Little Leaders

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it but we live in a culture that is pushing us toward bigger and, at the same time, scripture is constantly calling us to smaller. If you have wrestled with bigness (desire to be known, desire to grow your business or ministry or reputation or…), .then you can breathe a sigh of relief today in knowing that God is looking for vanishing leaders. He’s looking for men and women who are going to understand that their life goal is not to become bigger but, instead, to become smaller and ultimately to just disappear altogether. 

That is what John meant when he spoke the words from John 3: “He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease.” He didn’t say, “He should increase.” “I hope that He increases.” “I want Jesus to increase.” He didn’t even say, “That’s in my heart: I want Jesus to increase.” He didn’t say, “It would be good if He increased, after all, He is Jesus, for heaven’s sake.” He said, “He must increase.” He’s got to increase. That is a non-negotiable. 

I don’t know what the “musts” are in your world. I don’t know what has to happen for you. When you break it down, I don’t know what fits in the category of must-things, gotta have-things, can’t go on without this thing-things. John said, “My must thing is this: Jesus has got to get bigger and bigger and bigger. That’s gotta happen.” He’d thought it through. This was something he was determined about. 

At the end of the day, John says that there is just one core reality: He has got to increase. There is a corollary to this: if He must increase, then I must decrease. I must decrease. I’ve got to get smaller. Not, “I’d like to get smaller. That would be a nice idea.” No: “I must decrease.” And at the end of the day, John knew that he was going to vanish altogether. And he was happy because he had the privilege of announcing the bridegroom to the people of his culture. He knew that if he succeeded they would fall in love with Jesus and leave him in the dust. He knew that was his calling in life and that if he succeeded, they would leave him and chase after Jesus. He would be left waving at them saying, “That’s right chase after Him! Go to Him! More of Him, less of me! I’ve been left behind, I’m just one of the worshipers now, I’ve been shrunk down…Wow! I just vanished!” 

There’s something about us due to our falleness…we want Jesus to get what He is due but we want to get what we think that we’re due, also. We want the kingdom to go forward as long as we’re apart of it. We want revival to come as long as it comes to our church. We want people to know what we doing and who we are. 

I want to challenge you today to set your course to becoming a little leader. The smallest leader you possibly can. And to set your path towards vanishing altogether. So that, when reality comes, which is, by the way that Jesus is exalted, you’ll be happy because that is what you leveraged your life for.