What are the priorities your life shows you are living by? (127-2)

Wise leaders do not confuse activity with accomplishment. Read Psalm 49.

David knew ordinary circumstances growing up on a sheep farm as part of a middle class or lower class family, and he knew what it was like to have great wealth and power and live as the king of Israel. Leaders don’t have to have that wide a swing in life circumstances to know that setting life priorities can get confusing and conflicting. Leaders have to decide what matters most or they become victim to their selfish desires or the circumstance that makes the loudest demand. As significant as success, security, and significance are there is something more meaningful, and if a leader misses it they miss everything.

In Psalm 49, God through the writing of David exhorts leaders to trust in God rather than wealth and emphasizes life’s brevity in light of eternity. Only a vision that outlives a leader, a vision that connects a leader to eternity, will ultimately fulfill them. In other words, wise leaders build legacy not inheritance! No matter how rich and famous a leader becomes it is only what they can leave behind that counts.

Any leader can leave an inheritance but it quickly fades. When a leader leaves a legacy it is lasting and transforms future generations. A short list of legacy leaders would include D.L. Moody, Corrie ten Boom, and Hudson Taylor. The following chart is found in The Maxwell Leadership Bible; consider the difference between leaving an inheritance and a legacy (emphasis added): 

What are the priorities your life shows you are living by? The realization of the value of legacy should alter a godly leader’s priorities and prompt them to pursue the things that will endure rather than putting their hope in things that are very temporary and will pass away.

Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”