The book of Judges can help a leader understand a cycle that is repeated, even today, when there is no central leader to give voice and example to godly core values and goals. Read Judges 2-16.

Without a leader to keep them focused on core values and God’s central goal, the people of Israel went through a series of downward-spiraling cycles. The people found themselves oppressed by foreign powers because without the leader’s constant restatement of goals that kept them focused, they gradually forgot about their part of the covenant with God and became disobedient. Each of these downward-cycles is characterized by:

The leadership and life example of godly leaders focus people on godly principles and God’s word. Without godly leaders it is virtually impossible for any group to have centralized, agreed upon, godly core values and when godly values are compromised, kingdom advancing goals are non-existent or compromised. Read Judges 1:21-36.

After the death of their central leader, the Israelites disregarded God’s directions and decided to negotiate some deals and compromise with the inhabitants of Canaan. The people hoped by doing so they could make friends and avoid confrontation. Compromising their values led to compromising their goals and the lack of a leader to focus an entire nation on commonly accepted godly core values had disastrous results.

Many of us work daily on specific areas of personal/character development or becoming better at specific leadership techniques and principles. This daily effort allows us to utilize the potential God created in us. Along with this daily growth, we are well served to periodically look at the big picture of how God develops a leader and make application to our own situation.

Joshua became a leader at one of Israel’s most difficult times in its history. Within days of his appointment he led the nation across the Jordan River into hostile territory and set out to conquer, divide and settle the land God had promised the Hebrew people. It was a daunting task but Joshua succeeded in this assignment as God’s leader. A brief review may help you see how your daily work fits into the big picture of becoming God’s leader for the assignment He has given you:

Effective leaders must develop self-discipline. The first person a leader needs to lead in this area is themselves. Read Numbers 33:1-49.

Numbers 33 provides a review of the entire exodus journey from Egypt to Jordon. Why didn’t the Israelites get to the Promised Land more quickly? Not because it was such a long trip in distance, they could have made the trip across this distance in less than a year under the worst of circumstances even with small children. The real reason was that God needed to prepare the Hebrew people, teaching them how to move from a slave mentality to a free mentality where they chose to be obedient to Him from a free disciplined spirit.

Leaders must repeatedly cast the vision, however, if your team is discouraged, the vision you cast may be undermined. A Spirit-empowered leader counteracts discouragement by the constant restatement of the vision and consistent action toward the goal. Read Exodus 5:22-6:9.

In Exodus chapter 3, God had Moses assemble the Hebrew elders and tell them of His vision to give the Hebrew people “…a land flowing with milk and honey.” God told Moses “The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him…” The initial response to the vision was positive and the people embraced Moses’ leadership. When Pharaoh did not immediately comply with their request discouragement set in.