“Giving Respect to
Leaders”
Part 2
Many assume that when a leader is in
error, they are within their rights to offer the harshest correction possible. However, this viewpoint is wrong. God has LEADERS who are qualified to correct
His leaders.
When David committed adultery with
Bathsheba, people who were in the palace were probably aware of it. However, God sent Nathan the prophet to tell
David of his sin. David was willing to
receive a rebuke from someone that was selected by God to bring
correction. Do you know who didn’t tell
David about his sin? The chef. Even though the cook may have been aware of
the act that took place and would have been fully correct in calling David’s
actions sin, if he had done so, there would have been a vacancy for a chef. It is not likely that David would have been
willing to receive correction from someone who was not in a position to
properly correct him.
God is a God of order and He has His
way of handling everything. Even if a
leader is in error or has not been chosen by God to be a leader, they are still
a REPRESENTATION of God and should be handled with caution when addressing
them. When David was anointed to be
Saul’s successor to the throne and Saul tried to take his life, David simply
fled. He did not duel it out with Saul
and kill him even though Saul was in the wrong, and David did not allow anyone
else to harm Saul either. If a leader is
in error, and is not living in accordance to God’s Word, we have the option to
leave that church and allow God to deal with that leader.
If we stay and disrespect them, God will deal with them and He will deal
with us. His rules are THE
rules. There have been times when two
different people have committed similar crimes and the one who committed the
smaller crime received a harsher penalty than the one who committed the greater
crime. While that may not seem fair,
each individual is being punished for the fact that they have committed a
crime. God is about order. The reason that we cannot simply break
protocol and deal with the issue the way we would prefer is because God only
functions in ORDER and a lack of order leads to ANARCHY.
In the military, many people have
worn the rank of Colonel. Every person
did not deserve to wear the rank but each one had to be respected because the
person will not always be in a position of leadership but the RANK will always
carry AUTHORITY and the AUTHORITY of the position must not be COMPROMISED. We cannot disrespect leaders because most
people lack the ability to distinguish the difference between the PERSON and
the POSITION and God does not want us to cause others to diminish the authority
of the positions He has created. There is a difference between Eli the priest
and Samuel.
Many of the issues that we face originate
from a lack of submission to authority.
A lack of submission to authority is a lack of order in the eyes of
God. God will NEVER dwell where there is
a lack of order. Even though we’re
children of God, He will distance Himself from us when we live without
order. He has a standard that He
requires us to live by in order for us to please Him and be in right alignment
with Him. It doesn’t matter what place
or position we hold in God, we are not exempt from living by His standard. We will suffer the consequences of our
actions until we get in order and do things God’s way! The reason God is such a
stickler concerning our respect for leadership is because unless we can
properly honor a human leader, we can NEVER properly honor God’s position. First John 4:20 teaches that we cannot love
God in lieu of loving another human.
1 John 4:20-21
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and
hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this
commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
