What is your First Response?

How do you sleep at night? How do you sleep at night knowing a church member is having marital issues? Or keeps getting rejected from schools back to back? Or is sick and is waiting for God to intervene in her situation? Being a leader is more than just joining a zoom conference call and speaking for a few hours and it is more than just standing behind a pulpit and preaching a fire word! Being a leader is about caring for people. The ultimate example we have for leadership is Christ.

To lead like Christ means emulating everything Christ is! His passions become your passions. His desires become your desires and His burdens become your burdens. The reason why we can go to God about absolutely anything is because He cares about everything that burdens us.  1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your burdens on Him, because He cares for you.” God always has us in mind. His reason for sending His Son? Because He loved us! We have become the very reason for everything God does. The Bible says we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel what we are going through. (Hebrews 4:15). What an amazing leader Christ is! We can be this too by the special Grace of God!

How can we lead like Christ?

1. Be compassionate like Christ

It is important for you to be compassionate and resonate with the pain of those you lead. Being compassionate means you are deeply concerned with what is going on with others and don’t feel relief until the other person is relieved. 

Jesus is a compassionate leader! When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her and said “don’t cry”. Luke 7:13

This was Jesus’ first response to a widow who had just lost her only son! Immediately after, He walked up to the coffin and commanded the young man to get up. The latter verses say that the son rose up and began talking! Hallelujah! Jesus was so compassionate that he wanted to relieve the woman of the pain she felt. What is your first response as a leader?

Not only was Jesus compassionate, but He cared about both the spiritual and physical well-being of others.

“And Jesus called His disciples and said ‘I feel compassion for the people, because they have remained with me for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way’” Matthew 15:32

After the three day fire revival that Jesus had with the multitudes, He fed them! As a leader both the physical and spiritual well being of those in the ministry should concern you. After the program is over, check up on people! Ensure they got home safely or set up systems in place to check on the well-being of members. Like Christ, be concerned about the people you lead.

2. Have a heart like Christ

Being a leader can be difficult because you are human too! And you have emotions! With the special sufficient Grace of God, His power that is made perfect in our weaknesses will grant us the ability and enablement to have a heart like His! 

Forgive! People will hurt you, but remember that Christ is our ultimate example and after He was beaten and nailed to the cross He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34. Pray for a heart like Christ’! A heart that isn’t moved by offense and the wrongs people do! It’s amazing that after all that Christ went through, He still forgave. 

Love the way Christ does. It’s because of the love that He has for us that He was able to sacrifice Himself. The love you have for the people as a leader will push you to wake up to pray at dawn to raise their petitions to the Heavens!

3. Intercede like Christ

As a leader, praying for those in the ministry is extremely important. Remember their burdens! When the Bible says love your neighbor as you love yourself, it also means that in the same way you pray for yourself, pray for your neighbor too! 

Jesus prayed for his disciples:

Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.  John 17:11

And even today, Jesus is still interceding on our behalf (Romans 8:34). Isn’t that amazing?

What should my response be as a leader?

As a leader what should your first response be when it comes to those God has entrusted to your care? 

Be compassionate like Christ, have a heart like Christ, and intercede for others like Christ!