What would it take for you to disobey God? (86-3)
Along with the costs of leadership come many opportunities. Some of these opportunities will be positive and some will be negative. Many leaders have access to information or financial resources that they could use to their personal advantage. Other leaders travel widely and somewhat anonymously and have opportunity to compromise purity without anyone knowing. Others could use the power of their position for their own benefit. Whether the temptation is money, sex or power there will always be temptation for leaders to sell themselves out for less than God’s best. Read 1 Samuel 15:1-23.
The Lord could not have been more specific. Speaking through the prophet Samuel, God commanded Saul to destroy the Amalekites and everything they owned; no one and no thing was to be spared.
This was an order to Saul that would be a test of Saul’s fitness to lead God’s people – a test he failed miserably. When the pressure was on, instead of obeying God’s command, Saul spared the king and the best of the livestock. Saul’s integrity had a price. Saul was more concerned about his reputation before the people than his standing before God. Saul wanted a defeated king to gloat over and expanded wealth through owning animals.
Later when Samuel confronted Saul, instead of owning up to his wrong, Saul compounded the sin by feebly suggesting that he had kept the best for the Lord. Samuel informed Saul that God seeks obedience rather than sacrifice and told him that his actions of disobedience had cost him the right to lead God’s people.
As you have read about Saul’s compromise have you asked yourself “What’s my price?” What would it take for you to disobey God? Hopefully your commitment is nonnegotiable. Such commitment is a crucial element in the character of a leader.
Because leadership by its very nature means influence, it is only a matter of time before a leader’s heart will have a chance to reveal its true nature: soft and obedient toward the Lord or prideful and self-serving. Every leader should periodically ask, “Do I have a price?” Saul’s leadership provides at least three red flags to help leaders determine if they have a price and are about to “sell out”:
- Pride that lies to God’s chosen leader
- Reinterpreting what God really wants (rationalizing disobedience)
- Willingness to destroy the weak and protect the strong
A godly leader’s commitment to God should be such that they will obey God no matter what they are offered to make a compromise.
Psalm 119:97-101 “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts, I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.”
