Nature of leadership

Nature of leadership

We’ve been in the season of empowerment by the martial arts of the spirit. And we are talking about leaders here. One of the martial arts is to call the Blood of Jesus. I remember my sister Tanya, the prophet, would tell me, “do you, brother call the Blood of Jesus?” When she called the Blood, she said, a fire garment would come upon her, so that the fire burnt the bones.

Leaders must be this way, skillful in martial arts! God’s leaders are the ones who possess in the spiritual realm. This isn’t a good administrator, who manages people well. This is good, but these are natural things, which one can learn. But one must be effective in the spiritual realm. He knows God, and God hears Him. He knows the laws of the spiritual realm and is effective in them. If he prays to God, God hears him. If he needs revelation to know God’s will, he learns to hear from Him with no mistake what God thinks concerning you in this or that regard.

Leadership begins with the spiritual man. What is important for other people is to see that they can follow you, and you won’t take them to a dead end, that you do hear God’s voice. And I would say that leadership begins with a person who hears God’s voice and knows God’s will. People will follow him, because they will see he has faith. He never whines at the pulpit blaming people for all the trouble. But a spiritual leader always imparts faith to people, he brings faith with him and makes them stronger, and the level of their faith keeps rising on the scale.

Today the Lord desires to raise leaders, because it is a place of greater influence. I am not talking about political authority or other earthly things. I am talking about the heavenly only, because in the beginning God created heaven and then earth. And a spiritual leader always has God in the beginning, not me, not her, not him, but in the beginning is God. Give me such a person who has God in the beginning, and I guarantee you, that person is a victor. He is 100% victor because he has God in the beginning!

Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created HEAVEN”. This is why heaven must me first in us! This speaks also about the creation of man, not only heaven. This speaks about man inside – God creates heaven inside us! God creates heavenly thinking inside us. God is always a winner, He has never had a battle where He would lose! So He who has never lost, creates heaven first in us so that we can always win.

We make mistakes, stumble and fall, but we rise. And the winner is not the one who never falls, but the one who rises and continues and eventually says the last word, the one who hasn’t given up.

“And God called the firmament Heaven”. This is heavenly thinking, of the one who understands he should think like God. He has his thoughts like the thoughts of the Lord.

Earthly people may say, this is not up to date – stupid one, what do you mean? God is eternal! And you will die… What can be “not up to date” in eternity? And you will die and be buried, and you know nothing about eternity. You consider yourself “up to date” not knowing God, who is above time? Who speaks even from the beginning what will be and so it will!

And we, who have eternity in our hearts, who still walk on earth with our feet, today we must obtain the thoughts of God.

A true leader is the one who is closer with God than others. This is the shortest formula of a leader – he has it with God stronger than others. If to take this away, leadership will be distorted and ugly. Imagine a leader who can do everything, but his relationship with God is worse than that of laymen – what kind of leader is that? That’s really bad.

All things begin with God, brothers and sisters, all the happiness and bliss. I didn’t know this. I thought God wasn’t up to date. Before I believed I was a hippy and hung around with different people of the same kind. During that period I stole three Bibles. One was a rare ancient sample, and I started reading it. As I read I was thinking – “Christ today? What would You do among modern day people, amidst neon lights, Your words are so strange – I can’t understand them, but my heart is burning”. The seed was already in my heart. The soil was still week, but the seed was in it, and the seed can’t die. You can kill yourself, but you can’t kill the seed. You can destroy your own heart, but you can’t destroy the seed.

When I heard this Voice who spoke to me “God is” it overturned my whole life. “If You are God, and You are, then I want to be closer to You!” And Jesus came and was above all my dreams and ideas I had, higher than any character I wanted to imitate. And He keeps growing and shining more and more. And God began to create heaven, then He directed me to people, then to Himself, then with people to Himself, then with people and Him to yourself – and this is the whirlwind, which He spins, and all things sweep by with you hardly noticing it. Just new faces appearing. Those eyes were watching carefully what you say about God. Do you understand? – these are serious things. If you lie and have overlied yourself then you are worse than a scoundrel, because you touched God and lost.

We can’t lose because we have come to God! A leader is to have this mentality of a conqueror, an overcomer, because Jesus overcame this world, even overcame Himself.

There in Gethsemane He had a severe struggle and asked the apostles to watch with Him – they couldn’t. And then when they started beating Him the disciples got scared and scattered, though Jesus demonstrated He could overcome them – first when they wanted to take them, and Jesus said, “here I am”, the guards fell. And it was He who decided to deliver Himself in their hands, and they tortured Him the whole night through. Even He made Herod and Pilate friends through Himself, as both of them beat Him, and agreed, and became friends. Think what kind of nature of peace can be… 

This is Jesus, our Lord. He said, “You know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority on them. But it shall not be so among you: but whoever will be great among you, let him be your minister, and whoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant”(Matt.20: 25-27)

But it shall not be so among you. This is where leadership begins, when you step aside and humble yourself for the sake of love, not because of fear. And then the Lord begins to make you wise and manifest His will through you. He then begins to reveal mysteries to you, how the hierarchy of heaven is arranged, how ascending the mountain is arranged. A saying works here “you go quieter, you will continue”. This word “quieter” – when you enter into another person’s world, you love him, and you ascend.

Revelation:

“I see a big marble cross. People come to it, touch it, embrace it, press their cheeks against it, as if they were expecting something and not getting it. Some step aside puzzled, others keep embracing it even stronger. Suddenly the man of God appears, wrapped in a big garment, which covered him from his head to his feet, and even hung loose to the ground. He had a pilgrim bag at the ready and a wooden staff. The man of God pointed with his staff, and the people saw a wonderful mountain top. He asked people if they were ready to there with him. Everyone agrees gladly. Then he gives people to touch his staff and lifts part of his garment as to cover those who want to go. People expected to see expensive clothes under the garment, but were surprised at seeing nothing – the robe was covering naked body. When the man of God covered the people with his robe, their bodies, even through their clothes,  got covered with wounds, cuts and burns, and hands now had splinters and were seized with spasms because of tension. Part of the people got scared and rushed aside. But another part as if gained their sight and grabbed the staff even stronger, and tried to keep holding tight to the man of God under the mantle. The man of God smiled and said, “how are we going to make it up the mountain so tight to each other? Now you know the way. Make your own mantle and staff and keep up.” And he handed a cut piece of his mantle to each one who wanted, with a piece of his staff. Then he took gem stones out of his bag and looking into the eyes of each one gave them as he wanted. And suddenly he disappeared. The marble cross still stood, but there was a strong attraction to the top, which the man of God pointed at.”

One last thing I will say. There was a time in Israel, when the judge was a woman by the name of Deborah. She had a husband. According to Jewish tradition the husband is the head of the family, more than anywhere else. But for some reason his name was Lapidoth, she was the wife of Lapidoth . The Scripture says so: “And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelled under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim.” (Judges 4:4-5).

Something happened, something was in Israel that men would not take the responsibility, when men were weak. But the Lord has to manifest through humans, and He chooses this woman for the reasons known to Him. Even a wife, not a virgin. I don’t know what this husband Lapidoth did. But the Lord chooses her and sets her as a judge, she was a prophetess – He empowers her with the gift of a prophet and anoints her so that all of Israel accepted her authority, because she was a prophetess. And she chose to live under the palm tree, and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment. All of her life was in the sight of the people. I don’t know if things were all right in her family or not, because this is strange for Israel that the husband is not a minister, but the wife. So, I can imply that there were problems, but this did not prevent God’s grace to use her despite all the controversies. The Lord has a different view at things than we do – we are too fast to judge. But with the Lord is mercy, and a parable, for some reason He sealed it in a parable: she is a wife – one wall to overcome, she is a woman – second wall; mount Ephraim is a place of lawlessness, and many other things that people would notice. But despite all these thing, the Lord chooses her and sets her. And she judged the people of Israel by justice and mercy. They came to her with their problems and matters, and she would tell those people what to do according to God’s will. This woman would reveal God’s will to them, perhaps she even didn’t know the Scriptures, she wasn’t a priestess and had no access to the scrolls. But she knew God – do you understand? And she wasn’t any sorcerer, she was a holy woman, she was a disciple of our Lord God.

“ Then she sent and called for Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “Has not the Lord God of Israel commanded, ‘Go and deploy troops at Mount Tabor; take with you ten thousand men of the sons of Naphtali and of the sons of Zebulun; and against you I will deploy Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude at the River Kishon; and I will deliver him into your hand’?” And Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go!” So she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless there will be no glory for you in the journey you are taking, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman. And Deborah rose and went with Barak to Kedesh.”(Judges 4:6-9)

This is a true leader. She judged Israel according to justice and directed leaders into battle, she prophesied. She called Barak, the leader of Israel, and ordered him from God to move and win. And she was very precise in her prophesying to point namely to the tribe of Naphtali and Zebulun, ten thousand only. She was no warrior, but a house wife, perhaps a mother. But the crown of the judge was not inherited by the blood line, but was transferred from the Holy Spirit.

And again the man refused, and we know how eventually Jael nailed Sisera, and the glory came on a woman.

That is, Deborah was strict, she was wise and had a gift of governing. When he refused, she wouldn’t let the victory go. A true leader always solves questions, even if people aren’t willing to obey. So when he refused to do God’s thing, she still drew it.

I want to inspire sisters and brothers, that even if she is a woman and has not enough authority in all the points according to the rules, God’s grace goes through these rules. And a leader is the one who perseveres with the eternal principles of the heavenly Kingdom.

I am confident inside myself that if you seek God and know Him, if you are truly ready and courageous to do what He will tell you, He will certainly put you above people, He won’t keep you aside, He will give you people, whom you will lead to Jesus. And as the revelation said today, under the mantle it was naked body. What else should be there? – Yes, it is all exposed and naked. The closer you are to God, the greater the responsibility and burden will be.

The Lord said, “Do you love Me? Shepherd My lambs. Do you love Me, Simon, son of Jona? Shepherd My sheep”. If you want to love Him He will send you to people.

This is a formula – worship God through serving people. This is incredible depth, the depth of my God, whom you can’t love enough. However you love Him, He is higher, He is delightful and amazing. If God hasn’t become your happiness you still do not know Him. If God hasn’t become your bliss and greatest pleasure, you haven’t known that He wants to possess you, so that He can give Himself for you to possess Him, you can’t call Him your happiness – you haven’t met Him yet. Perhaps, you’ve been coming to church for years, but if you don’t know that God is happiness, then you do not know Him. I want to close with this word.