Today I want to focus on what the doctor Luke has to say in his Gospel account on how Jesus exhibited Leadership qualities and did whatever it took to live the life God called Him to live.
Role Of The Wilderness
In part V, I talked about how Jesus established His priorities based on what God desired. Jesus would take a step back, like an artist drawing a portrait, so that He could see the big picture. In Luke's Gospel (Luke 4.1-13), we see how Jesus not only took a step back, but we see how He maximized His time in the wilderness to be shaped into The Leader God called Him to be.
Maximize Your Time In The Wilderness
In order to do "Whatever It Takes," you need to be able to maximize your time in the wilderness. It is a time of pruning. A time for the Potter to mold you and shape you. Jesus spent 40 days alone in the wilderness during the beginning of His Ministry. He abstained from food, noise, and distraction. Using Max Lucado's, "Leadership Bible" again as a great resource for this blog post, we see how The Gospel's of Matthew and Luke mark this time in the wilderness as a time ordained by The Holy Spirit.
Max Lucado makes a great list of how Luke gives us a hint to how Jesus and leaders can benefit from this time alone and away from distraction. Follow Jesus' example in order to:
1. Recognize that God will lead us into seasons of growth, not gratification.
2. Fight battles and overcome temptations to take shortcuts.
3. Learn discipline and the art of depending on God.
4. Be broken of self-sufficiency and self-promotion.
5. Solidify our sense of mission.
6. Gain perspective.
7. Be prepared to enter our vocation.
Learn from your time of solitude and then apply those lessons in order to do "Whatever It Takes" to do the good works that God has prepared for you in advance to do...
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
