Blog

By Bill Lawrence

President of  Leader Formation International

Have the mind among ourselves which was also in Christ Jesus . . .

                                                            Philippians 2:5

Go to the night when Jesus was with His men, at one point all twelve of them, but one was betraying Him and was at that very moment accepting thirty pieces of silver to turn Him over to the Pharisees and the Sadducees for a false trial and crucifixion. Only Jesus knew this, but He taught the eleven the Upper Room discourse, then walked from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane, having taken His three key disciples, Peter, James, and John, to His personal place of prayer to the Father, and poured our His heart to His Father. It was here that He was a human as He could be apart from the cross itself. And it was here that He cried out to His Father,

. . . if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as You will.

                                                            Matthew 26:39

What He was praying is, If it is possible deliver Me from the price We must pay to deliver men and women from the penalty for sin tell Me what it is, and I will pay that rather than the cross.

Nevertheless, . . . not as I will, but as you will.

That is the mind that Paul wants all leaders, not just the Philippians in their differences, but us in our leadership to have. He is saying, Don't pursue your will but pursue the will of the Father, Son, and the Spirit. Come together in the unity that the Lord God desires for you. Put Jesus first, not you!

You see, leadership is followership first, and that is always first.

I will say this over-and-over again: to be a leader you must first be a follower.

You cannot be a leader for Christ unless you are first a follower of Christ.

If Jesus could not be a leader for the Father unless He was first a follower of the Father through radical desperate dependence on the Holy Spirit, how can any of us be an exception? There are no exceptions. Period!

It's interesting to realize that the first task of a leader is to be a model of Jesus, to show your followers what Jesus is like in everyday life, in being holy, not like a priest or some high up superior, but as a very real mitty-gritty hands on task accomplishing caring individual who supports those who suffer and have great needs. The primary responsibility of a leader is to meet these needs and help them grow in Christ and so model Jesus to all followers.

Knowledge

Sacrifice--take up the cross

Resurrection

Enablement

Obedience

Discipleship

Repeated over-and-over again

I can never learn because every age has different demands

You never learn if

You only learn it in a new way