What kind of leader is Jesus Christ? One of great love and compassion. He has tremendous love for all human beings. In Matthew chapter 23, we can read of that compassion. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).
Christ wanted so badly to help those people at that time, but they were not willing. And that has unfortunately been the reaction of mankind throughout the centuries.
Are we learning to have compassion when we look at those in the world around us? Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, our Elder Brother, our example, has shown us the way. Are we learning to be like that too? Certainly, it must anger us to see the inhumanity of man to his fellow man. Recently at the Memorial of the Liberation of Auschwitz (January 27, 2020) several survivors of the Nazi death camps in World War II gave first-hand, heartrending testimony of this incredible inhumanity in our quite recent past. The world speaks of changing … but does not change. We must genuinely change and learn to have the love and compassion that Jesus Christ had.
There is also another facet to Christ’s leadership. He will, with the dawning of God’s millennial rule, lead with firmness. Firmness will be necessary to clean things up, and then He will be able to teach. Teachers in today’s society realize that you have to have the full attention of the students before you can impart any knowledge to them. In effect, that is what Christ will do. He will, with the firmness that He will have to exercise, get people’s attention. The book of Zechariah even makes it clear that if the Egyptians do not come up to the Feast of Tabernacles, they would receive no rain! (Zechariah 14:18).
In the book of Revelation, we read: “Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. (Yes, this is the Lamb of God.) And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God (Revelation 19:15-16).
In our personal lives, are we listening? Are we being attentive to what God is trying to teach us? Christ is giving us the chance now to learn many very important lessons. We may learn many godly principles, which will help us to be of aid to Him in the Millennium. But does God have our attention? Or are we sometimes just going through the motions? Christ will have to be quite firm with the peoples who do not desire to do the right thing. Are we being firm with ourselves? Are we committed to and striving toward doing what God expects of us?
The Bible is replete with passages telling of a good and positive outcome for those who follow God. Let us give God our full and undivided attention. Let us be firm with ourselves — practice self-discipline — so that we may become those servants that God wishes us to be — growing in grace and knowledge and learning to have love and compassion for all of mankind.
Cliff Veal
