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Closing the Gap 11.9.18

By November 9, 2018Daily Devotional

Week 44 Day 5

Pray:

Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.

Read:

1 Thess. 5:12-13 Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.

Heb. 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Reflect:

Everyone follows and everyone answers to someone.  If you own a business, you answer to your customers.  A four-star general has a civilian boss. The work of the follower is to follow well.  When followers do their work, they make the work of the leader a joy. When followers fail to do their work well, they make the work of a leader a burden.  When the leader’s life becomes all or mostly burden, then the follower has undermined his or her own life. It is common to complain and second-guess leadership, but this approach is the equivalent of punching yourself in the face as an attempt to hurt someone else.  God has placed you under human authorities, so to undermine them is to attempt to undermine him. This is not to say that you should blindly and unquestionably follow all human leaders, you should not and you must not. But unless those God has placed over you ask you to do something illegal, immoral, or unbiblical, you should be very slow to disregard them.  If you want to have a voice to speak into the life of a leader, you must first demonstrate a heart that understands the difficult work of leading and also a life that shows solidarity with the leader. Those who shout criticism from the sidelines are unlikely to get a hearing from a leader who is in the middle of actually leading. Good leaders listen, but they listen most carefully to the people who are clearly with them in the action.  “Obeying and submitting” to leaders is not mindless activity. It is intentional actions designed to work together with a team that is able to accomplish much more than you can by yourself. These actions make the life of a leader a joy and they enable you to multiply the impact of your own life as well. Even if you decided to act selfishly in regards to leadership, you would still “obey and submit” because this is how you will personally prosper as well.  But if you follow Christ, you have multiple reasons to make the leader’s life a joy. You have your own self-interests and you also have the higher purpose of the glory of God to attend to. God is glorified when you live under his authority by living well under the authority he has placed in your life.

Pray:

(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.

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