"O priest, you shall stumble by day; the prophet also shall stumble with you by night." [Hosea 4:4-5]
It's an honor to be given an opportunity to lead other people. Leadership, briefly defined, is influence, and in most cases, intentional influence. Leadership can be wonderfully good, or life-siphoning bad.
Good leaders -- be they parents in a home, or representatives on a city council, or coaches of athletic teams, or any opportunity for influencing and shaping -- realize they've been given a stewardship from the Person from whom all authority is derived.
Good leaders own a sense of responsibility before and accountability to that Person. The best leaders have a personal faith relationship with that Person, and seek that Person's advice and wisdom in the influence they are having with others.
In ancient Israel, the leaders were the kings, the priests, and the prophets. In Hosea's day, a huge reason for the advanced spiritual adultery of God's people was the compromised leadership of two groups of bad leaders: the priests (responsible for influence through teaching God's Laws and offering restoring-relationship-with-God-sacrifices) and the prophets (responsible for influence through proclaiming God's word for the current situation and calling for faith in God).
"They feed on the sin of my people; they are greedy for their iniquity. And it shall be like people, like priest" (Hosea 4:10). "They shall eat and not be satisfied; they shall play the whore, but not multiply, because they have forsaken the Lord."
Leaders who live sinfully, and encourage sin in others, lead themselves and others into a living that is unsatisfying, perpetually frustrating. Sin always promises more than it delivers. Far less. It leads to a life that is upside-down. It leaves people spiraling in the debt of guilt.
Leaders who influence yet not wise enough to know this, are lethal. "The spirit of whoredom has led them astray; they have left their God to play the whore" (Hosea 4:12).
If God has endowed you with the opportunity for influence, make sure it is wonderfully good for those who are being shaped and directed by it. It begins by drawing close -- every day in prayer and reflection in His Word -- to the Person whose influence upon you is true life indeed.
Does leadership assume,by definition, that those being led are following? Or is there a responsibility on the leader to be aware of the impact on those being led. For example, should a worship leader be aware of the congregations participation with the leader in the worship experience.
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