Contrasting Models of Leadership

vUV 3445/10000 Contrasting Models of Leadership
But I am afraid that, even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, your minds may be corrupted and led away from the simplicity of your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11 v 3

Both the serpent leader and the Servant Leader are spiritual leaders but present contrasting models of leadership with different motives, methods, results. The serpent leader is extremely cunning. His chief goal is to cause people to stumble and fall. The Servant Leader is sincere, totally devoted to fulfilling the purpose set before Him by the Father. The serpent leader can be very persuasive and has a range of tricks up his sleeve to deceive, convince, persuade people. The Servant Leader convicts with simple truths. The serpent leader mixes good with evil and serves it up as something attractive to humans. The Servant Leader is absolutely sincere, pure, truthful. His words are spoken not from the cunningness of the mind but from the bottom of His heart.

The serpent leader’s goal is to divert people from being devoted to God, to attempt to rob the glory of God, to throw doubt on the authenticity of the Servant Leader. His modus operandi is duplicity. He causes people not only to doubt the word of God but to be double minded and to live a double life, to be one thing in public and quite another in private. The serpent leader reads people like we read books. He knows our shortcomings and how to exploit it. The Servant Leader helps us overcome our weaknesses, shortcomings and enables us to neutralize our threats. The serpent leader corrupts people while the Servant Leader refines and purifies people to present them blemishless before the Lord. Just the other day, I heard of the double life being led by someone many of us respected over the years. He was called for his knowledge of the word. But, unknown to even his family, the serpent leader beguiled him into believing in his immunity, that no one would know if he had a secret extramarital relationship with a series of women. The discerning now say that pride had first taken root in his heart before he succumbed to sexual temptation.

The serpent leader sends his pet little foxes of pride, envy, bitterness, hatred, folly into the vineyard of the faithful’s heart and tries to destroy the fruit of the Spirit. The Servant Leader guards us against such predatory emotions and motives. The Servant Leader builds our hearts as a tabernacle of joy, a temple of peace for the Lord to inhabit, to reside and preside over our lives. The serpent leader rejoices when we fail, when we are defeated while the Servant Leader rejoices when we succeed, when we are victorious in our struggles of life. The Servant Leader helps us at all times with His wonderful counsel and His strength.