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Now Solomon loved the Lord except . . . (I Kings 3:3)
 
Solomon was the wisest man in the world.

So says God who made him wise at his request.  God also made him wealthy and gave him great honor and promised him long life if Solomon would walk in His ways (I Kings 3:4-14).
 
His wisdom and wealth became legendary in the ancient world, so legendary that the Queen of Sheba came to see if all she heard was true and she was not disappointed (II Chron. 9:1-12).
 
Solomon became wise because, as a young man, he recognized his lack of wisdom and his inability to be king without God’s help, so he was a humble man who fully accepted his limitations and his need for God’s enablement.
 
In his wisdom Solomon recognized God’s greatness and exalted Him far above all others before his entire nation which gathered to honor God and dedicate the temple the king built.  He showed he knew God and he prayed to Him in humility and dependence as few men have ever done (I Kings 8:1-53; II Chron. 6:1-39).  What great insight!  How could a young man know God so well apart from His grace?
 
Solomon was also a brilliant writer who helped to create an entire genre of ancient writings called Wisdom Literature, writings that communicate insight into life and how to live in healthy and wholesome ways.  He wrote parts of the Psalms, most of Proverbs, and all of Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, and his writings continue to be recognized as some of the wisest in all of history even to this very day.
 
Truly Solomon was the wisest man in the world—not in theoretical wisdom, but in living wisdom, in wisdom that teaches us all how to live well. Yet Solomon, in his old age, became an idolatrous man, a leader who worshipped many foreign gods, who turned his heart from the one true God to false gods. 
 
Amazing, isn’t it, that a young man who was so utterly dependent on God could grow to become an old man totally taken up with idols?
 
Solomon also was a murderous man.  When he became old and near death, God told him that He was not going to give the throne to his son, Rehoboam, but to another man, a man God never named, (I Kings 11:9-13), but a man whom Solomon knew.  It was not hard for Solomon to figure out who God’s chosen successor was because he himself had recognized the talent and dedication of the man and had promoted him to leadership in the kingdom.  He was Jeroboam, the son of a widow, who had grown up without a father, but who had proven himself through his courage in battle and industrious effort in service.  These attributes brought him to Solomon’s attention, and the king had appointed him as a leader over some very important projects (I Kings 11:26-27).  How ironic that the man Solomon discovered and appointed for his purposes became the man God selected and appointed for His purposes.  Jeroboam rebelled against Solomon, so the king set out to murder him, forcing him flee as an outlaw to Egypt (I Kings 11:40).
 
How can it be that a man who was radically committed to God in his youth, who became the wisest man in the world, and then became one of the most idolatrous men of his age, ended his life a murderous man, striving to kill God’s anointed?  What happened to set him on this disastrous course?  Could this happen to us?  Not that we would become murderers, but that we would seek to destroy others who threaten us. Haven’t all of us seen this happen to others?  What made Solomon do this and what might make us do the same thing?
 
It all starts with one simple word and progresses to the core reality of every leader.  As with many other simple words, it is very easy to overlook, though it introduces us to the key to Solomon’s life and helps us understand how the wisest man in the world became an idolatrous and murderous man, though he could still teach us truth about God.  And it should alert us to the reality that this terrible downward progression could happen in our leadership as well.  This word opens up the door to Solomon’s life and takes us into the essence of his failure as a leader.
 
To see this word look at II Kings 3:3 where we read, “Now Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of his father, David, except . . .”
 
There it is.  Solomon loved the Lord and for all outward appearances he was God’s man in every way with one exception:  he worshipped where he wasn’t supposed to worship.  Tragically that exception became the rule in Solomon’s life.  He had a heart for the true God, but there was room in his heart for false gods.  At first it was not a major concern in Solomon’s life, but ultimately it became the reality that brought him down.
 
Actually it was at a high place that God met Solomon in a dream to give him whatever he wanted as king.  Once Solomon asked for wisdom, God gave him an understanding heart and, even though he had not asked for these things, God also gave him riches and honor and promised him long life if he walked God’s way (I Kings 3:4-15).  And the very next thing Solomon did was leave the high place and go directly to the tabernacle where he offered sacrifices to cover his sin as he sought to deepen his relationship with God.
 
At that point in his life, Solomon was truly committed to God; idolatry wasn’t at the center of his life—but it was off to the side.  God occupied the primary place in all that Solomon did “except . . .”
 
Still that “except . . .” was in force.
 
What are the exceptions in your life, the high places of self-reliance and false worship that you hold back from God even though you appear to honor God?  What are the ways that you act independently of God and go your own way, even though, in most of your life, you are committed to Him?  We have Solomon-like secrets, the exceptions that lead us into idolatry and, if never faced, will bring us down in shame, even as they did Solomon.  You can see those high places in your fear and your anger, in your harmful competition and your personal ambition, in your drives and your longings, in your demands and expectations, in the times when you turn from God to self and mask it all in the name of Jesus.  And you can be sure that these high places will bring you down, even as they did Solomon. Be aware of the reality that the high places in your heart may be the low places of your heart.
 
So answer this question as a leader. What is the “except” that you hide in your life? Do you truly think you are hiding it? Do you really think God doesn’t see it? And how can you lead God’s people this way? Could it be that you are only hiding your idols from yourself and no one else? Idolatry is like that, you know. Only hidden from the idolator, but no one else. Think about this.

Why do we seek to find a leader, someone who enables us to be ourselves and accomplish our desires? Or why do we seek to be a leader, a person who strives to have others follow us?

It can be someone who will solve our problems, meet our needs, free us from struggles, make us successful, resolve our problems, make life what we want it to be. That’s what a leader does, you know. A leader is a person who releases us to gain all that we want to accomplish and remove everything that holds us back. A leader arranges our situations, so we are free to live in peace, to be effective and fruitful, to be what we want to be, to live the way we want to live, and who never lets anything hold us back. You see, a leader is someone who wants everything the way we want life to be and who enables us to achieve our deepest desires. That’s what a lot of us think a leader does.

Many, perhaps even most, think that a leader turns the rugged forest of life into the smooth fields of opportunity and gives them in a smooth and easy form, so the followers have only to live them and all is well. That’s what the people of tribe of Joseph wanted in ancient Israel (Joshua 16:16-20). They desired to have them already done and take cared of so all they had to do was move in and take over. They didn’t even want to have to trust God to face resistance or earn their ownership; they didn’t want to have to resist those who were opposed to them or who were stronger than they were or smarter than they were or cleverer than they were. They wanted everything handed over to them. Leaders simply don’t work that way most of the time. Oh, they may at times, but very often they don’t because they can’t. They may have to plan, to negotiate, to make arrangements, to earn the opportunity, and then to hold on to the decision and even to face resistance. That’s leadership, and there’s no denying it. That spirit is at the very heart of leadership.

On the other hand, we may want to be in charge, the one who makes the decisions, gets others to do what we tell him or her to do and have us act without hesitation or protest or opposition. Just do it—and do it right! Which is our way, or course. We want to have followers because we’re the leader. What a great life that is. No questions, no hesitation, no resistance, no doubt, just do it. Listen and do it because I am the leader.

Period!

The problem is Jesus is not like that. In fact, Jesus is exactly the opposite of that. He is righteous, holy, forgiving, radically different, totally unlike us. He is kind, patient, long suffering, faithfully, clear, demanding, correcting, firm, demanding of us—all the things we don’t want to have or be. That’s the reason why we struggle so much to follow Him. We want to follow Him, but we struggle greatly when we discover what it means to be His follower, when we realize that it really means we follow Him and that means we trust Him to do what He wants us to do by doing He wants to do through us! Leadership means followership.

Either way we say I want a leader or I want to be the leader,  yet sooner or later we’ll discover that we have to face the reality of what this means for us: we will have to face our key issue, our hearts.

That’s exactly what Samul, God’s leader discovered when at God’s direction he came to Jesse to choose a man for Israel as a result of Saul’s failure. Saul was once God’s choice to follow as Israel’s leader but he failed, and God had chosen another man to be the country’s leader. So Samuel, God’s man to anoint His new leader for His people, was sent to the family of Jesse in the town of Bethlehem to anoint His new man, one of Jesse’s sons. Jesse’s oldest son was strong, well-built, handsome, obviously the right man, but God said no. The man looked great on the outside, but God looked at the inside for His kind of leader. As Samuel discovered,

. . . man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart (I Samuel 16:7).

It’s not what impresses us about the appearance or the skills or the gifts or the impression of a man or woman that makes someone a leader, but what’s in the heart, what we can’t see but God can and what He will make known when the time is right. So all of Jesse’s men met each of the qualified men he had for leadership but none of these men were qualified to be His kind of leaders, a reality they discovered when he went to meet them. They did not see the men protect the sheep from the wolves or the bears nor  sing the psalms or write the messages or know what any of them cried out from their hearts, but God could, and that’s what God said made him the leader He would grow Him into and deliver His people as a true leader.

He wanted them to be true leaders, protectors of those who had to take great risks for His sheep, who had to provide for water, give them nights of sleep and rest at night, guide them through times of peace and calm, take them through rough water to calm waters—provide of the care for sheep in seasons of provision of harmony. David knew these demands, the Father saw all of this in a very special way, and that’s what mattered to Him.

David saw all of this as a holy calling to leadership from God for His purposes and only His kind of man can carry this out. He wants His leaders—men and women—to carry it out in the lives of their followers in order to make a difference in their influence as leaders. The point is that they need to make a difference fulfilling His purposes the same way He is forming in them, so they become His kind of leaders. You have to understand that being the great successes you strive to be is not nearly as important to God and His kingdom as the actual person you become. The problem is that you treat the means as the end, success as the aim rather than the process to the aim. The Father wants our role as leaders to be the process to becoming like Christ rather than the purpose that the Father has for us. He wants us to grow in His image, not only to create what we do. What we do is His means; becoming like Christ is His end. Thus being a leader it is far more important to become the kind of person He wants you to be than to do what you think makes you famous or successful. Both are essential, and we must pursue both, but many of us strive to avoid the price we must pay to accomplish God’s purpose. God doesn’t.

While He made us to do the things He wants us to do, He made us to be men and women in His image, to serve as His leaders, to make a difference for Him. This is why our hearts are the vital reality of our being, the key to our minds and our hands. This is why Jesus came to transform our hearts, not merely to make us brilliant and talented. This is why who we are is the key to what we do as leaders.

This is why man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart is the vital reality of being a leader and following a leader. Don’t ever forget it!

The Crisis of Leadership - Men and women who can become His instruments to change leadership

The greatest crisis in the world today is a crisis of leadership and the crisis of leadership is a crisis of character.

                                               --Howard Hendricks

No one put it better than Howard Hendricks when he said the greatest crisis we face today is the crisis of leadership. All over the world this crisis confronts us whether it be in Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, or the United States. Only a leader can show us the way out of this struggle, and that’s exactly what a leader does. A leader is a man or woman who takes others through an opportunity or a struggle from the present into the future, to a vision that all deeply desire through a passion that produces growth, confidence, and purpose. This is what Jesus did for to His twelve followers and it is what He commands us to do today if we are going to take those who know Him forward in 21^st century leadership.

In the Jesus kind of leadership there is no drive for power, no striving for position, no reaching for recognition, and no attempt for self-promotion. This is not the drive of self-seeking hands, not the longings of those who pursue their own achievements, but the passion of Jesus who calls His leaders to sacrifice their hearts so they use their hands as He did to transform others. Jesus calls His followers to turn from self-focused hands and self-centered minds to transformed hearts.  Those who practice the Jesus way to lead have a goal to achieve His purpose.

To change the way the Body of Christ forms leaders from what

they do with their hands to what God is doing through their hearts.

Leadership as we know it is about to change from something we do with our hands to something we do out of our hearts. Of course, what we do with our hands matters and the way we think matters, but we believe what God does through our hearts is far more essential. A leader’s hands are only truly effective as a leader’s heart is transformed. That’s why the essence of Jesus’ ministry to His leaders was to form their hearts according to God’s will so He could use their hands and their minds to reach the world. What He did as a leader while He was on earth is what He does through His leaders on earth today. This why all who lead growing leaders must help them learn how He wants to work through them.

When Jesus had three years to create a movement that would reach the ends of the earth, He began by seeking out twelve unqualified men. His training regiment was something the world had not imagined. He did not expound on the keys of leadership and organizational development. He transformed their hearts and reshaped them to lead in a whole new way—in a way that would bring down kingdoms and transform lives. These leaders were not merely coached by Jesus, they were reformed by Him.

Leader Formation serves to introduce Christian leaders to the highly invasive process that Jesus used to form His disciples to fulfill their calling. In doing so, Jesus challenges them to seek beyond leadership skills and understand the deeper work God does in the hearts of leaders in order to accomplish His purpose through them.

The Lord shows us His aim through the way He worked in His men as He formed them by leading them to the cross, into the grave, then out of the grave, and finally into His commission. Our aim is to teach His followers how Jesus will act to accomplish His purpose through them. We strive to accomplish this through the 7 Core Realities of Leader Formation.

The 7 Core Realities of Leader Formation

1. Leader Inadequacy
2. Christ’s Adequacy
3. Hardened Heart
4. Misfocused Mind
5. Forgotten Cross
6. Redeemed Adequacy
7. Radical Sacrifice

These seven realities form the core of leader formation, the process of transforming men and women from being ordinary pew sitters to life changing leaders through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Sprit. That means that we are not about steps, lists, switches, or how I did it. It is not a self-help process. Rather, this is a discipline about how Jesus formed leaders, a process that is untried and untested by many in our time, but that is life changing by all who practice its principles. Not surprisingly, Jesus produced extraordinary and lasting results. Developing the Leader’s Heart echoes Christ’s ancient call for leaders to be shaped through the power of the cross. The principles that create leader formation than only be accomplished through dependence on Christ and His power and not by the practice of clever methods.

Jesus established a movement that has endured across cultures and generations. His methods take us into new depths of our own hearts as we advance His movement in the 21at century. In its practices we will see how Jesus worked in the hearts and lives of His first followers as He formed them into the founders of His movement—a movement that has moved across the globe.

Jesus established a movement that has endured through cultures and generations. His methods take us to new depths of our own hearts as we advance His movement into the 21^st century and beyond. In the truths practiced here you will see how Jesus worked in the hearts and lives of His followers as He formed them into the founders of His movement. Now you live as His instrument to form today’s leaders, instruments in a movement into your community and through it to impact the world.

God is at work in you, not only because of what you do, but even more because of who you are becoming. After all, what matters the most to Him—what you do or who you become, especially as you become like Christ?

Isn’t what you do as a leader important to God? Of course it is, but if you think it through carefully, you realize that what you get done is God’s means to make you like Christ. He uses the experiences of your life to make you into His image to accomplish His purpose and fulfill His will.

So, God is at work in you, forming you to become the kind of person He wants you to be, a ministry or business leader like Christ, a man or woman who does what Christ would do if He were the leader of your church or your business or your movement or your mission.

Therefore, everything He wants you to accomplish has another major aim besides success. He not only wants you to get a deal completed, a building built, a business organized, or a successful ministry established, He wants you to grow on your way to become like Christ. He is growing you to be the kind of man or woman He wants you to be so you can make a difference for Him—the kind of difference Jesus would make, since He is the One doing it through you. That means that your church, your career, your position, your marriage or your children can be His means of transforming you from who you are to becoming who He wants you to be. It is true that He wants things done through us, but that’s not the end in itself. His ultimate intent for every one of us is that we should become like Christ through the issues we face in life.

Only God’s kind of person can be God’s kind of leader. There is only one way to become God’s kind of leader and that is to serve as well as to live His way.

How can you live God’s way? Only by understanding the Jesus way to live which He taught in the Gospels. Don’t just study information. Study how to live, and then learn to depend on Him because that’s the only way you can live the Jesus way. It is not only a matter of performing miracles as He did, but a matter of truth and love, endurance and patience, sacrifice and trust, shame and glory, death and resurrection.

We take His place in the world today. Are you ready for this? Who could possibly be ready for this? That’s why God is putting you in situations that can be carried out only through resurrection resources.

This is why you must grow to become God’s kind of leader—a Christ-like leader. A real leader.

Quite a task, isn’t it? A real task to make you a real leader.

I am the true vine

John 15:1

A long time ago, on the night before Passover, twelve men walked the narrow streets of ancient Jerusalem going from an upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane. 

All of them were from Galilee in the north—fishermen, craftsmen, one tax collector—ordinary men with no value in the Roman empire, except for the tax collector.  They were led by, of all things, a carpenter, though by the time they were together He was a recognized Teacher. He had attracted a handful of men who listened to what He said and debated it among themselves. They had a different understanding of what He was saying, but He was radical, and they were radical, so they listened to Him with expectation that He meant what He said. Eventually they would become as radical as He was, but not yet.  Nonetheless, we need to understand His words to them in that upper room, today as much as they did if we are going to be used to make the difference He wants to make through us. Consider these few words.

I am the true vine.

I AM

For us this has the ordinary meaning of who He is, a statement of identity, but He means far more than that. He means I AM YAHWEH, the God of the Old Testament, the One Who Is, the Ruler of All, the Covenant Maker and Covenant Keeper, who delivered the nation out of Egypt and gave them the privilege of being His people. He is the One who met them at Mt. Sinai and made them into a nation, and who has kept His covenants with them. What it must have been like to walk along the streets of Jerusalem with Him after hearing Him declare that He was the Maker and Keeper of the New Covenant through the Cross.

THE

He is the One who made the New Covenant, the only One who makes eternal covenants and keeps His word, the One who we can trust no matter what happens. Jesus, in John 15, is talking to His leaders, those who will speak for Him, equip others for Him, reproduce for Him, and who will prepare one generation after another for Him.  We, as His leaders, must also lay the foundation for Him, bear fruit for Him, and matter for Him.  These are the aspects that give us life, strength, and value, all the elements that make us leaders.  There are many claims, but He is the only one who does what He does. The, a small word with an amazing meaning that speaks to us, His leaders, in the 21^st century.

I AM THE TRUE

He is the true vine, the real thing, in radical contrast to all others who claim to be the true sources of life and success. Large numbers of leaders rely on false resources in the name of Jesus, and don’t even know they do that. The primary source of significance for many who lead is themselves. They do all the things they must do to become leaders, but what they produce is temporary, weak, without fruit, and then gone. Only Jesus does what is eternal, and He does this through us. No other vine can bear eternal fruit.

I AM THE TRUE VINE

He had to tell them this on His last night with them to prepare them for His departure and to get them—and us—ready for the Great Commission. This is part of the coming assignment.

Think about Jesus as the Stem in your life and ministry because He is the Source.

He is the Sustainer of your Life.

He is the Strength of your Life.

He is the Enablement of your Life.

He is the Stability of your Life.

He is the Fruit of your Life.

He is the Value of your Life.

He is the Identity of your Life.

He is the Reason for your Life.

He is the Hope of your Life.

All of this is what it means for Him to be our Vine.  As a leader, we must be radically dependent on Him because HE IS THE TRUE VINE.

The only way you can be effective as His leader is to be radically dependent on the Vine for life and fruit. You can have position, recognition, honor, authority, and all the other elements that are part of leadership, but you will never bear His kind of fruit without His enablement.  Draw on these truths and you will accomplish things you would never have otherwise.