The worst kind of leadership sin

Tom Harper June 13, 2023

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What lurks inside the leader? We might begin our list with lust, stress, fatigue, pride, impatience, bitterness, jealousy.

Most sin can be hidden from the outside world. But when the secrets aren't confessed to the Lord, they fester, grow, deepen and threaten to emerge.

They're dangerous when they meet the light. Consider a married pastor who hid an affair with his female executive pastor for several years. People in the church couldn't put their finger on the reasons, but the congregation had stopped growing and suffered division. You can imagine the complete devastation when the affair became public.

How can this kind of thing happen?

…[B]ut each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death (James 1:14-15).

The pastor's secret sexual sin had burned away his conscience. After getting away with it for so many years, he didn't feel the need to repent and flee from it.

Unconfessed, rotting sin has many consequences:

● It removes God's hand of blessing.
● It creates a spirit of discord, pride and negativity.
● It destroys marriages.
● People sense it.
● It gives the enemy a foothold and opens the leader to attack.
● The leader's family and the flock under his care become vulnerable.

There's an even greater danger for him personally: Judgment.

"God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ." (Rom 2:16) Secret sins not only ruin #leadership, they are seen by God NOW.

Is there an unseen sin in your own life? If you can't think of one, praise the Lord. If you're not sure, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal a sin guilt the enemy may be using against you. Satan likes to remind us of our past, but repentance breaks his power.

If the Spirit leads you to seek forgiveness, it may be painful, but the freedom is healing and life-giving.

"We have sinned.... Please rescue us." "He could bear Israel's misery no longer." (Judg. 10:16)

Repentance moves God.

Excerpted from Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership, by Tom Harper (DeepWater Books, 2019). Also available in Spanish and Amharic.

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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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