The Hospitable Leader DevotionalSample

Today’s two passages—one from an Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, and one from Jesus—play off of each other in a way that shows the goal of good leadership. Jesus would have been well aware of the passage in Ezekiel discussing the bad shepherds, and he certainly understood that he was the fulfillment of the promise for a “good shepherd.” What the Israelites had been waiting for all this time was him, Jesus, the Saving Shepherd who would lead them to green pastures.

In Ezekiel, we see a shepherd who is entirely self-indulgent. He utilizes the products of the sheep only for himself, using the wool and “eating the curds” rather than strengthening the flock and seeking after the stray sheep. Though this may seem like an antiquated leadership analogy, it’s poignantly relevant for our contemporary context. Many times we see leaders who are trying to lead their people to the accomplishment of the their goals rather than the goals of the people they are leading. Just as the bad shepherd used the flock for his own needs, so the contemporary leader may be leading their team to accomplish their own dreams.

However, in Christ, we see the historical fulfillment of the Good Shepherd role prophesied about over five hundred years earlier by Ezekiel. Instead of using and abusing the sheep for his own good, Christ leads them to “have life, and have it to the full,” or as other translations say, to have “more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” The traditional idea of a leader gathering people to accomplish their own dreams is shattered, and the leader ends up positioning themselves as the builder of the follower’s dreams. How transformational would it be if leadership was oriented toward the follower’s dreams rather than the leader’s?

This does not mean that the leader neglects their vision. It does, however, mean that they consider how the vision can help the people they’re following, and how the followers’ dreams can be fulfilled while they’re helping to accomplish the vision.