18:17-23 - The way to lead as a godly leader is to (1) seek God on behalf of others, (2) teach people what you find and see, (3) show people how to follow God, (4) mediate the difficult things in their lives for/with them and (5) raise up others at many levels to do the same for them.
18:21 - The kind of people who should be leading in other people's lives are men who (1) fear God, (2) are trustworthy and (3) who hate dishonest gain. So many times we go after the flashiest leader or the most gifted business man or most popular, but men who fear God, be trustworthy and hate dishonesty will make the best leaders.
21:5-6 - Check out this verse.
5 "But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' 6 then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."
I have always loved this verse. It talks about someone who so loves their master that they freely choose to stay with him when they could have been free. Throughout the New Testament the term bondservant (which is the actual term used here) is used many places for what a Christian's life should be. We should joyfully and willingly give up all of our freedoms for the sake of our Master.
It amazes me how many times those of us who follow Jesus get this wrong. We come to God through Jesus and then we demand our rights at every turn. We want our rights at work, at home, on the basketball court, in public. We choose our freedom over the opportunity to be bondservants of our God. When you come to Jesus you die to your freedom and you choose to be a servant/slave/bondservant of God. You care more about His will than your freedom. Isn't that they whole point of praying "Your will be done" when Jesus was teaching us how to pray.
Can you imagine the power in our lives and our testimony about God to others if we embraced the doorpost more than our rights? Imagine how many people would believe the Gospel (Good News about Jesus) if we were more concerned with God than ourselves. People are waiting to see what you really believe.
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