Called to Lead, Called to Love 

NEHEMIAH WEEKLY DEVOTIONAL

Is your leadership motivated by the same deep compassion Jesus felt when He looked at broken humanity?
Are you imparting a living relationship with Christ to others, rather than rules and religion?
Does your faith express itself through the sacrificial love that opens heavenly doors?

Matthew 9:35-38 (NASB) Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness. Seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore, plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Called to Lead, Called to Love 

A call to lead is a call to love. 

Jesus wept with an overflowing heart of love when He saw the needs and anxieties of the people, and He felt deep compassion for them, because they were like “sheep without a shepherd”. 

He came into the world to heal the broken-hearted and bind up all their wounds, and He paid the ultimate price of laying down His life in sacrificial, agape love to release limitless, Divine love to the very ends of the earth. 

The Apostle Paul summed up the mission’s call beautifully when he wrote that the only thing that really matters is faith expressing itself through love. 

For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love. – Galatians 5:6 (AMPC)

He made it clear that replacing one set of laws with another didn’t amount to anything. Particularly as Christian leaders, we must ensure that we impart the reality of a living, loving relationship with Christ, and not religion, rules, and denominations, to the precious ones whom God has entrusted us to share His life with. 

The Heavenly door that never shuts is opened by God for people who have learned how to love.

“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” – Revelation 3:7-8 (NIV)

The root word “phileo,” from which the church at Philadelphia derived its name, refers to love of the brotherly and sisterly kind – strong love, but not the strongest (agape). Yet God says if we can learn to love even at this level, then He will open the Heavenly door for us – the access point to the glorious realm where our Creator resides.

Going further, all of Heaven’s love, authority, ability, and anointing can move freely and limitlessly through us when our motivation becomes the same as our Beloved’s – pure love for God the Father and for every man, woman, and child that He has created. 

We will become the “Greater Things Christians” that Jesus referred to in John 14:12 – the ones that willdo even greater things than He did – when we learn how to truly and simply love in the agape sense – completely sacrificially –  in total surrender to the Divine will, and with no thought of receiving anything in return.  

Love is the highest law in the Kingdom of God.

No matter what we, others, or the world itself is going through, it is the pure love of God flowing through us, and the practical outworking of that love, that has the ability to transform individual lives, communities, and ultimately, entire nations, for the Glory of God. 

“This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you.” – John 15:12 (AMP)

Let’s pray. Lord, help me understand that a call to lead is a call to love. Move me beyond rules and religion to a faith energized by compassion. May Your agape love flow through me sacrificially to transform lives and reveal Your glory to the nations.  Amen.

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