{"id":5630,"date":"2011-01-30T17:12:46","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T22:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"\/news_blogs\/john\/?p=5630"},"modified":"2023-07-18T16:46:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T20:46:25","slug":"a-leaders-intimacy-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2011\/01\/30\/a-leaders-intimacy-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"A Leader&#8217;s Intimacy with God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>My friend Marvin Brubacher&nbsp;invited me to teach a class at&nbsp;Heritage Seminary about the practical aspects of leading a ministry.&nbsp;At the end,&nbsp;he asked, &#8220;John, what one final thing do you want to tell these ministry leaders? The one piece of advice they must hear?&#8221;&nbsp;Without a moment&#8217;s hesitation, I said &#8220;Never, ever lose your<strong> intimacy with God! <\/strong>There is always so much to do in leadership, but don&#8217;t ever let the busyness of leadership interfere with your personal communion with the Lord.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A&nbsp;Christian leader isn&#8217;t really a leader but a person who&nbsp;follows Christ (the real leader) closely and organizes others to do the same.&nbsp;Developing intimacy with God and knowing his heart&nbsp;is the essence of Christian&nbsp;leadership.&nbsp;The Bible is very explicit about how important intimacy with God is for his leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A Leader&#039;s Intimacy With God\" width=\"625\" height=\"352\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RjObrRvMIDo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Without Divine Intimacy&#8230;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>With his army fleeing, King Saul felt as leader that he needed to do something.&nbsp;He needed&nbsp;to make a sacrifice to God. The prophet Samuel scheduled a sacrifice, but&nbsp;when it appeared Samuel wasn&#8217;t coming, Saul&nbsp;offered the sacrifice himself.&nbsp;Just as he was finishing, Samuel arrived.&nbsp;\u201cYou have done a foolish thing,\u201d Samuel said. \u201cYou have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.&nbsp;But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the LORD\u2019s command\u201d<br>(1 Samuel 13:13-14).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This is the danger of letting your personal spiritual life with God coast along, of not giving it top priority over everything else.&nbsp;Saul wanted to do a good thing (seek the LORD&#8217;s favour), but he was doing it the wrong way &#8211;&nbsp;the king was no priest and had no right to offer the sacrifice.&nbsp;Had he been intimate with the LORD he would have known what to do and what not do.&nbsp;The fact is, I have no right to lead anything&nbsp;that is done in the name of Christ if I am not being directed by Christ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I serve CCCC in the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Christ to&nbsp;accomplish the portion of&nbsp;God&#8217;s mission that our ministry works on.&nbsp;I&#8217;m sure you do&nbsp;the same for your ministry.&nbsp;And while I expect all the staff at CCCC to do exactly the same too, I am&nbsp;quite aware of the <a title=\"Of kings and prophets: Ministry leaders and their critics\" href=\"\/news_blogs\/john\/2011\/01\/20\/of-kings-and-prophets-ministry-leaders-and-their-critics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">higher standard of accountability that leaders have<\/a>&nbsp;for their obedience to&nbsp;God.&nbsp;The prophets have a lot to say about this!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I do my best to practice what I preach, and I have left a ministry leadership role when it&nbsp;became clear I would be doing it in my own strength and power.&nbsp;During my first two years at CCCC, I was also&nbsp;pastor of a small church that had suffered a lot of discouragement and the District wanted me to do four things there as its (part-time) pastor. I loved providing pastoral care for people and I had no lack of vision for what I as their pastor was to do for them. But near the end of my second year, I was praying about which of several priorities should be the focus of my preaching for the next year when the Lord told me my time there was up. I was shocked to say the least! I wanted to stay and I told the Lord so. His response was sobering.&nbsp;&#8220;John, you have done everything I wanted you&nbsp;to do there. Well done!&nbsp;I am pleased.&nbsp;You can stay if you want, but from now on you will be on your own.&#8221; Oh my goodness!&nbsp;Pastor a church without the Holy Spirit?&nbsp;I couldn&#8217;t even begin to imagine that.&nbsp;God obviously had someone else in mind for whatever would come next for this church, and I dared not get in the way.&nbsp;I resigned and helped them link up with a nearby church that&nbsp;provided a pastor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-thumbnail\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34653\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God.jpg?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Download personal reflection guide<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Blessings of Divine Intimacy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The positive consequences of being&nbsp;intimate&nbsp;with the Triune God include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Leaders will be working on things the Lord obviously wants to <strong>bless<\/strong>, so they will see more fruit from their <strong>ministries<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>By putting&nbsp;<strong>God&#8217;s agenda<\/strong> ahead of their own, there will be much less temptation to&nbsp;run the ministry for their own benefit (reminder &#8211; it&#8217;s all about God, not the leader)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Leaders will have a healthier self-image as they acknowledge their reliance on God and don&#8217;t take all the credit themselves<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There will be less of a burden for the ministry because it is Christ&#8217;s ministry, not theirs, and Christ will look after his own ministries.\u00a0Only own what is yours to own! Here I must share from my own experience the crushing burden of bearing too much concern for a ministry.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Back in the&nbsp;90s I was a deacon and there were things that were causing significant problems in the church.&nbsp;I felt as a deacon it was my responsibility to fix them.&nbsp;Finally, during a prayer meeting I was overwhelmed with the situation and in despair, when I suddenly found myself crying out over and over again a prophetic word from Jesus. He said through me, &#8220;This is MY church, and I will look after MY church. This is not <em>your<\/em> church, and it is not <em>your<\/em> problem.&#8221; I realized that Jesus is quite competent to do what he wants to do.&nbsp;While I needed to fulfill the responsibility of being a deacon, I had to let Jesus fulfill his&nbsp;responsibility as the owner.&nbsp;Jesus will take care of his own and he only asks me to play the part he has assigned to me.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The first act of leadership is to be intimate with God all the time. I&#8217;ve written a few suggestions in <a title=\"Post - Public consequences of personal spirituality\" href=\"\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/09\/01\/public-consequences-of-personal-spirituality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">another post <\/a>about how to maintain intimacy with God, and in yet&nbsp;<a title=\"Post - How to design your own personal spiritual retreat\" href=\"\/news_blogs\/john\/2010\/09\/06\/design-your-own-personal-spiritual-retreat\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">another post <\/a>I wrote about how to hold a personal spiritual retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May you truly be able to say with Paul, &#8220;But we have the mind of Christ&#8221; (2 Corinthians 2:16) &nbsp;Blessings!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/A-Leaders-Intimacy-with-God.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A\u00a0Christian leader isn&#8217;t really a leader but a person who\u00a0follows Christ (the real leader) closely and organizes others to do the same.\u00a0Developing intimacy with God and knowing his heart\u00a0is the essence of Christian\u00a0leadership.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2011\/01\/30\/a-leaders-intimacy-with-god\/\" class=\"linkbutton\">More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ts_fic_featured_image_caption":"Footprints in sand. Used with permission.","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542,223,543],"tags":[42,99,56,18,41,564,100,70],"series":[],"class_list":["post-5630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-ministry","category-spirituality-of-leadership","category-christian-faith","tag-decision-making","tag-followership","tag-leadership-responsibility","tag-personal-agenda","tag-awareness","tag-spirit-led-organization","tag-spiritual-formation","tag-theology-of-leadership"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Leader&#039;s Intimacy with God - CCCC Blogs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/john\/2011\/01\/30\/a-leaders-intimacy-with-god\/\" 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