Leaders Need to Know What Is Available and What Is Essential for Significant Leadership
How often do we equate leadership and reverence? How often do we emphasis and underline the importance of example and service and the words which flow from our mouths when training and helping leaders and when leaders exercise leadership, no matter where they might be operating? This is so vitally important.
When Moses drew near to the burning bush in the wilderness he heard a voice bidding him put of his shoes for he was standing on holy ground.
We dare not approach Calvary except in deepest reverence, and here we observe supreme leadership.
The Gospel writers record the facts leading up to the crucifixion with such restraint and reticence. There is a dignified reserve. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, we read in John's Gospel at Chapter 19. It would be difficult to express the reality plainer and simpler but these expert writers and leaders were able to write clearly and simply.
How restrained and artless, with no elaborate fuss, as Jesus Christ is murdered and crucified by a coalition of definite specific historic forces, and by men who had been raging furiously for some 18 hours, and some of them for 18 months or even longer!
Jesus was not driven to death. He was no helpless victim of cruel circumstances. Jesus Christ willingly laid down His life and shed His blood.
There is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. He gave His life as a ransom for many. No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord. Now, there is leadership par excellence.
From His days in Galilee Jesus has mastered life, facing various conflicts and challenging circumstances, and all kinds of physical and spiritual emergencies.
Jesus went to the Cross not beaten by malice, nor dragged helplessly by some chariot of fate, but voluntarily and victoriously to completely complete the saving rescuing work He came into the world to do. The text regarding this leader states that He completely completed the task He came to do.
Never try to cast some human halo around the cross.
The cross was a thing unspeakably shameful and degrading. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Are you willing to follow a cursed man? Are you still willing to follow this powerful leader who took upon Himself this curse of mankind?
Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and criminals of the worst kind. There is one on either side of Him. This was ignominy and the hangman's rope of the ancient world.
From very early days the preaching of the cross was an offence and a stumbling block to both Jews and Gentiles alike, and the early Church certainly knew that only too well.
On His way to Calvary it became obvious that this man would not be able physically to carry this burden through the narrow crowded streets of Jerusalem.
It was Passover. Yes, there would be crowds.
Sleepless and scourged and following 12 hours of interrogation, following washing feet, and serving bread and wine, in the Upper Room, and Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, this man, this leader, Jesus Christ, physically stumbled.
Crucifixion was polluted with shame. No Roman would help, and they dare not ask a Jew at Passover.
Simon of Cyrene in Libya, who had just arrived in the city of Jerusalem, is standing anonymously, and he is conscripted to carry the cross of Christ.
There is always somebody standing by in the shadows, or by the wall, who can be requisitioned to take up the cross. There is invariably someone standing on the periphery, and somehow wanting to remain on the fringe.
Might there be somebody reading this for whom life will never again be the same?
You know there is more. You know God wants you for something. You sense within you that Christ is calling you and still you are standing in the shadows, reticent and reluctant.
Or, you know you have to be baptised or anointed with the Holy Spirit and start to serve in some new area in the Kingdom. Leaders need to know what is available and what is essential for significant leadership.
If you are going to be a Christian, be one. Don't tiptoe!
Simon, and his sons, Alexander and Rufus came to faith in Christ.
A man who carries the cross of Christ will be rewarded in some way.
Martha could spread a table for Jesus. The good man of the house could give Jesus sanctuary when foes were near, and that woman who was a sinner could break her treasured perfume and anoint Him, leaving His body with a fragrance, but Simon carried His cross.
Here is a dimension of leadership, of which some leaders are presently unaware, and it is the highest form and quality of leadership to which any man rise and attain.
Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children's Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.
He broadcasts regularly on WSHO radio out of New Orleans, and writes a weekly commentary at http://www.studylight.org entitled "Word from Scotland" on various biblical themes, as well as a weekly newspaper column.
His M.A. and B.D. degrees are from The University of Edinburgh, and he continues to run and exercise regularly to maintain a level of physical fitness.
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