I don’t know about you, but I don’t want leaders who don’t know the Lord. Even the most immature Christian with a tender-hearted desire to obey, is better than a stiff-necked woman who believes that she alone is sovereign.
Those of you who know my testimony, know that I spent the first eighteen years of my adult life as a disobedient, hard-hearted woman. Bitter over a drunken dad and perverted pastors, I renounced my childhood faith, and left the church. During those years of spiritual exile, I refused to acknowledge the Lord’s presence and authority. In fact, I pretended that He was dead. What I didn’t realize until many years later was that I was the one who was really dead.
Spiritually dead that is. Nothing satisfied. Nothing could heal my pain until the day in October 1997 when I came face-to-face with Jesus and cried out for mercy. In the midst of my heaving sobs, He quietly and gently told me all was okay now. He forgave me. Ever since that day, I have been desperate to follow Him because He is my life and my hope. His Law is no longer repulsive. Rest is possible when we obey because He has our best interests at heart. He has proven himself faithful and worthy of my total trust.
According to Richard Hays, author of The Moral Vision of the New Testament, “the great difficulty with the Law of Moses…was that it could only point to righteousness, never actually produce it. There is a powerful and inexplicable ‘law of sin’ at work in human hearts that constantly defeats our solemn intention to do the good and to obey the will of God. Consequently, even where the hearer of the Law applauds the vision of the moral life conveyed by the Torah – as indeed we should, since the commandment of the Law is ‘holy and just and good’ (Romans 7:12), the Law can produce only condemnation and frustration.” The Apostle Paul agonized in Romans 7:14-24 over this life “in Adam” under the Law but before the rebirth “in Christ”:
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
The Apostle Paul leaves the reader feeling desperate and hopeless at the end of Romans 7:24. He outlines our basic problem and asks who will save us? In verse 25, he reveals the solution: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Paul starts chapter 8 with the exhilarating revelation that Jesus condemns sins and releases those who follow Him from deserved condemnation. We are reborn from the old “in Adam” to the new “in Christ.”
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Why does God do this? So that we, His people, can fulfill His ‘holy, just, and good’ Law. The Holy Spirit empowers us to obey, and when we walk according to the Spirit, our desires and actions are totally aligned!
Hays again: “God is present in power in His people (the church), changing lives and enabling an obedience that would otherwise be unattainable. Obedience is a consequence of salvation, not its condition. The Holy Spirit is not a theological abstraction but the manifestation of God’s presence in the community, making everything new. Those who respond to the Gospel have entered the sphere of the Spirit’s power, where they find themselves changed and empowered for obedience. Obedience is possible at all only because God has broken the power of sin and begun the work of conforming believers to the image of Jesus Christ.”
Scripture makes it clear that God establishes human government, and often as in the story of Pharoah of Egypt, God uses stiff-necked leaders to accomplish His purposes. So we cannot exclude nonbelievers from positions of authority, but we can prepare our homeschoolers for godly leadership in case the Lord calls them. How do we do this? Create an environment at home in which our children experience the love of Jesus on a daily basis. Tell them the stories of His faithfulness. Let them see His power at work in our lives. Immerse them in love and forgiveness. Perhaps one day your son or daughter will obediently lead like Moses with a heart inclined toward the Lord. Hard-hearted leaders are a curse and make foolish decisions that cause unnecessary pain. Leaders who walk with Jesus are empowered by His ever-present Spirit and end up blessing the people.
* * * *
If you want to read more of my story, Trivium Mastery: The Intersection of Three Roads, gives a fuller picture of how my Lord has shown mercy and grace.
