The Art of Leadership By Dag Heward-Mills
The strike of a snake is so fast that you may just feel the prick but never see the snake itself. A viper can go from being coiled up to opening its mouth, unfolding its fangs, lunging, biting and injecting venom to folding its fangs back again, closing its mouth and returning to a coiled up position in a fraction of a second. I tell you, the human eye cannot follow the strike. It is so swift!
The speed and aggression of the black mamba make it one of the most successful snakes of all time. The black mamba is very fast and agile. A group of people are usually required to kill it. When cornered, it strikes in all directions while a third of its body is suspended above the ground. Over short distances it can move at up to 5.4metres per second which is almost 20 kilometres per hour and faster than most people can sprint. The black mamba can travel with a third of its body raised off the ground and can move quickly on trees, on the ground or in water.
So, what is the speed of your strike? What is the speed of your response to God’s call? What is the speed of your obedience to the will of God? How swift are you when you are responding to God?
Most competitions exist to uncover and discover people’s capacity for speed: the speed of dogs, the speed of horses, the speed of cars, the speed of planes and the speed of human beings! A lot of money can be earned if you are fast.
In the ministry, a lot of things also respond to speed. The slower you are, the more unsuccessful you will be in the work of God. To be wise as a serpent you must increase your speed! You must increase your speed in the many different areas of your life and ministry. I want to show you certain critical areas where speed is important. You must critically increase your speed in all the many areas of life.
For instance, you must critically increase your speed of recognizing anointed people. In the passage below, we see how the multitudes recognized the anointing and the anointed one. Because they recognized the anointing, they received their healing. Those who did not recognize the anointing did not come out of their houses to receive a blessing.
When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore. When they got out of the boat, IMMEDIATELY THE PEOPLE RECOGNIZED HIM, and ran about that whole country and began to carry here and there on their pallets those who were sick, to the place they heard He was. Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured.
Mark 6:53-56 (NASB)
Over the years I have treasured certain people because I recognized them as anointed men. People have wondered why I make a fuss about certain anointed men. If you are spiritual, you will recognize and respect people just because of the anointing on their lives. Sometimes it is not easy to recognize a great anointing. You must become sensitive to the anointing and recognize it quickly. Why is that? When you do not recognize anointed people quickly, you may criticize them instead. Anointed people are sent into your life at a particular season. They are also sent for a particular reason.
Kenneth Hagin was sent into my life so that I could receive an anointing and a ministry. Through the anointing on his life, I received a ministry and became anointed to do what I am doing. I loved his tapes so much and I enjoyed listening to his messages. I would share them with others but no one seemed to find them as special as I did. One night, in 1988, whilst listening to Kenneth Hagin, the power of God fell on me and I became anointed to teach. That teaching anointing has given me the opportunity to build churches, have conferences, conduct crusades, raise up pastors and do many other things. I pray for you that you will recognize anointed people when they are sent to you. You will miss your blessing if you do not quickly recognize people that are sent into your life.
Remember what Jesus taught us, “be wise as serpents!” Let us not ignore this wisdom of serpents – speed! Speed is a very important quality and most races and competitions exist to determine how fast you can go. You will achieve great success if you learn to do things aggressively and with speed. A leader responds with speed to what he recognizes or learns.
theaol@ymail.com