Ultimately a leader’s credibility comes from results. Read John 5:1-14.

As a Jewish man Jesus obeyed the established requirements of the faith to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate specific feasts. On one such trip He went to a pool near the Sheep Gate where people who were blind, lame and paralyzed came to be healed. While talking to the crowd Jesus encountered a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. Jesus healed him and sent him home. Because Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath, a day set aside for rest, the religious leaders were angry with Jesus. Normally the religious leaders could have discredited Jesus but because Jesus got results. He continued to gain credibility and His influence grew as God’s anointed leader.

A Christian leader can display unbelievable courage when they are sure of God’s assignment. Read Jeremiah 1:5-10.

Jeremiah was God’s prophet to Judah during a time when God was about to discipline the nation. The military and religious leaders were blind to their opposition to God and felt the nation was flourishing, not about to be judged. Jeremiah would deliver messages of judgment to leaders that were hostile to the concept. This would take courage. Even Jeremiah may have faltered except for his unshakeable conviction that he was God’s man for this specific time and place.

Christian leaders have a source they can trust for peace and rest even in their most stressful leadership days. Read Psalm 91.

The issue of trust seems complicated but is really pretty simple when boiled down to the basics. Faith (trust in something) is a universal experience. Everyone, including the atheist lives by faith. The basic issue is not whether we will trust in a belief system or trust in people or things, but whether we are trusting in that which is reliable or trustworthy. Trust is only as good as the object in which it is placed. Psalm 91 portrays God as a leader’s protector and deliverer. When a leader trusts in the one true God, they can “rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (v. 1) and they can look to Him for sustenance and provision with confidence even in times of trouble.

“They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor…They sweep past like the wind and go on – guilty men, whose own strength is their god (Habakkuk 1:6, 11).

These members of the Babylonian army were a “law to themselves” (they do whatever they want), “promote their own honor” (they look out for number one), and their “own strength is their god” (they rely on themselves). Sounds like today. This is the fundamental struggle of every leader. Every moment of every day we choose either to live out of our own strength and be independent from God, or to depend on God alone and walk by faith. When we try to be independent, we sin. When we walk by faith, Christ’s righteousness is lived out in obedience. Read 2 Samuel 24.

Most of our leadership days contain victories and challenges. We praise God for the victories but on most days these are not victories that cause us to celebrate in an extraordinary way. It is the same with our challenges. We pray continually and consistently that God will give us wisdom to handle the challenges and that the challenges will not consume us or the people on our team but these are not the challenges that put a knot in our stomach or that put us on our face before the Lord totally dependent on His power to change the situation. But, every once in a while, the Lord favors every leader with the opportunity for the great victory or the overwhelming challenge that will require complete faith in God and use of everything we have learned as a leader, and revelation from God that we have not learned. Read 1 Samuel 17:1-58.