THE ART OF LEADERSHIP By Dag Heward-Mills
We learnt last week that God sends us help in many forms. We discovered that help comes to us in different forms; through expected and unexpected means. We also learnt that we can miss the help God sends to us because we do not realize what has been sent to us. We pray that no leader will miss the people God sends into his life to help him. God will send wonderful people into your life to help you achieve far more than you have imagined. We have already learnt that as much as God can send blessed people to help you, He can also send poor people to your aid. Well, God can also send a man of God into the life of a leader.
A leader recognizes men of God who have been sent into his life. Failing to recognize the contribution a man of God makes to your life is the ungratefulness that does not attract a blessing. Notice the contribution of Elisha to this woman’s life.
Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. And Elisha said unto her, what shall I do for thee? Tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, there is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.
2 Kings 4:1-7
Elisha was an agent of prosperity to the widow. Through his ministry, she was sustained and given the greatest help she needed at the time. She was a widow in debt. If she did not pay the debt, her sons were going to be made slaves. Can you imagine that! That would leave her with no one. She had already lost her husband. Through the help of Elisha her oil was multiplied, her bills were paid, her sons were delivered from slavery and her life was changed forever.
One day, I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, attending a Kenneth Hagin conference. In the middle of the conference, the Spirit of the Lord told me to honour Kenneth Hagin with an offering. But that night, Kenneth Hagin himself described how prosperous he was and how much money he had paid as tithes that year.
I thought to myself, “This man will not need my measly offering.” That night, the Lord dealt with me and showed me how important it was to honour him no matter how small the offering was. The Lord showed me how I had benefited from Kenneth Hagin’s ministry.
But there was one thing that surprised me. God showed me how the car I used, the house that I lived in and the money I had, had come through Kenneth Hagin’s ministry. He showed me that even the ability to travel to Tulsa, had somehow come to me through the ministry of Kenneth Hagin. As I thought through my life I realised how true it was. God had anointed me through his ministry and everything I had had come to me because of the anointing I received. I recognised that this was a man of God who had been sent into my life to help me.
You see, a prophet is an agent of change! A prophet is an agent of prosperity! A prophet is an agent of promotion! And God had sent a prophet into my life. It was imperative that I honoured him because to refrain from honouring him was the same as not saying “thank you”. Indeed, it is our prayer that God will give grace to every leader to recognize those He has sent into their lives to help them!
Culled from “He that hath, to him shall be given;
And he that hath not, from him shall
Be taken even that which he hath”
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