brianzblawg

Spiritual leaders discern and obey the will of God. Period. This is their role as spiritual leaders; to listen for God’s instruction and then lead in obedience. Sometimes this instruction is given by virtue of experience, sometimes it’s delineated in Scripture, sometimes it’s found in Godly counsel, and other times it’s given directly to the leader from God. No matter the means, the end is the same. Godly spiritual leaders hear from God and lead in obedience.

This is part of what I think Paul meant in Colossians 1:9-2:4. The Apostle prayed daily that his readers would be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. If they had this understanding they’d walk worthily and pleasing to the Lord, their lives would be fruitful, their ministry powerful, and they’d live in a state of faith and joy and gratitude to God. Isn’t this the ultimate aim of every godly spiritual leader? It is for me that’s for sure!

What does spiritual wisdom look like? It would seem to me that Paul gives us a clue in the following passages. Spiritual wisdom is an understanding of…

1. Reality – 1:13 – To the poor in spirit is promised the Kingdom of God. We must have a vivid sense of our sinfulness and the ‘domain of darkness’ in which we exist in this world. To be ignorant of the ever present spiritual struggle of evil against good is to be spiritually ignorant. Too often we depend more on the solution to another man’s struggle than to discern God’s solution for our own. Systemic problems require systemic solutions, but spiritual problems require spiritual solutions and only the spiritually wise man or woman of God can lead with confidence in a spiritual crisis.
2. Christ is the ultimate winner – 1:13-24 – Even in this struggle, through Christ we win! As Chip Ingram says, we’re not fighting for victory, we’re fighting from victory. We’re champs in Christ! Spiritual wisdom does not allow the Satanic bully to win in the battle of the mind. Spiritual wisdom understands that spiritual victory is won violently and that spiritual armor is designed to protect an aggressive spiritual warrior. Spiritual wisdom understands that a good offense is the best defense.
3. Leadership is our purpose – 1:25-28 – We are called to preach Christ, teach Christ, and to lead others to do the same. Anything less or more than this calling is out of the will of God and, at best, is wisdom laced with ignornace. Leaders lead, they can’t help it. But where are we headed? If we’re completely honest with ourselves, what is our goal? Is our goal to preach Christ or to preach conferences? To preach the Book or to sell a book? To measure or to be measured? To admonish or to be admired? Spiritual wisdom leads with purpose, it’s visionary and daring and scares the pants off religious people.
4. Christ is the source of spiritual wisdom – 2:1-3 – Spiritual wisdom can only be found in a personal relationship with Christ. In Him ‘are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ There are two kinds of knowledge, truth and untruth. Untruth is the fruit of religion. Truth is the fruit of relationship with Him. Know the truth and the truth will set you free; He is the truth, He is the way. He is the Word that is light on our path. We can dress it up all we want, but at the end of the day spiritual wisdom comes through relationship with Christ. Given a choice it’s better to be a master of spiritual disciplines than a Master of Divinity (but if you can do both, go for it!).

We can read all the cool books we want (and we should), we can go to all the cool conferences we can afford (and we should), we can adapt and adopt successful models and contextualize our methods (and we should). We can organize, systematize, and promote the snot out of what we’re doing, and we should. But if we don’t have a deep, abiding, constant relationship with Christ then it’s all barely more than resource based religion.

Spiritual leadership is found only in a man or woman who understands the times and knows what to do. This wisdom can only come to someone who understands spiritual reality of evil and good, who operates with the confidence of a champ, who looks to God to find out what to do and then has the courage to actually do it.

Anything less than spiritual leadership is merely leadership, and anybody can do that.

Spiritual leaders allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the spiritual issues at work in their sphere of influence. They have the faith to attack them and the vision to see a different future in Christ for their group. All of this is spiritual wisdom, and it comes from relationship, from prayer.

It’s amazing, at the end of it all prayer is the key and faith unlocks the door to the future.