, you need to get really serious about your world. You need to get serious and honest and real with yourself. You have to determine how things are. Positioning yourself to move forward requires you to be 100% honest. What do you have? What do you not have? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Where are you disappointed in life? These are questions you need to answer, and once you are completely honest in these areas, you can start to move forward.
Leadership is trust, and trust is sacred. Trust is hard to earn. It is easily lost and so very hard to regain. If trust is breached, it is devastating. People place their trust in their leader. It is a great motivator, but it is not the only motivator. God trusted you long before anyone trusted you. Trust in Him first and foremost. Strive not to let God down. This motivation steers you away from the blame game and pulls you toward taking control of your life. You wake up and realize that you have to lead yourself. You take control of your life, and you move forward.
Self-help books do no good. People don’t change just from reading a self-help book. Truth is what sets you free. It’s the truths that you apply that set you free. With God’s help and grace and with the support of those God brings around you, you lead. You stop being lead by the wrong people, and you connect yourself to people who are going where you want to go. You move forward in the decisions you make. Decisions mean nothing if you don’t move in them. Make every effort to apply the promises and the benefits to your life; apply the principles!
Self-leadership is about perseverance and self-determination, and, ultimately, it is about the faith and courage and discipline to act. There must be action. Don’t sit there and be unhappy with what you have. That get’s you no where. Move forward. Change your life. And, with God’s help, real change will come into your world.
Discipline is key to self-leadership. In being honest with yourself, you have to do things that hurt. Change is painful. It takes discipline to push through and complete the change. Trials hurt, but they break your flesh and grow your spirit. Do not avoid the pain. The pain is good. God is changing you; it will be painful. Rely on God and endure. People tend to want to run from the pain. When things are falling apart, people run from Him in order not to feel the pain of change. They want to pretend that life is all good. They do not change. Staying in the House is where you break down and are in pain, but it is also where God builds you back up and helps you to change and lead and grow. Stop being proud. Fall apart fast so God can rebuild you. When you’re there, take a good look at yourself and determine to change.
Leadership is knowing what you believe and living in your principles when times are good and when times are bad. Determine. Make decisions. And act upon them. You will go through this cycle time and again. And each time, you will grow some more and you will change again. But, if you don’t want it, you’ll never get it. So, what do you want? No more victim. No more blame. What do you want?
