As is often the case in reading the Bible, I found myself in one passage in Jeremiah this morning only to be chasing the trail of related passages throughout the rest of Jeremiah. I was doing a little prep work for a leadership development seminar I’m leading this Saturday.
I’m speaking about the “heart of leadership” and Jeremiah is filled with passages about how God expects leaders to lead his people. Only he doesn’t call them leaders; he calls them shepherds.
The verse I started with was Jeremiah 3:15 … “Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.”
God desires leaders who model his heart for his people. To effectively shepherd people we who lead must grow in two areas: knowledge and understanding. We must know as much as we can about God’s will and as much as we can about those we lead. This, in turn, brings about understanding.
Throughout Jeremiah, God emphasizes the influence leaders have over their followers. “My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place” (Jeremiah 50:6).
The heart of a leader is the heart of a shepherd. We have a responsibility to God and his flock.
To see the references to shepherd in Jeremiah, visit Bible Gateway.