[Kainos] Joy of GenerosityNäide

Leadership and Humility

Do you want to be a leader? At home or in your workplace, school, neighborhood, or family? Wherever it is, God wants to use you to influence people. Leadership is influence, and influence requires sacrifice. Amy Carmichael, a great missionary to India, once said, “You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.”

We love to talk about servant leadership and being humble in today’s world. We say that sports figures and celebrities should be humble. That’s a very Western Christian mindset. If you were to go back in history, when Jesus was on Earth, you would find that the dominant cultures in Europe, the Greeks, and Romans, did not associate leadership with humility.

The Greeks believed in philosophy. Their teachers would stand on the stoa (the Greek word for porch), where the stoics would be, and teach from there. They would teach, and their philosophy, wealth, and wisdom made them leaders. The Romans, in contrast, were military conquerors. They went in and pounded their leadership into their subjects; they taught that it was their might that made them leaders.

Then Jesus came, teaching that “it is better to serve than be served.” He washed their feet, and He rode on the back of a donkey. He had no place to lay His head. He did not have great wealth nor military might, yet He turned the world upside down. Why? His humility. His sacrifice. He didn’t say mine; He said, “Yours. God, Your will be done. Yours.”

You will either be humble in life, or you will be humbled in life. I want to begin on my knees. I want to be humble, not humbled. The Bible tells us there will be a humbling moment at some point when everyone will worship Jesus. With the leadership of Jesus, it’s all about the heart. He turns things upside down.

Lord, please help me to have the attitude of humility You displayed.