Day 28: 1 Timothy 1:5

“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”



As a leader, you will probably do a lot of teaching, mentoring, and give a lot of advice. If you’re a particularly effective leader, you’ll do this a lot. Many times, a leader will approach the advice they give, the teaching they do, and the mentoring they do without any kind of a plan or reason. Pressed for time or backed into a corner by a desperate co-worker, they shoot from the hip and may end up doing more damage than had been inflicted before.


Why is this? Because when you don’t have a plan or even a goal your advice or teaching is usually what the other person wants to hear. Because of our selfishness, because of our time constraints, and because of our lack of forethought, we will automatically tune our responses to what the other person wants to hear, both to please them and to get them out of our way.


Paul takes a different tack, and he’s teaching Timothy this method. That makes it important to us. Paul was Timothy’s mentor. In fact, Paul was a father figure to Timothy. He taught Timothy about the Bible and how to be a biblical leader. That means that if Paul was teaching this to Timothy, it has particular importance for leaders today.


Paul says that everything that we do should be for the sake of love. Here again is that unconditional love that Jesus modeled for us in His life and death, and that we are supposed to show to others. He goes further and shows the motivation that this love comes from:


1. A pure heart


2. A good conscience


3. A sincere faith


You’ll note that these are all things that God gives us at our conversion. You might also note that love comes from each of these things.


Paul is telling us that everything that we do must be in love. That means that we give up our selfish motivations and really teach, act, give advice, and mentor with an eye of truly helping the other person. We can accomplish these things because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. It still takes some forethought, though. It takes being prepared to answer questions and really helping people. It means setting aside some of your day to deal with pop up issues so you don’t blow them off to save the time.






CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Everything we do must come from love. All advice, teaching, and leading we do must be for the good of the other person, rather than our edification.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Hebrews 12:1-3


Prayer: Father, help me to speak in love, and to truly help those in need, in whatever circumstance they or I are in. Help me to love people so much that everything I do is for their benefit, rather than mine. Thank you, Father, In Christ’s Name I pray, amen.

Day 21: Galatians 1:9

“As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”



We have to be very careful about what we’re doing, what we’re saying, and what we’re relaying in our teachings. If you read Paul much, you’ll notice that he’s very concerned with the purity of the Gospel. Look at the strength he projects with Galatians 1:9. He is literally saying “if someone is preaching another gospel, let him go to hell.” Yeah, it’s that serious.


Paul was fighting a group of people that were purposefully coming behind Paul and trying to tinker with the gospel. It was turning the hearts of the people that Paul taught towards legalism, and Paul rightfully deplored it.


We can take a look at that and say “shame on those guys, who do they think that they are, screwing with God’s word like that?” We’d be right to do so. Remember, though, that most heretics don’t start out that way, and they don’t believe that they are heretics.


Why did Paul send Timothy into Ephesus? To stop people from falsely teaching. One of the main reasons that John wrote his first epistle was to stop a rash of false teaching. No doubt that these guys thought that they were right, too.


What I’m trying to say is that it’s real easy to get into bad teaching, and even easier for us as teachers to start practicing it. We have to be on our guard against it. Don’t be teaching or preaching from what we think is right, or what feels right to us; always back up your teaching biblically. Always be in context. Study from other sources to make sure you’re on the right path. Run your stuff by other people that you trust to have sound doctrine and teaching. You are not a force unto yourself, and given time and a good dose of ego, you’ll land yourself on the wrong side of Paul’s warning; and that’s not a place you want to be, even by accident.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: We have to be very careful about what we teach. We are held to a higher level of responsibility than others. We don’t want to be found preaching a wrong gospel or message.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: James 3:1-2


Prayer: Guard my heart and my words, Lord. Make them Your’s. Help me keep from striking out on my own when I teach, Lord. Help me to seek You in all that I do. In Christ’s name, amen.

Day 6: Proverbs 9:8-9

“Don’t rebuke a mocker, or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Instruct a wise man, and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man, and he will learn more."



All right, we’re gonna talk about two things today. Being rebuked and being taught. Sounds like fun, yeah?


First of all, What the heck is a rebuke? That’s when someone calls you out when you do something stupid. I’m sure that’s never happened to you (in the last five minutes). What do you do when someone points out that you’re wrong. Do you pout? Do you deny being wrong? Do you get angry? Solomon says that only idiots do those things. A wise person is always looking to learn from their mistakes. Wise people also know that they’ll be learning from their mistakes a lot, because at the heart of it, we’re a bunch of foul-ups. So the next time someone points out the fact that you’re stuck on stupid, consider very carefully how you react. Learn from your mistake. Trust me, you’ll be mad a lot less, and you’ll learn a lot more.


In the same vein, If you’re going to be a Christian leader (and you are), then you’re going to have to adapt a very difficult stance on life: you can always learn more. This is pretty obvious as you go through your studies at school and learn new things everyday. Sometimes though, we start to think we’re smarter than everyone else, and we refuse to learn from anyone. Bad move. In fact, Solomon says here that a righteous, wise man will always be teachable. We have to constantly be looking for ways to learn. There is always someone who is smarter and more experienced than we are. We need to look for them, and ask them to teach us. This could mean a chat over coffee, or a mentor type of situation. It might also mean we need to read more books (I know, I can hear everyone groaning now).


And let’s not forget, everyone we meet has something they can teach us. Don’t think because you’re smarter, better educated, or are a leader that you can’t learn anything from the people you lead. The best leaders learn as much as they teach.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: Always look for ways to learn. Whether through mistakes or from someone that knows more than we do, never stop learning. The day we stop learning is the day we stop growing as a leader.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Luke: 18:18-23.


Prayer: Lord, make me teachable. Humble me and show me where I am wrong. Help me listen to others who have something to teach me. Above all, give me a love for Your word. In Christ’s Name, amen.