Being Led By The Spirit As A Leader-Part 2

 

In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus declares,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

This passage has always struck me as being associated with the many fulfilled prophesies Jesus’ life represented. However, it is also a statement of identity; Jesus proclaiming that through the Spirit’s leading and calling, He knew exactly what purpose He was called to accomplish. The confidence that came from this understanding allowed Jesus to speak and act boldly and with authority. As leaders, we too can have the same sureness in our decision-making and confidence in our calling when we are being led and dependent upon the promptings of the Spirit. It’s far to easy for leaders to become too concerned with the opinions, criticisms, or demands of others. However, our security, assurance, and confidence should come from knowing that we have been placed in leadership intentionally by the Lord and we have been given the Spirit who will lead and guide us.

            Act 1:8 is a parallel passage that applies directly to us as Jesus’ followers. In this verse, Jesus promises the coming of the Holy Spirit, who will give us the power to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. As described above, just like Jesus was anointed by the Spirit which gave him the authority to live out His calling, we too can have the boldness and confidence needed to carrying out our callings because of the Spirit’s power. This passage though also makes me think of empowerment. Just like the Spirit empowers us to carryout Jesus’ commands as leaders, we can empower those we lead to accomplish the tasks before us. While we will certainly do this imperfectly, unlike the Spirit, our living out of biblical leadership qualities like integrity, stewardship, faithfulness, and humility will make a difference in the teams we lead. Empowering others can be practical like giving team members an opportunity to step up and lead a project. It may also be must deeper though, such as choosing to be bold in decision making and empowering others to do the same.