Preparing to win football and other challenges in our lives

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 08:36:59 +0000

By Pastor Jasper Mutale

David was, of course, not the only person in Scripture to whom this happened. Today the entire Country is united through Prayers and Football .How do we Prepare to win against any kind of evil? The only key is to Pray for God to break every forces of darkness and in this case ,let us all pray for our team , let there be prayers in the Stadium for Zambia is a Christian Nation and any forces of Juju and Charms shall not work against our team members, our families and our Nation.

In chapters sixteen and eighteen of 1 Samuel, how others perceived David is laid out for your examinationas a leader. The importance of the self in the “me” generation has sometimes displaced the importance of others in Zambia. In an age where selfishness abounds, we must ask, “Does anybody really see a leader? In truth, does anybody see anybody Zambia?”

How do leaders appear Zambia? In many ways. One thing, however, must be said of all of them: they appear to be leaders! Leadership always declares itself! Leadership never translates as anything less than leadership.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that what most people want as a model for leadership is a man who is “a strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will.”  The gifts that such men possess project as charisma. You may not have taken the time to define charisma, but you know it when you see it.

Charisma, however, may be the least obvious to those who are closest to it. Why is it that in 1 Samuel, Jesse (and indeed, his other sons) seemed to be the last to see David as a potential candidate to be anointed as king? Could it be that David’s newness to Samuel caused his charismatic qualities to be so much more apparent than they were to the rest of his family? Had Jesse’s family seen David so often that they had really ceased to see him at all?

David was, of course, not the only person in Scripture to whom this happened. Jesus Himself seemed to surprise the good people of His hometown by becoming quite popular. His great charisma as a leader was recognized everywhere, but mostly by those who did not know Him as well as the hometown folks.

Why is this? John White suggests that leaders have a kind of elitism that cannot be denied. What is this elitism? A winning magnetism.  The quality of this magnetism is most attractive in the leader who is not cocky or oversold on his own charisma. He is psychologically secure with no need to “toot his own horn.” Even though he seems not to see it, or at least not to dwell on it, his leadership proclaims itself.

We all grant Jesus His singular Godhead, and thus we cannot lump Him together with mere earthly leaders. But I wonder if such self-proclamation is what Jesus might have meant when He said to His critics on Palm Sunday — critics were trying to shush the crowd —- “If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40, KJV).  Make no mistake about it! Who you are and what you are have a way of becoming known in the country.

If this self-proclaiming elitism characterizes your life, will you be able to keep it mixed with enough devotion to God so that others will not see you merely as a leader, but as a Christian leader? You have probably known those who were both elite and godly. The quality of their leadership told you they were elite. The inner Spirit of God told you they were Christians. The mix is unstoppable! Inward substance and outward elan —- the Spirit of God and magnetic motivation all in a single life —- this is God’s recipe for greatness.

What elusive qualities attend such persons?  They are the meek who inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). They weep and pray in secret, and defy earth and hell in public. They tremble when faced with danger, but die in their tracks.

It seems that most of mankind has set out at a furious speed to go nowhere.  But real leaders are always setting out to go somewhere.  The leader sees that the journey can never be completed in the moment,, for everything worthwhile ends in the future.

While God’s mercy does not let us see very far down the road we must travel, He is also the wonderful God who lets us know the future is on the way.  The thought of the future fuels every leader with zeal, for true leaders donot glory long in the past or present.  The Apostle Paul comments on what is probably the futuristic mind-set of leaders:

But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

The press of every leader is the mark of the high calling of God – a mark that is yet to be achieved – a crown that is yet to be worn.

In essence, this idea of the future comprises all that is brightest in human hope.,  Viktor Frankl, who spent years in a concentration camp, noticed that those who believed in tomorrow best survived the day.  Those who believed that tomorrow would never come were those who could not survive:

The prisoner who had lost his faith in the future – his future – was doomed.  With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay.”

The future is glory!  Indeed, the future is survival.

I have known many successful men and women.  Without exception, all of them had a healthy view of the future that led each of them to a spirit of unbridled optimism.  To believe in the future is to be optimistic.

Many successful people have adopted little slogans by which they ride out the rough times.  Like Little Orphan Annie, they believe that “the sun will come out tomorrow.”  Or, under the heavy press of seeming failure, they will cry, “This, too, shall pass!”  I have known others who quoted, “When you walk through a storm hold your head up high,” or another slogan of hope.

In the midst of crushing despair, the Christian leader also relies on the sufficiency of the Bible’s great truth.  In 1 John 3:2 we read, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”   The motivation for hanging onto the future is hidden in God’s continuing faithfulness.  After all, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

At the time of his death, David of Israel was aware that even in death he could not act irresponsibly, for the future was already on the way.  He knew that at the very moment of his death, tomorrow – with all of its demands – would be firmly attached to the moments he could not survive.  Thus, as he died, he acted exactly as he had all along.  He could not die and merely be dead; even his death had to be a step toward the future, which he could not inhabit, but had to influence,  Such is the magnificent, futuristic mentality of leadership.

The end of life should be the bridge to all that follows.  The passing of a monarch always presupposes the question, “Who will be the next king?” On his deathbed, David saw a quarrelling, struggling set of princes, each of whom were the egoist imprint of himself.  It must have been chilling for David to view the ambition of his quarrelling sons.  Since their potential struggles could set the nation to civil war, David took some practical steps to ensure a secure future.

Along with self-image, reconsider Proverbs 29:18 and the issue of vision.  There is no question about it: the men and women who have vision have more meaning in life than those who do not.  There is no such thing as a leader without vision.  David was able to forge a monarchy out of the ashes of his vanquished predecessor.  His success was largely a matter of seeing life’s possibilities and formulating steps for achieving them.  The issue is clear: a leader must see the finished state of what he or she wants to create before it has a chance of being.

Good leaders want God to be involved in the process of making decisions.  Second Samuel 6:1-15 rehearses the anatomy of a good decision.  Part of the agony faced by all Christian decision makers is trying to make a decision when there seems to be no clear word from God.  We have not specifically studied King Saul in this article, but consider this:  1 Samuel 28 shows Saul caught in a time that called for decision, yet he had no clear wordfrom the Lord on how to make the decision.  By consulting the witch of Endor, Saul abandoned godly faith at a time when God was silent.  Every leader has sometimes sought God’s help and found God silent.  But a worthy leader still trust and decides in faith, even when God seems elusive.

May God Keep Zambia and let us all pray for unite and peace for our Nation. We refuse any Spirit of Confusion and failure in our Nation in Jesus’ Name Amen.

For prayers contact 0966 48 71 31 or jasper.mutale@yahoo.com