Prophetic Perspectives on Leadership Choices and Accountability

Transcript:

Pastor Jojo: Greetings everyone and welcome to leadership talk podcast. This is the channel where we talk about different trades of leaderships. We have been also doing the series on different topic I hope you have been enjoying the contents been uploaded. We would also like to know your thoughts, feedback and suggestions. Do write to us and let us know.
For today’s discussion we have Apostle Priji with us.

Apostle Priji: Thank you Pastor Jojo. It is so important that we study and learn how we lead. We take time to evaluate our leadership. Everything falls and builds based on the way we lead and everyone of us has the opportunity, the place and environment that God has given us to lead. When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and said go and have dominion, many of us think that it was only Adam but it was Adam and Eve both that we told to exercise dominion over their environment. So all of us have been given an environment, a family were God wants us to speak, execute and exercise our leadership. And it is good we have conversations like these because it helps us to check where we are going wrong and helps us to ask the right questions and grow together.

Pastor Jojo: A leader is known for his choices and his good decisions. We have lot of people around us who has made good decisions in their lives and end up in records and in good books and at the same time there are some people who have made bad choices and no where seen in the records or book. So Apostle I would like to understand what are the things that influence a leader from a decision making point of view or the choices that he/she makes in this process.

Apostle Priji: Leadership is definitely a result of a person’s choices. The decisions that one makes is what defines his leadership ability and the kind of things and environment that he is trained and raised in, all of them they have a play in how they make certain choices and decisions. When a child is being brought by his parents, they teach the child what is good and bad, what is fearful and adorable and tell them how to make certain choices. Growing up this child will make certain choices and mistakes and will learn from those mistakes and choices. But in general our environment plays a huge role in telling us how to choose what kind of decisions we ought to make. The same person growing in India with a different kind of culture and society, his choices are going to be completely different from somebody who is growing in Africa, because the exposure to the world around them has been completely different.

If you study the book of Genesis, God spoke to Abraham and said that He will bless him and make him the father of many nations but for that he had to get out of his environment and go to a place that He will show him. Why was it so important for God to ask him to leave his environment? Because this environment was covered by the atmosphere of worshipping idols. And in this environment his choices and decisions, responses and relationships would have been influenced by this particular worship. You cannot be promoted and elevated you if you are stuck in this kind of environment.

So wherever we are on this journey and want to know what does it take to become good leaders, you may go through a process of disconnecting from people, your past and traditions. What sets a leader apart from his environment or from the places that he is brought up or where he is called to is that he has the perspective that none of the others had. The reason he is able to lead them is because he has been exposed to something that they have not been exposed to and that is why it is very necessary that we get into an environment were we are influenced by the right things, right voices and then change our environment. If we are in a toxic environment our decisions are going to be toxic. If we are in a corporate business environment than our decisions are going to be very business minded, if you are in a emotional environment than the decisions you make will be emotionally based. So your environment plays a huge role in your decision making. It is very important that you guard your and also choose your environment well.

Pastor Jojo: I totally agree what you are trying to say here, because our environment is not constant and keeps changing. Each environment plays a very critical role. It is also important for you to equip yourself well towards that environment and move to the right direction.

Apostle Priji: I am not saying that you cannot go to work in an environment were people are not right. Like you said you need to be equipped for your environment. God took Moses out of Egypt, equipped him, strengthened him for 40 years in the wilderness, stripped him off of every Egyptian-ness and gave him a encounter with fire and then sent him back into Egypt. So this time when he is going back into Egypt, he is not going as an Egyptian or Pharaoh’s grandson, he is going back as a man of God. So now when he goes back with authority. He is able to command for rain to fall on a certain way, he is able to command for rivers to change to blood and things obey because now he is equipped for the environment. Many people will teach you that your environment is bad so just get rid of it and go live on a mountain. But Jesus didn’t do that. He did have friends that were drunkards, tax collectors, friends that were not reputed in the society. He did hang out and had dinner with them. But before that, he was equipped for it. He spent forty days and nights fasting in the wilderness and was equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit. If you feel like your environment is influencing your choices and decision making than you need to withdraw to a place where God begins to influence you and He begins to influence you and change you. And then once you are equipped for the environment then you go back and then you will have good results.

Pastor Jojo: Yeah, you have an environment but there are still a lot of factor that are surrounding it. At times you end up making decisions which are not correct. In this whole process of we being a leader we often don’t realises about the bad choices and decisions that we have made. Now if there is a leader listening to us how can we identify these patterns that one is doing the wrong way. How can we get the way out of it?

Apostle Priji: Leaders are the ones they learn through bad decisions and still they don’t give up. You can’t be a leader if you have chosen to give up leading because you made a mistake. Every leader makes mistakes. Bad decisions are result of certain bad choices that you make and face consequences. If there is one person who has not made any mistake, is Jesus. But in the process I would like to say that whenever I have made bad decision I have learnt my lesson. I get to discern and understand that this was a bad choice. Provided I have somebody pointing out to me that this is the consequence of your bad choice. God has a way to of teaching us from our bad decisions and using those bad decisions to equip us.

When the Israelites were going to the promise land, they saw the promise land and they feared and were discouraged. But God still used their discouragement and train them. They were not supposed to be in the wilderness for forty years, it could have been a very short duration, but because of the few people who brought the bad report of the land, the rest of them followed and the journey extended for long. But God was still able to train them up. Thirty eight years back, these people were not equipped for war, not equipped in their hearts. They were still very broken and discouraged they still thought like a slave. Now when they are going into the promise land they were ready and were prepared to take down giants because over the forty years God pruned and purified them. God can use even our bad choices and still train us. But it is for us to identify our choices, else it tends to become a pattern That’s the story of Samson, it is not that he was not anointed, or he was bad leader, it was just that he didn’t identified his first bad decision as a bad decision so he ended up making multiple bad decisions and then it became a pattern in his life. A failure to identify a particular wrong choice or bad decision is what causes us to fall into the patterns of making wrong decisions and choices. If we can identify that we made a mistake then repent, change your ways, your heart and dreams. Change the way that we relate to the people around us. Change our vision for lives and upgrade ourselves and know that you can’t fall to this prey again. Sometimes we need to look at the good things that God has done in the bad decision we have made. Sometimes God brings out good out of the dirtiest things, some of the most broken situations can bring forth the most beautiful results but that doesn’t mean that you live broken for the rest of your life. We have to learn from our mistakes and have to learnt to avoid them and that is what makes a good leader.

Pastor Jojo: That’s so good Apostle. While you was speaking there is something that stuck in my head that there are often times we end up making bad choices but the problem is that we don’t seek help. We are not accountable to someone. Can that be a reason of us repetitively making bad decisions and choices. Does the accountability over your spiritual father or leader or mentor can help you to get out of this pattern?

Apostle Priji: Absolutely, lack of accountability is definitely a huge factor in you continuing in your disability. God would send prophets not to all of the people but to the kings of the nations to correct them. And these prophets would work as accountability partners for these kings and whenever the kings would make a mistake the first person that they would fear is the prophet thinking if he carries a good news or a judgement. Every leader needs to have a prophet in their life. We have to find a man or a woman who is trustworthy enough to point a finger at you. He did not go and start writing in the newspaper did you know what David do he was a trusted accountability partner. What a blessing it is if I have a prophet in my life telling me how to do my life. We can avoid a lot of losses and loss of time if we submit to a prophetic voice over our lives and sometimes the man or woman God may use may not be necessarily in the office of the prophets but they can act as a prophet.

Pastor Jojo: Yes, I think that’s one of the challenges that this generation have always faced. The lack of revelation of having a prophet is so fundamental and important that will help you go a long way in your life.

Apostle Priji: If you can get this correct. I think it was 10/12 years ago when I met my mentor and I asked him if he would mentor me and give me guidance because I lacked direction. I needed somebody to give me direction and tell me – ‘okay now’ ‘okay not now’ ‘go for it’. I needed that prophetic voice in my life. As soon as I submitted everything shifted and changed. The way that I would make my choices, minister or lead, everything changed. I am not perfect but I am completely submitted and know that there is a person who can call out my name when I do mistakes.

Pastor Jojo: The next part I want to understand is that decision making often happens in very crucial situations especially when you are really under pressure. And you don’t have a lot of time to process and think through and then make your choices. What are the things that you have personally seen and how can we work on it when we are in this kind of situation.

Apostle Priji: When you are asked to lead under pressure that is when the real you comes out. When there is a pressure of time or a pressure of money, or let’s say you are a pastor and you are about to make a decision that is going to change the course of your church and some of these are high pressure situations, how you react and what you do in these crucial moments defines everything about you.

When the two Levites bore Moses, they were under immense pressure because the government has ordered that every male child should be thrown into the river. They were running out of time because the baby was growing. But what they did was before throwing the baby into the river they created a different environment for this baby to survive even in the river. And that was the choice and decision that they made in their pressurised situations. Not only did they throw the baby but also appointed a supervisor to watch where and who would pick up the baby. They put a voice behind him and to guard him from a distance.

God does gives us deep instincts that guides us specially in times of pressurised situations and at that point the act of putting your baby in the basket and put him into the river might seem foolish, but that was the Lord orchestrating the big saviour of Israel. And these are times where you don’t have the flexibility to calculate the speed of the river, how heavy is this baby, how much of covering does the basket have etc. but you have to trust that instinct, the deep inner voice that you have inside of you. You have to trust the river and you have to let the river go and if what you are doing is truly from the Lord than you will know that your decisions will not fail. Sometimes the choice that you make may look like there is no fruit at that moment, but when you wait you will see the results. I would request you my dear friends to trust the gut instinct that God has put inside of you and to trust the river that is flowing beside of you. Trust the stream, let go of your decisions into the stream and the Lord will take it to the correct destiny it needs to reach.

Pastor Jojo: How does our relationship with God influences our choices and decision making, how does that makes us grow in our relationship with God?

Apostle Priji: Our relationship with God changes the whole dynamic of how we make choices. In the last point we were discussing about how we need to trust that gut instinct inside of you.cThe more you are growing in your relationship with God the sharper will be your instinct and revelations. The quicker you will be able to receive the information from spirit dimension. We are made in three dimensions – spirit, soul and body. The body is the outward part which everyone sees, but there is a Soul inside the body and a spirit inside the soul. The more we tap into the spirit dimension the more our decisions will be eternal because our spirit is eternal. When we access information from our spirit dimension, our decisions and choices will be very powerful. So our relationship with God is what will cause that spirit to come alive. When you have a relationship with God your choices are going to be completely different.

There was a time, when King David made a mistake, made a bad decision and the consequences to it was that he made another bad decision. Prophet asked him to choose one among the three options of the judgement, famine for three years, war with your enemy for three months and plague or a pestilence for three days.

But David chose the plague which was the most dangerous option, because he said it is better to fall in the hands of God than to fall in the hands of people.

If I were to ask you to choose between three years of the India-Pakistan war or three days of a COVID pandemic, none of us would opt for the pandemic. However, David, technically, chose the pandemic, knowing that if he fell into the hands of God, he would have to depend more on Him. Consequently, his relationship with God determined the choice he made. Therefore, it is crucial for us to shape our decisions and choices by understanding the heart and ways of God. Every leader needs to pray and ask God to teach them His ways. When we pray this prayer, everything will change, and we will no longer make decisions as businessmen, pastors, great parents, or good husbands. Instead, we will begin to make decisions as children of God, as representatives of God here on Earth. An ambassador has the power to represent the country to which they are assigned. Remember that you and I are ambassadors of Christ here on Earth. We have the power, authority, and the right to make specific choices, and everything we do will reflect either positively or negatively on our country. My prayer is that you will stay in constant communication with your high command so that your decisions align with what your country’s needs. I also hope that the more leadership responsibilities we have, the more dependent we will become and the more we will cling to the Lord. As we grow in our relationship with God, our decisions will become more faithful and accurate.

Pastor Jojo: Thank you so much, Apostle, for your time and for sharing your insights on this topic. I hope all of you enjoyed this conversation. Please let us know if you learned something new and if you have some pointers that you can apply to your leadership. If you have any topics you would like us to address in the next leadership talk, feel free to let us know.