All of us have met or served with leaders who read one too many of their own press clippings and started to believe what they were reading. They forgot that they did not achieve any victory alone. Effective leaders understand the value of their team and are fiercely loyal to them. Read 2 Samuel 23:8-35.

David led one of the most famous teams written about in the Bible. Some of the battle feats are so phenomenal that if we saw them reenacted in a movie we would immediately assume the story was fictional. Josheb-Basshebeth “raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter” (v. 8). Another one of David’s Mighty Men was Eleazar who, when all the rest of the army retreated “…stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword….The troops returned to Eleazar, but only to strip the dead” (v. 10). Eleazar single-handedly defeated the troops that put the rest of the army to flight. This team was so important to David that he named them individually in chapter 23.