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But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; Exodus 18:21-22a
The above scripture highlights several characteristics that are important in Godly governmental leaders.
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Capable: Leaders should have the ability/experience to do the job. They are not just spiritual people but are skilled as well. As believers, we should look for excellence in our leaders as it comes to their capability. We should also train up our children to be skilled in their work as Joseph and Daniel were in the Kings’ courts. Are we looking for leaders who are capable to take on the big responsibility of running our great nation?
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Trustworthy: Unfortunately, this is not an important criteria for leadership nowadays. However, as believers, we need to hold the plumb line and not ignore God’s standard. Leaders cannot have duplicity in their words and actions. They should be individuals who are trusted and respected by their spouse, their colleagues, and the public at large. Leaders should not have shady dealings or associations that could cast a shadow of doubt on their integrity.
Unfortunately, in the political climate of our times, there is much mudslinging going on between presidential candidates. Then people feel the need to take a side with one of the candidates and attack the opposing one. As believers, we should not tolerate or excuse anyone’s shady dealings. That’s a character issue. Getting into the position should be secondary to the candidates’ moral integrity and character.
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Hate Dishonest gain: Another important character trait is that Godly leaders hate dishonest gain. If someone hates something, they will stay as far away from it as possible. They will not get close to the edge of a boundary to get tempted. They don’t partake in questionable activities that makes people wonder how they gained their wealth.
Our democratic type of system keep us immune from corrupt and autocratic leaders. However, our costly presidential campaigns, open the door to special interest groups to pour large sums of money in the political engine. Some of those donors are doing it in the hopes of legislations that will benefit their agendas. We need individuals in the legislative and executive branch who are willing to care about the will of God first and the will of the American people second.
I will share about one of the most important qualities of a Godly governmental leader in the next devotional.
I teach American Government to Seniors in high school, and we have many conversations about current presidential candidates, party debates, and the ongoing primaries happening right now. This week, I decided to slow down and help students examine what God says about character qualities of a governmental leader. The Bible has quite a few scriptures about leadership.
Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth. Numbers 12:3
In his early years, Moses was an impatient and rough person, which led him to killing an Egyptian to defend an Israelite, but the Bible calls Moses the most humble man on the earth! God picked Moses and processed him for years before he was ready for the great responsibility of leading Israel out of bondage. Moses was eighty years old when he began his leadership role. Do we really think someone in his thirties or forties is processed enough to be ready for the huge task of presidency!?
The context of the above scripture was about Moses’ family criticizing him for marrying an Ethiopian woman. Moses did not defend himself but God did. God chose to defend Moses by rebuking his family for speaking negatively about this man.
picture from thestoryofliberty.net
God is looking for humble leaders to take charge over a nation. A humble person doesn’t get offended easily and neither does he/she rush into judgment by attacking others. Moses patiently and humbly led the grumbling Israelites for forty years in the desert. However, the one time he disobeyed the Lord by hitting the rock rather than speaking to the rock, he was chastised by God for not representing Him properly before the people. Moses lost the chance to take the people to the Promised Land.
I wonder if our governmental leaders ask the question, “Is God pleased with how I represent Him before the people?” Could it be that our leaders have not had much success because their overall objective has been to represent their political party rather than the Lord?
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10: 23-25
Another key element in remaining spiritually healthy is in regularly assembling together with other believers. God has designed us to be in a community of believers. In the natural, when people isolate themselves, they begin to get depressed and develop all kinds of wrong ideas about life and others. Similarly, as Christians we are designed to be part of a community of believers to remain healthy spiritually and avoid deception. The Lord did not design us to do our spiritual walk alone. We were never intended to be lone rangers in the Kingdom of God.
Ironically, as Christians we yearn to reach the lost and tell them how Jesus can change their lives and their relationships, but at the same time we can have major issues with some people in the church. We cannot isolate our ministry from our relationships. Our lives need to be integrated to the level that we don’t have the “good compartment” and the “not so good compartment” in our lives.
The above scripture tells us that the precursor in not forsaking the spiritual relationships is to stir up love and good works amongst ourselves. If we are able to do this, then we will have a healthy and pleasant atmosphere. If we neglect to stir up love and good works, our hearts begin to get hardened towards our brothers and sisters, and after a while we find ourselves avoiding certain people. When the avoidance continues for a period of time, it eventually leads us not to desire having fellowship with the “church people”.
The writer of book of Hebrews exhorts the believers in continually assembling together as the “Day is approaching”. The world will continue to grow darker as we move towards the end times. This should cause us to be more mindful of having the loving support of other believers to navigate and remain courageous through tough times. The scripture tells us that many will fall away from faith in the last days. Is it possible because they were isolated that they could not handle the persecution and the rejection of the world?
Paul likened the church to a body and described how every part, regardless of its visibility, contributes to the health of the entire body (See 1Corinthians 12:12-31). We can be very talented and anointed in certain areas, but we still need the community of believers to grow together, to fellowship, to serve, and to support each other. While Paul himself was a very gifted man, he always longed to be with the saints as he stated in many of his letters.
I will be the first to tell you that relationships in the church are not always easy. As a matter of fact, they can be very hurtful. However, I cannot create a theology based on my experience rather I want to experience what is theologically true according to the word of God. Let’s pray and ask the Lord to help us to be contributors of love and good works among believers and let God do His work to purify and mature us as the body of Christ!
Our thoughts and words are two other elements in our spiritual health. They are really tied together as a two-sided coin!
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 1 Corinthians 13:11
Paul describes a childish behavior by outward indicator of one’s speech and an inward indicator of one’s understanding and thoughts. If our words are childish, they stem from childish thoughts and understanding.
Our words are a good indicator of the type of thoughts we entertain as well as the prism by which we see the people and the circumstances around us. For example, if we have a tendency to feel like a victim when others disregard or shun us, it can generally lead us to gossip or complaining about them. It is in those instances that we need to make a decision not to entertain those kinds of thoughts. If our thoughts don’t change in that area, we will continue to use our words to describe ourselves as victims and complain about others who treat us wrong.
If we want to remain healthy spiritually we need to face the truth that we can’t change anyone except our response to them. There will always be people who will push our buttons and make us feel less. The sheer fact of letting other people have control over us can cause a great feeling of victimization.
A sign of healthy spiritual growth will be in the way we think or speak about ourselves and others. Our relationships are a good indicator of how well we use our words and our thoughts. If we have ongoing struggles in relationships, we should wonder how healthy we are spiritually.
Spiritual health should have an impact on the quality of our relationship with others. If we find ourselves in continual conflict always frustrated by others’ behavior but not coming to a resolution of a problem, we should ask ourselves: “Has the word of God done any pruning of my choice of words? Am I allowing others to control my spiritual health? Am I convicted of how I speak about others? Do I passively allow my mind to think whatever it wishes about others? What does it take for me to grow up in these areas?”
In addition to feeding on the word of God, another key to good spiritual health is to remember where God has brought us from.
Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Isaiah 46:9
The act of remembrance is very important especially for those of us who have been walking with the Lord for decades. It is easy to take the stability of our lives for granted or forget the struggles we used to have. We all have had different issues such as anger, resentment, lust, fear, arrogance, unforgiveness, financial debt, and addictions, which kept us in bondage. Remembering where we have come from, keeps us humble and immune from self-righteousness that can so easily entangle us!
Generally, people don’t like to be around self-righteous Christians because they seem harsh, critical, and unsympathetic. When we remember where God has brought us from, it gives us greater compassion towards those who are struggling with serious issues.
Remembering the kindness of God which led us to repentance, can help us to be gentle and kind with those who need the Lord. This doesn’t negate the times when individuals require tough love to challenge them to growth and maturity. However, our approach will not stem from a self-righteous attitude, but it will be spirit led to help the person to come to a higher place in their spiritual walk.
During the Last Supper with His disciples, Jesus instituted the Communion as an act of remembrance. He desired for us to continually remember what He did for us. It is important to remember Jesus’ work on the cross on our behalf. His body was beaten and His blood was shed for us to wash us clean from all our past sins. He healed us, gave us a new nature, and a new chance in life!
Today, let’s take a moment and remember the work of Jesus on the cross, and where God has brought us from. Thank Him for all that He has done in your life to bring you to this point. He is awesome and worthy of all our praise!
A Christian life is a dynamic and organic life. It is one which necessitates growth because life is full of change and challenges. What we knew yesterday or experienced a year ago does not meet the demands of today. Our roles change and our relationships are in continual flux. We not only grow in knowledge over time, but we grow in experience, discernment, and sophistication. Nevertheless spiritual growth is not automatic. We can grow old without growing in maturity. We can be a Christian for decades but spiritually speaking have a maturity of a baby!
In the past year, I reconnected on Facebook with a friend after 25 years. He sent me a note telling me how much he enjoys my posts on my Facebook page (Know His Ways). He was glad that I have remained in faith while many he knew have fallen away from faith. It was a kind gesture concerning my life. However, it made me sad that so many people whom he knew do not follow the Lord in a living and personal way. I wonder if his friends would perceive themselves that way! This caused me to think, “What can we do to ensure we maintain a healthy spiritual life?” This will be the subject of the next few devotionals.
And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. John 6:35
The first and foremost importance in having a healthy spiritual life is a regular intake of the “bread of Life” and the “living waters”. Studying the Word of God, listening to the Holy Spirit, and praying are ways that we can nurture our spirit man. This is essential to every believer; no church attendance or ministry involvement can take the place of a personal interaction with God. Christians can sometimes be so busy doing the work of the ministry that they forget about the source of ministry and the reason we are here in the first place.
The challenge with lack of spiritual food & drink is that malnourishment is gradual and cannot measured objectively. Spiritual malnourishment can go on for months and years undetected but subtly affecting the life of the believer and causing their faith to crumble.
The best indicator of a healthy spiritual life is the hunger for the Word of God and the desire to pray. If the hunger goes away, then there is a great likelihood that we are losing our spiritual health.
I will continue with this subject in the next devotional.
This is a continuation of pondering Samson’s life. His life was marked by series of outbursts, battles, victories, and some defeats. Surprisingly despite his lack of self-control, he was able to keep his Nazirite vow. He did not cut his hair nor did he touch wine as far as we know. However, he did pollute himself with dead animals which would have been a violation of Leviticus laws. He also joined himself with a prostitute (See Judges 16:1-3); later he went after a woman called Delilah who seduced him to tell her the secret of his strength.
We need to pause for a moment and think about Samson as a leader and a judge of Israelites. This man served God for twenty years! That’s a long time. If you were a fellow Jewish person during his era, would you have respected him? Would you have considered him a leader and a judge?
In today’s Christianity, we can so easily get disenchanted with Christian leadership, and we don’t usually stop there. Eventually the disenchantment leads to being disappointed with God for allowing faulty leadership to continue to have a negative impact on others. People walk away from church and from faith because some leaders failed them. If I lived in that era, I would have had a very hard time believing that Samson was doing God’s will in spite of his indiscretions and lack of self-Control!
Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to flawed leadership. It is clear that Samson was called into ministry before he was conceived, so there is no doubt that God had a call on him. The issue is, “Did his disobedience make him ineffective? According to below scripture, the answer is, “No.” .
And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Hebrews 11:32-34
In the book of Hebrews, Samson is named among the “Hall of Faith” people who did mighty exploits for God. We can conclude that in spite of all his issues because Samson had faith in God, the Lord chose to use him. His story continues with his eyes being gauged by the enemy because they were able to take away his strength temporarily by cutting his hair. However, at the end, as his hair grew longer, he pulled down walls and killed every Philistine in sight and killing himself (See Judges 16).
Samson fulfilled God’s purpose while his sins led him to get killed as well. Sin always works against us not for us, and destroys the very one who passionately holds on to sin! Sadly, while God’s plans were accomplished, Samson did not appear to have experienced much peace in his life!
The most important lesson we can learn from Samson is that obedience has a greater priority than being used by God! Being effective for God is not necessarily the measure of our spiritual maturity or obedience. God can use anyone. If we are not obedient, we may fulfill God’s purpose, but not have a fulfilling life on the journey!
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting against him. Then the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire, and his bonds broke loose from his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it. Then Samson said: “With the jawbone of a donkey, Heaps upon heaps, With the jawbone of a donkey I have slain a thousand men!” Judges 15:13-16
I wrote about the call of God on Samson in the last devotional. He was called to defeat the enemies of God and specifically the Philistines. The account of Samson in the book of Judges shows that he had great success in conquering his enemies and single-handedly overcoming them. Samson was a strong man and was able to kill a thousand men all by himself.
In some ways, Samson reminds me of Goliath (See 1Samuel 17). Just as Israelites were intimidated and were trying to kill Goliath, the Philistines knew Samson’s reputation, and they looked for every opportunity to trap him and make him ineffective. What is truly the difference between Samson and Goliath? It is not necessarily their character but the call of God. The difference is that Samson was on God’s side, and he was helping the Israelites, but Goliath was on the side of enemy and wanted to kill the Israelites.
While Samson had great success in his life, he was also a hot-tempered man who used his strength to get back at those who made him angry. We cannot make a success formula out of Samson’s life because he was such a mixture of God’s will and self will! Samson doesn’t fit our ideal picture of a Godly Biblical character because in one instance he is doing the will of the Father and at another instance he falls prey to his own passions.
Does that remind you of some people you know? Does that remind you of you? We can be so spiritual and self-controlled in one moment, but at another moment, we can give in to anger and frustration wondering if we even know what self-control means.
Samson continued to get away with his hot temper, but in the midst of his carnality, he did the will of God! Isn’t it amazing that God was able to use Samson in spite of his big issues!?
God’s ways are truly higher than our ways! God chose and called Samson to serve Him in His Kingdom. This man was flawed and at times out of control!
Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hand of the Philistines for forty years. Now there was a certain man from Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren and had no children. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” Judges 13:1-5
A prophetic word came to Manoah and his wife through the angel of the Lord prophesying of the upcoming conception and the birth of a baby boy. He was going to be consecrated to the Lord as a Nazirite. The angel told the mother to abstain from wine, and she was told that the child was to abstain from wine all the days of his life as well. The child was also never to shave his head. The parents did what they were told to do (See Judges 14). The boy was born, and they named him Samson.
A Nizirite vow was nothing new to the Israelites. This vow is explained and specified in the book of Numbers in chapter 6 for those who desired to consecrate themselves to God. Generally this vow was for a period of time for a person to abstain from certain things until such a time that they went to the temple to offer their sacrifices. However, in the case of Samson, God called him to become a lifelong Nazirite for the specific purpose that God had for him.
As for Samson, his parents did everything God asked them to do, but unfortunately good parents did not guarantee a right character on the part of Samson. Nowadays blaming someone’s bad behavior on his/her childhood is the norm. However, Not all ungodly or marginal behavior is due to bad childrearing. We all have choices to make. We can exercise our choice for good or for evil. We can move in the direction of following God or moving away from Him. Samson could not have blamed his lifestyle on his parents’ failure to raise him right.
Samson became a judge to help deliver the people of Israel from the hands of their enemies and specifically the Philistines. Samson did not have a military as some of the other judges did. God had given him strength to fight these people single-handedly. Unfortunately, the very people he was supposed to overcome, became his Achilles heel.
I will continue with this subject in the next devotional.
Plans are established by counsel; By wise counsel wage war. Proverbs 20:18
If God has led us in a certain direction, we will most likely be faced with opposition. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy the purposes of God and what He desires to establish on the earth (See John 10:10). When we walk with God, and we have allowed our plans to be established by wise counsel, the enemy will wage war against us and our potential success. That’s why it is so important not to get into situations half-heartedly.
When Nehemiah heard about the condition of Jerusalem, he prayed and fasted for a few months (See Nehemiah 1). During that time, God gave him a strategy. God used the Persian King to support Nehemiah with all the goods and the time he needed to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem. Nehemiah did not rush into this situation blindly or emotionally. He only moved into action after having taking the matter to the Lord and God making His plan and strategy clear to him. Once the strategy and the provision was made available to Nehemiah, there was no turning back for him.
But it so happened, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, that he was furious and very indignant, and mocked the Jews. And he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish—stones that are burned?” Nehemiah 4:1-2
While Nehemiah was busy working, the jealous adversarial people came to stop his work and his progress by making false accusations about him. Since he hadn’t done anything wrong, he didn’t give them any opportunity to address their issue. He knew they were just a distraction, and that’s how he treated them. The presence of adversarial people, didn’t make Nehemiah wonder if God was trying to have him change directions. He knew very clearly that God was with him to complete the task. Nehemiah and his counterparts waged war with one hand and built the wall with the other. (See Nehemiah 4:16-18). The scripture tells us in Ephesians 6 that the word of God is our sword of the Spirit. We wage war by using the word of God against the attacks of the enemy.
Is there a resistance on your path? It is not easy to persevere, but God calls us to wage war with the counsel and the strategy we have received. God is with you, and He will make a way where it seems to be no way. Nehemiah was able to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in only four months. That is amazing! This was only possible because of God’s help, strategy, and the assistance he provided through the King and the locals to get the job done.
