Crossing Jordan (And The Lessons We Learn)

Many are looking for a way to go. Many ask, “where do I turn?” Let God lead you. Where does God want to lead me? What does God want from me? He wants you to fulfill his purposes. He wants nothing but the best for you.

We see the leadership of God through Joshua. Now we don’t have the ark of the covenant. But we do have God’s presence living inside of us who guides us and leads us. But God also rises up particular people to lead others. Every person in here is a leader! You lead someone. Whether it’s a family, friends, a small group, etc. He may not be asking you to lead a family through a raging river but he has some equally important leading he wants you to do.

What is a leader? I am talking about leadership in our context is moving people closer to fulfilling God’s purposes for their lives. Whether you are the leader in your home, school, work, church, etc. God wants to use us as instruments to lead people closer to him. Here are some important truths we need to know about leadership:

1). Leaders have great responsibility

“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.” 1:6

Eternity is at stake.

2). Spiritual leaders must prepare God’s people to encounter the Lord.

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” 3:5

Henry Blackaby - the author of “Experiencing God" writes: “We should attempt things so great that they are doomed to failure unless God intervenes.”

3). Spiritual leaders must earn the right to lead

Illustration: I often wonder what the priests were thinking to themselves before they stepped into the river. But we see no complaints or anything. They bought into the leadership of their leader.

How do you earn the right to lead? You can’t buy it….push your way to get it. You lead by integrity. By following the Lord yourself.

A.C. Dixon wrote, "When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend upon education, we get what education can do; when we depend upon man, we get what man can do; but when we depend on prayer, we get what God can do."

4). Leaders lead!

The story is about a man by the name of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. So, he went down to the local army surplus store and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled used weather balloons. He took with him, something to drink, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky--smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Because he was too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, and forced the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon.Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:"Were you scared? "Yes.""Would you do it again? "No."Why did you do it?" "Because you can’t just sit there."