Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
–1 Peter 5:2,3

“I believe that it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The Church of the Firstborn is no place for the demagogue or the petty religious dictator. The true leader will have no wish to lord it over God’s heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead when the Spirit makes it plain to him that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.

It is undoubtedly true, as I have said so often, that the church is languishing not for leaders but for the right kind of leaders; for the wrong kind is worse than none at all. Better to stand still than to follow a blind man over a precipice. History will show that the
church has prospered most when blessed with strong leaders and suffered the greatest decline when her leaders were weak and time serving. The sheep rarely go much farther than the Shepherd”. A. W. Tozer, “The Warfare of the Spirit”, pp. 191,192.

People of Thunder, That is such a good example. I was reading this morning about how God gave David success in his battles. It really struck me… God gave success. It is way to easy to think we have a bigger part than we really do.

Joseph, Thanks! Glad the post is helpful. Blessings.

2nd Samuel 1

That’s when Bathsheba just “happened” to be there…when David was at the top of “his game”…

The devil knows that success is often one of the open doors for temptation…

We have to remember it is war every day… and keep our focus, the devil certainly won’t lose his focus…

God will always give us enough grace so long as we trust Him, and not ourselves…(either our ability to fail or to succeed)

The minute we forget we stand by grace, and walk by grace, then were waiting to be devoured…(even though we may not know it)

Transparency should not decrease based on an increase in the level of significance with a person or ministry.

It’s difficult to remain humble if you don’t have someone pouring into you.

Great Insight Craig!

I Timothy 1:19

Patrick, Good insight.

Dan, God probably does have some very different measurements of success than we do.

Jon, Thanks for your thoughts.

Bill, Thanks. Sad to be home from vacation but excited to be back at it.

Heather, Who knows how we’ll respond to that moment? I pray we all experience it!

I recently used the “God is Still Using Me” line to justify to myself something that I wanted to keep doing, even though I knew it was wrong.

Good post.

Great stuff!!!

Welcome back! Could it be “success” could be denied for the very same excuses you use? God knows what will happen to us if we do “succeed” and chooses to protect us from ourselves? And could it be “success” is denied because we are already using this type of logic? Would like to hear what you or others think.

LaMo, I actually did have one day of a class in seminary where they showed us a video of how pastors slip into sin. It was very effective. A whole class might be a great idea.

Jenn, You reminded me… I need to floss!

BTW: I worshiped with the Internet Campus on Saturday night. Powerful service. It really spoke to me. Thanks.

(random thought) Isn’t it sad to think that most people spend more time brushing their teeth and chewing gum than they do communicating with God on a DAILY basis? Wow!