Leader of Your Life

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Ephesians 3:20

Where to Focus

Warren Bennis, the popular management consultant, wrote in Why Leaders Can’t Lead:  “Magnanimous and/or humble people are notable for their self-possession.  They know who they are, have healthy egos, and take more pride in what they do than in who they are.  They take compliments with a grain of salt and take intelligent criticism without rancor.  Such people learn from their mistakes and don’t harp on the mistakes of others…True leaders are, by definition, both magnanimous and humble.”

Solomon, in writing the Proverbs, agreed, saying that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34).  Humility precedes honor (Proverbs 15:33); and humility, coupled with the fear of the Lord, brings “riches, honor, and life” (Proverbs 22:4).

By humility, however, the Bible doesn’t mean a low self-image.  We aren’t to put ourselves down or nurture an inferiority complex.  We’re just to think of Jesus more often than we think of ourselves, and we’re to put the needs of others before our own.  Today, try keeping a window before your face instead of a mirror.

“Humility does not consist simply in thinking cheaply of one’s self so much as in not thinking of self at all-and of Christ more and more.”  Keith Brooks

Commentary from the Pathways Devotional, by David Jeremiah, April 24.

Warren Bennis, Why Leaders Can’t Lead (San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1989), 118

Give or Take

Greed and lust for power drive people to amazing injustice.  It is the serving of self, typically at the expense of others.

“Luxury leads to vice when a person becomes consumed with the pursuit of pleasure, since a life without self-denial soon becomes out of control in every area.”  John MacArthur, Bible Commentary, pg. 1895, notes for James 5:5.