ToDay with E.G: Here is where Leadership starts! Part 7

Lately I didn't keep up with the regular writings 'Today with E.G' and i'll try  to remedy that this week. Among the reasons,is the fact that the texts i wrote were long hence i let a day or two to pass so that people could catch up with their readings without the supplementary burden of new long post. I'll make my post shorter now on, this might help with the reading I suspect.

Before I go on with my topic, I'd like to say something about the new Rehobot music CD I bought yesterday. I loved the songs, especially track 3 'Urera Mana Urakiranuka'. I heard it before at Living Word Association if my souvenirs are correct, and on CD it is just better. I love the sound, the evolved Rwandan traditional music rhythm and the lyric. I kept listening to this one song over and over. I recommend it for lovers of Kinyarwanda songs with a traditional rhythm. However, the CD as a whole is a beautiful musical experience.

Having said that, let's go back to our topical issue. For the past week I have been sharing some personal development Leadership from Dr. Covey book 'The 7 Habits of Highly effective people'. I hope it helped for those trying to make meaningful changes in their lives during this change season of November 2011.
There is never a better time to change than today. The time of change is not tomorrow but it is always today!

Today is an intro to what I came to understand of Dr. Maxwell leadership approach. Simply put, Leadership is the capacity of influencing. We talk about a  leader when the person identified as a leader has influence on others. There is no leader without followers. There needs to be followers to be lead for the title of leader to be meaningfully used. However, I do believe that in an extent we all need to be leaders. Here is my biblical reason.

In the book of proverbs we are told of a beautiful truth about personal leadership, personal influence and personal growth. The first time I heard of it I was in a FGBMFI* youth meeting more than a decade ago. We were listening to Pastor René Massasu, now known as Apostle Joshua Massasu. In his 1996 sermon he made us read this part of scripture and it has never left my mind since even though I've never found an appropriate platform to use this in my preachings and discussions. I'm glad that this topic under discussion is more than fitting for this verse use.

"He who is slow to be angry is better than a man of war, and he who has control over his spirit than he who takes a town." (Proverbs 16:32 - Darby Version)

Not everybody can claim that he can take a city, nor a town. Most can maybe claim that of a ghost town, but for an inhabited city or town? Definitely not many! Only a war leader or a strong leader can claim to be able to do so. Nevertheless, the Bible says that controlling once spirit is as much a greater feat as controlling a town. Here is how the New International Version reads this same scripture:

"Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city." (Proverbs 16:32 - NIV)

It take as much leadership skills and initiatives, as much vision and discipline to control ones' life as it demands to take and control a city or a town. So maybe you might never be a leader of nations or of a group of followers in your suburbia, however to be a leader in your own life, you must! It is not optional. You can't expect other people to come in your life and direct you in every steps you take, and for all the decisions you need to make. You have to learn to do that yourself! It is your greatest responsibility and greatest challenge. You and I need to at least have influence in our own spirit i.e in our own lives if for no other reason than for the mere fact that it is our lives. All this series of writings has one ultimate purpose, to help you regain your ability to take your life back and control it and guide it toward the divine calling you have received from the Lord.

We can't all be positional leaders with titles, we may not all be leaders of crowds and so on. But we all need to be leaders in our own lives. We need to have influence in our own lives, aspirations, desires and actions. We all need to be able to make the hard decisions in our lives to take our cross and to submit every thought that regularly are taken captive away from God's knowledge (2 Corinthians 10). No one will fight your wars. You'll have to fight it yourself. That's how we all do it. We check our resources and we take initiatives like great leaders, like influential peoples. Be first the influential person of your lives before trying to be a model for others.

To control ones' life, there is this particular resources you desperately need to know about and embrace, it is called 'grace'. Without the grace of God, I hardly see how is it possible to master your own twisted desires, your indomitable appetites for what are forbidden. Christians are on the front row of showing how it is possible to be good leaders, to be great leaders. We have a real fighting advantage over our rebellious selves / ego - we have the grace of God to guide us through.

The book of proverbs makes the claim that mastering your body is no small feat. It demands as much initiatives, strong will, personality and control and maybe more active control than the control of a town. Private victories are hard to win but they are the most important victories. You can almost tell if someone will succeed a certain enterprise (public victory) by the way he lives his personal disciplines and personal commitments.

In this whole world, there is but only one person that you can really lead and show your personal influence to, and that person is yourself. Even the spirit of the prophet is subdue to the prophet himself the Bible inform us in 1Corinthians 14:32 "And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets". God has always given us the ability to show influence and leadership in His name, and that since the creation of man in the book of Genesis. Hence don't forfeit your divine right and imperatives. And the exercise starts at home, precisely in your own life. Learn to influence yourself with biblical values in order to accomplish the works that has been created for you to accomplish before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 2).

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10 - NIV)

With that i end this, hoping first that the post have been short enough to encourage readings and second that you'll be proactive in your life for the Glory of God!

Have a nice week in Jesus' name.

P.S: * Full Gospel Business Men Fellowship International