Catalyst: Devotions For Leaders Who Love The ChurchSample

The Father loves His children, the people you lead everyday. Yet, it’s easy for us to forget they belong to Him, we begin to take advantage of them, we see them as means to an end, or steps on your journey to success. Yet, when Jesus is asked for the greatest commandment, His response is to worship God and love those around you. He says that all the law and the prophets, hangs on these two commandments. How often have we tossed aside the commandment to love our neighbor, to love God’s children, in the name of revenue, profits, or church attendance?

Ask any employee, any volunteer, and they will tell you the best leaders to nurture a sense of value. Ask the people in your life, your family and friends, and they will say the same. That the people they will fight for the most are the ones who look at them and see human beings, not objects to be used for personal advancement. This is hard, it’s unnatural to the way we’ve been brought up to see leadership, that the final product is the way we will be graded and not how we’ve treated the team on the way there.

But Jesus calls us further, calls us to more, and through His power we have to change the landscape of leadership in our world. We must demonstrate that leadership through Christ speaks life and value into people’s hearts. That the way we treat the Father’s children matters, and is our greatest end.

Father, help me to see your children the way You do. Give me eyes to look beyond what my flesh sees, and to focus on how to affirm, love, and care for those you’ve entrusted me to lead. Create in me a compassionate heart, one that turns first to You in worship and then towards Your children with love.

Help change the way I see the world; that the process is just as important as the product, and that people are never to be taken advantage of. Forgive me for when I have seen others as commodities, and heal the wounds in my heart from where I have been seen as such. Teach me to lead with Your heart. Amen.