Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”
Our Bible verse for today: “Then Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel, saying, “I am now 120 years old; I can no longer act as your leader. The Lord has told me, ‘You will not cross this Jordan … Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, as the Lord has said.” Deuteronomy 31:1-3 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Pass it on”
Yesterday we considered a passage that was also from Deuteronomy where Moses spoke of the importance of sharing the faith. The primary emphasis in that passage was the responsibility of one generation to pass the faith on to the next generation.
This morning I want us to continue that line of thinking, but in a slightly different vein. In Deuteronomy 31:1-3 Moses was speaking to the nation of Israel regarding his impending death and the fact that Joshua had been selected by God to succeed him. That being the case, Moses invested much time and energy into preparing Joshua so he would be ready when the time came. We’re seeing a Biblical pattern here.
One of the marks of a great leader is that they have the foresight and the confidence to have in place a well-trained and fully-prepared replacement. It’s all too common to see a leader ultimately fail to finish well because they never bothered to prepare the organization for the day in which they would no longer be there. In those cases the organization and the people always suffer.
Preparing the next generation, and then passing the baton to them at a reasonable and realistic time, is a Biblical pattern we see modeled for us all throughout Scripture. In terms of the leadership of groups, churches, or nations, we see that Moses did it with Joshua, Elijah did it with Elisha, Jesus did it with His disciples, and Paul did it with Timothy and Silas.
In yesterday’s passage from Deuteronomy chapter six, Moses wrote about the importance of parents passing the faith on to their children and preparing their children to provide the next generation of leadership. Abraham did it with Isaac, David did it with Solomon, and Naomi did it with Ruth, just to cite a few examples. There are many more.
Are you actively and intentionally preparing the next generation of leadership in your family, or as the teacher of your Sunday school class, or as the leader of the organization? If you were to die today is there someone on the scene who has been taught, trained, and prepared to step into your place?
Great men and women of God recognize their God-given responsibility to prepare the next generation for positions of leadership.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 