March 28, 2024

Lead or Prod?

Sheep
Sheep (Photo credit: James Good)

There’s a reason that the Bible refers to the people of God as sheep, and part of that reason is that the people of God need to be led and cared for, not prodded along.  Which is part of the reason that true Christianity is different than all other religions.

Anyone that’s ever tried to get people to do something knows it to be true—you can guilt someone into doing something, and tell them that they have to do it, but it is a whole lot easer to get someone to do something if they are passionate about that thing.

If anyone’s been around Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know that part of what they believe entails work that they have to do.  They have to visit houses and try to get converts because they want to be part of those that are saved.  The Roman Catholic Church prescribes time, church attendance, prayers, and confessionals that people have to do.  Muslims have prayers that they have to do facing a certain direction.  They have clothing standards that must be maintained.  All of these picture a God that requires action.

True Christianity has liberty and freedom.  There’s still things that please God and that displease God, but these things are to be done out of a motivation of love.  When the Bible says, “We love Him because He first loved us,” it’s speaking of more than the order of who chose whom… it’s speaking of why we do what we do.

When it comes to leading people, then, we need to remember that we will get much further when we lead by example than we will be prodding from behind.

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