Love in leadership is so critical because the love of God is both incomprehensible and incomparable.
It’s difficult to fully understand the depth of God’s love. There’s no end to it. It’s a love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19).
Paul prays that [we] have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18).
A perfect love can’t be measured, or fully understood, but it can be experienced. It can be expressed, and that’s what God asks of us, to lead with this kind of love.
A love that is incomparable—“the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus“ (Ephesians 2:7).
It’s because of His great love for us (Ephesians 2:4) that we do what we do.
I don’t know about you, but that can be an overwhelming thought at times.
I have to rest in His grace to know that He can use me to lead based on a motive of love. My love is so imperfect, yet God’s love says this is exactly what he wants me to do.
There are two things that help me grasp something as grand as this.
- God reminds me that it’s not about me and my love. It’s about God and His love. And if I genuinely seek to express God’s love, He helps fill in where I fall short. That doesn’t remove my humanity, it elevates God’s love and power.
- If I remain diligently focused on His purpose, that helps keep my motives pure.
It’s easy for any leader to get caught up in the everyday responsibilities from first-time visitors to staffing issues and end up missing the big picture.
The following paragraph is a devotional I wrote in an attempt to capture a succinct biblical summary of God’s purpose for the church and the nature of our calling.
It helps me keep focused on the big picture.
Our salvation (Eph 2:5,8), and the work that we have been divinely prepared for (Eph 2:10), was established in love (Eph 2:4; 3:17), according to His eternal purpose (Eph 3:11). And now, through the church (Eph 3:10), and with his power (Eph 3:20), we are called to know this love, (Eph. 3:19) and lead with this love, to fulfill His purpose.
