Proverbs 14:28
One
of the most basic principles of leadership is that people have to be willing to
follow the leader! If they aren’t following, you aren’t leading. Political
leaders get in trouble when people don’t like them. When their poll numbers
drop too far, they become ineffective as leaders because people are not willing
to follow them.
We
are all leaders to one extent or another. We are all leading someone. Or at
least we should be leading someone. Parents know this all too well. Kids pick
up on the inconsistencies in a parent’s words and behaviors. They pick up on
them and use them to their advantage.
When
a national leader looses their popular standing, then they must become a
dictator or bully to get things done their way. They are no longer serving
their people. And in the West, leaders are in power as the people’s servant.
They are elected to carry out a job, not do their own thing.
We,
of course, don’t have a king here in the United States. But in places where
there are kings, if all the people leave, then the king is a king of one. Kings
need subjects, people who will follow him. If all their people get either
captured or rebel against him, the king has no one to lead. The king’s power
comes from the people who follow him, their willingness to serve him, pay him
taxes, and go to war for him. So when a king has a large population, he can do
many things.
Since
we are leaders, hopefully in a different way than kings, we too need followers.
Christ has called us all to be leaders and followers. We follow Christ, and
others follow us as we follow Christ. We lead by example. We have a
responsibility to lead TO Christ, just as a king has the responsibility to lead
his subjects, protecting them from the enemy and ensuring their future
wellbeing.
So
how are we doing? How are you doing? Are you leading your children by carefully
guarding what they are reading, viewing and absorbing? You have the right and
the responsibility to protect them from the evils that our culture wants to
experiment on them. We have a responsibility to lead them to Christ.
Are
we guarding what we read, view and absorb? We can’t lead where we do go
ourselves.