On Being A Boss

A lot of people aspire to be a boss, a leader, someone in charge. When I was younger I always thought it would be the ultimate freedom with no one to tell me what to do. It isn't that I wanted power over other people but instead I wanted to be free from people having power over me. It wasn't until I became a boss that I realized a couple of things. First, being a boss is more about responsibility than privilege. Second, we always have someone to whom we have to answer.

Those to whom God calls and anoints for leadership, any leadership, in the Body of Jesus, he also holds to a greater accountability. We know that apostles, evangelists, prophets, pastors and teachers will all be judged more severely and will have to give account for everything God gave to them to invest for the Kingdom. But so too will each elder, deacon, Sunday School teacher, worship leader, band member and anyone else with any responsibility over anyone else. It is also true for any Christian given responsibility in the world:

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. (Ephesians 6:9)

When Paul says "in the same way" he is referring to what he just finished saying to the salves. There has to be an attitude that we are serving the Lord. There must be an attitude of respect, fear, and sincerity. We should be afraid to do any harm to anyone because, even if they are not saved, they are the objects of God's love. If an employee must show respect and serve sincerely, as if they are serving the Lord, how much more someone with responsibility over someone else?

We need to always keep in mind that we have to have Jesus' attitude and he said that he did not come to be served but to serve. Even when we are the boss we need to have a servant's heart, caring for those for whom we are responsible. If we saw them as Jesus would we act toward them any differently? This is even more so when you have responsibility over a fellow Christian.

Being the boss of a Christian is probably the hardest thing to do. We have such high expectations for each other and when we fail to meet those expectation it can affect they way we treat each other. It is hard not to judge. This is the verse I try to keep in mind:

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

The Lord will get us all there in the end, no matter our level of maturity or revelation. Meanwhile we are to respect, fear, be sincere and love each other.

Bosses have to remember that we all serve the same Lord and he is Master of us all. It is good to remember that he has no favourites  From the greatest evangelists to the worse sinner, God loves us all. It is because of that love that we must show respect to all human life. How can we mistreat the objects of God's affection? How can we have poor attitudes toward those for whom Jesus went to the cross?  How can we allow something like being a boss interfere with our greater responsibility of being vessels of God's love?

It is a beautiful thing when it all flows together, slave respecting master and master respecting slave, but it doesn't always go that way. It doesn't matter. How a boss is treated cannot affect the responsibility of the boss to treat the employees well, showing them respect and love, serving them as if he is serving Jesus. We are all accountable to the same Master. Serve him well.