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Two Specific Ways You Claiming ‘Follower of Christ’ Could Be a Liability for Christ

It’s Painful to Obey

Our love of power and desire for authority makes Gospel obedience painful.

Obedience means loving others the way Jesus first loved us. It means forgiving people. It means empathizing more than condemning.

This may get me in trouble with a few of you, but it needs to be said: For a Christian, obedience means not using your First Amendment right to lie, spread false information, or spew hate. For a Christian, obedience means empathizing with those in grief rather than posting Second Amendment memes on social media. For a Christian, obedience equals surrendering to Jesus and trusting in our Father in Heaven.

Hence, it’s painful to obey.

Back to Our Key Question

How can you follow and serve to become a better leader?

Not to over-simplify the answer, but:

You live out the Great Commandment every time you choose to love your followers and serve them rather than demand they obey and serve you.

That’s what it looks like to be an authority living and leading under a greater authority.

We don’t see that too much in our world today. We see more and more of the opposite. Let’s be better than the world. Let’s be better than the leaders who seek selfish gain through power and autonomy.

Let’s be leaders who are following the Leader as our authority.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.