Servant Leadership 4
Channel: Theophilus Lambo
Date: 12/04/2017

A servant leader seeks to invest himself into the lives of his people so that as a whole, the church community is challenged to grow to be more like Christ. This is demonstrated in their willingness to give of themselves to meet the needs, but not necessarily the wants of their people. Like a good parent, the true servant leader knows the difference between the spiritual needs of his children and their selfish wants and desires. In other words a good leader must develop an understanding heart. 
The bottom line to the application of servant leadership is that we should not emulate the examples of the world: our example is Jesus, who came as a servant. Therefore, our mission is to serve one another, to give of ourselves.
 Christ came to give His life. We are to give of our lives not only in service to Him, but to our fellow man, including those in the church and outside it (Mark 12:31). “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
This truth is just one of several from this incident that Christians can apply to their own lives. First, when we come to Christ for the washing of our sins, we can be sure that is permanent and complete. No act can cleanse us further from our sin, as our sin has been exchanged for the perfect righteousness of Christ on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”.). But we do need continual cleansing from the effects of living in the flesh in a sin-cursed world. The continual washing of sanctification is done by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us, through the “washing of water by the Word” of God, given to us to equip us for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”)
It is at this point we can see ourselves as being born-again and what do we experience, how is the pattern of our lives when we are born-again? Being a born-again Christian means you have become a new creation in Christ. Christianity is not a modification, or an improvement, or a purification of your old life. It is receiving a completely new life, the life of Christ, in exchange for your old sinful life that was executed on the cross of Christ. This is what the Bible means by the experience of conversion or regeneration. The moment you experienced the new birth, you passed from death to life or from condemnation of the law to justification unto life. This is the beginning of the Christian walk. Now that you have the life of Christ, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, your goal in life must be to manifest that life, so that all may see “Christ in you.” The work of subduing the sinful desires of the flesh and reproducing the holy and righteous life of Christ in you is the work of the Holy Spirit. This work is the process of sanctification.