We have a need to return to the Bible to understand the role of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in discipling, maturity, and personal spiritual leadership. We need to reset our understanding of the role of human leaders in our personal leadership maturity and ultimate preparation and positioning for both personal and kingdom purpose.
1. God is a Leader who is directly, personally, spiritually, and intimately involved in every person’s life at any level He decides and desires.
a. Believers are born of the Spirit. They can see the kingdom of God and enter the kingdom of God.
They receive Holy Spirit at spiritual birth. They receive the fullness of Holy Spirit according to personal capacity for the Spirit. They have the anointing rubbed upon them so that the necessity of human leadership could be avoided.
Of course, the necessity of human leadership is not avoided because of God’s design and definition of the kingdom and kingdom culture. The point is: if you were living alone on a deserted island all your life as a believer, you could still enjoy all that Holy Spirit in you provides, but you would not be prepared and positioned by Holy Spirit to participate in the kingdom culture and kingdom Ecclesia. He would teach you what you personally require as a believer in isolation, knowing you would not need further preparation.
As well, the necessity of human leadership is not avoided because every believer participating in the kingdom of God and kingdom culture is prepared and positioned, led and made accountable, judged and trained to obey kingdom culture principles, processes, and protocols by human leaders bestowed upon the kingdom.
b. Holy Spirit is directly involved in this process of preparation, positioning, purity, and posture in complete agreement with God’s design and definition of kingdom leadership and kingdom culture. Holy Spirit is never in contradiction to that design and definition. Holy Spirit allows responding to the believer upon that basis.
2. God is preparing the entire kingdom to lead in a representation of Him and His kingdom.
a. The “born from above” believer is in growth and maturity mode from the moment of his spiritual birth. That pursuit of growth and maturity combines God’s involvement with human leadership.
The combination is necessary because of purpose. Each believer is part of an international kingdom purpose, national and regional purposes, as well as reaching for the ultimate of personal purpose. That combination of Divine and human leadership is necessary because the process installs personal strength of will, personal experience of human leadership, and application of spiritual instruction in relational dynamics.
People experience spiritual reality with other people. As a maturing believer reaches higher levels of maturity, the deeper his tests of trust, passion, submission, and obedience will be. He must learn relational dynamics with human beings in order to reach his ultimate in his relational dynamics with God. He will either learn them in combination with God’s leadership and the leadership God provides him, or he will not have any alternative for learning.
In other words, learning to submit to God’s design and definition for human leadership is fundamental to learning how to submit to and obey God. God measures our submission and obedience to Him in our submission and obedience to human leadership.
b. New Testament lawlessness looks just like Old Testament lawlessness.
Jude reveals the spiritual cancer of lawlessness, infiltrating the kingdom of God in three Old Testament examples: Cain, Balaam, and Korah. In each case, the combination of submission and obedience to human leadership reveals the person’s submission and obedience to God’s leadership.
That is, rebellion to God’s order is rebellion against God. Rebellion against God’s appointed leaders is rebellion against God Himself. Rebellion against God’s cultural principles, processes, and protocols is rebellion against God’s leadership.
In Hebrews 12, Holy Spirit describes three fathering aspects of a kingdom citizen’s life: Father in Heaven, natural fathering, and spiritual fathering (non-natural fathering provided through SpiritFirst relational dynamics). The verses are addressed to spiritual fathering leaders.
The entire discussion is about submission and obedience. Father in Heaven authenticates inheritors through painful discipline. Those that endure are authentic. Those that quit are not. Natural fathers start the process of developing submission so that personal strength of will to obey can be applied to Father’s discipline in adult believers experiencing growth and maturity of spirit.
The conclusion of the discussion concerns how spiritual fathers should respond to those for whom they are responsible. The discussion reaches its point of contrast between normal inheritors and Esau: authentic or fraudulent inheritors.
Conclusion
1. No separation exists between submission and obedience to human leaders as designed and defined by God and submission and obedience to God. No principle of kingdom culture could be more evident. It is an old covenant principle restated in the new. It is as basic as honoring parents. It is as basic as following the leader. It is as obvious as protecting sheep from wolves. It is a principle, process, and protocol.
2. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are directly involved in producing submission and obedience to human leaders in every kingdom citizen. Jesus says, “I will be with you until the time you engage in this Great Commission reaches ultimate.”
3. The Great Commission of which He speaks says, “Train them to obey All I have commanded you.” The heart of kingdom leadership is discipling, and discipling is a process of strengthening the will of the disciple through submission and obedience to the one discipling that becomes the basis for submission and obedience to the King of the Kingdom.
