Shepherd Leadership- TUESDAY

To embrace Jesus' form of leadership, we have to redefine what success looks like from God's point of view.  His view and definition of success is different from the worldview.  If we want to lead like Jesus, then we must have the same goals as Jesus.  Just like Jesus, we cannot be swayed by how the world sees success and let its opinion be our guide, or we will head in the wrong direction from the beginning of our attempts to lead like Jesus.  A Shepherd Leader must redefine his goals based on the goals of his SHEPHERD LEADER, JESUS.   You see, most leadership strategies with a worldview measure a return on the effort that leadership makes to match or exceed goals.  For instance, if a CEO were leading his company in a strategy to sell more cars, then the measurement of success would be to sell more cars.  This stands to reason.  But the question is how do we measure the success of Jesus's leadership?  We have to look at what His goals were to find that answer.  Did He complete His work?  Did He succeed in His mission?  Did He leave a legacy that continued to benefit from His leadership?  The answer is yes to all these questions.  However, there was a time that all these things were in serious doubt by those who didn't understand His goals or agree with His methods.

The measurement of success Jesus used is not as tangible as cars or investments that are sold and measured.  It is not as complicated as our voting procedure where an Electoral College can override a popular vote and determine which candidate succeeds rather than what the majority of the people want.  Jesus' goals were not tied to politics, money, property, fame or worldly achievement.  The measure of success with the leadership of Jesus came down to fulfilling His mission to redeem and transform lives, and the impact these lives would have on the world.  This is why the world cannot understand Jesus' leadership strategy.  They cannot understand His values, His mission, His purpose, and His pursuit.  They cannot understand His sacrifice and they do not want to come remotely close to being His kind of"servant leadership" model, for it requires too much of their life.  Jesus was misunderstood, and those of us who follow His form of leadership will also be misunderstood ... except by Him.  He knows what we will face and it is His applause and not the world's applause that drives us.  Are you willing to lead like Jesus with His applause being all the reason you need?

Early on, those people who followed Jesus as His disciples would be measured the same as He was.  They would be seen by the world as failures.  After all, there are many who do not see redeemed lives to be a measure of success, except those of us who have been redeemed.  There are many who would see persecution, sacrifice, and abstinence from things that our flesh craves to be anything but successful.  They would see being a "living sacrifice"as a failure, for they see "those people" who do not live life to please only themselves as a wrong pursuit and this is bewildering to them.  However, as a disciple of Christ who abandons our self to Him, we would testify that following Jesus is the single most important thing, and the best thing in our life, for it secures us eternal life and a life that is carried along by the Living God.  Even though it requires that we deny our self of the rights to our self, we see it as a good deal.  But the world will not agree.  Can you understand why Jesus' leadership style and purpose would be viewed as a failure by the world?  It is because most people have a desire for what this world gives them rather than what is gained in Jesus.

Thankfully, there are some people who see through the counterfeit appeal of the worldview.  They are ready to give up this world's goods to gain Heaven's resources.  They want the same thing as Jesus and this is the first step in being able to lead like Jesus.  The first step in becoming a Shepherd Leader is to begin by understanding what Jesus sees as successful leadership, and we go from there.  Tomorrow we will look at the next step, based on His point of view.