From devotion for today by A.W. Tozer

July 9

The Church: The Right Kind of Leaders

Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. --1 Peter 5:2,3

"I believe that it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The Church of the Firstborn is no place for the demagogue or the petty religious dictator. The true leader will have no wish to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self- sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead when the Spirit makes it plain to him that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.

It is undoubtedly true, as I have said so often, that the church is languishing not for leaders but for the right kind of leaders; for the wrong kind is worse than none at all. Better to stand still than to follow a blind man over a precipice. History will show that the church has prospered most when blessed with strong leaders and suffered the greatest decline when her leaders were weak and time serving. The sheep rarely go much farther than the Shepherd." The Warfare of the Spirit, 191,192.

If you don't know about this resource, check it out. (go to Insight for Leaders)Five or six years ago I subscribed to it and was amazed at how often it addressed my spirit as I was working on sermons as well as things going on in my life. I hadn't used it for a long time, ran across it today on the web and it addressed what was on my heart (which the previous posts this morning show! Read on ...