Let's PivotSampel

PRACTICE TOV POWER

GOOD LEADERS ACHIEVE JESUS-GREATNESS BY SERVING OTHERS

Human beings have power. How people use power determines whether their culture—at their workplace or at home—becomes tov or toxic.

Power is within you—in your mind, your heart, and your will. As humans, we have power because we are made in the image of the omnipotent God. To be human is to be given the gift and privilege of power. As humans, we each have a voice and are in relationships with others, and therefore, we are empowered to be agents of influence in our world. We also have the power of silence, emotional power, physical power (or lack of it), knowledge power, the power of absence, economic power, spiritual power, and cultural power. We enact power, and we experience power.

Let’s turn now to the radical theory of power taught by Jesus. The true exercise of power is to share it, use it for the sake of others, and empower others. When people use their power to empower others, they unleash the power of the Spirit—and God’s power at work in us is both infinite and distributable.

Notice how Jesus talks about power. In Mark 10:35-45 we read about two brothers who want power. They ask if they can have the power seats next to Jesus in the Kingdom of God. Jesus rebukes them, saying that they don’t know what they’re asking. And then Jesus gets to a brilliant expression about power in the Gospel of Mark (10:42-45):

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Lording it over others and exercising authority are not the Jesus way: “Not so with you,” he says. Rather, he measures greatness by those who choose to become “servants” and “slaves.” Think about it: The entire life of a servant and a slave (all day, every day) is lived wholly for someone else. Jesus then teaches that he is the perfect example: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Power he had. Power over others he could have exercised. But Jesus used his power for others, divesting himself so it could benefit others. He gave himself to redeem others from their sin and death.

Do you use power the way Jesus did or like “the rulers of the Gentiles” he mentions in Matthew 20:25, who “lord it over” people and “exercise authority over them?"

Ask those around you who can safely be honest with you a simple question: How am I using my power?