Both. It’s both. Leaders are both born and they are made.
Born that way. There are natural talents and gifts on a person’s life for the call God has placed on their life. Every person! God gives gifts to every person and whether they use them for His honor and glory or not, the gifts are irrevocable, Romans 29:11. We would be ignorant to deny this.
God has purposed people for certain functions within the church. Jesus is the head of the church and we are the body. We all have a job to do, the church grows and builds itself up as each part does it’s work, Ephesians 4:16.
God gives unique personality and talent and even wires us to be passionate about the very things He has called us to.
Why wouldn’t He do that? When He says, I know the plans I have for you, Jeremiah 29:11. David said of God, You created my inmost being…All the days ordained for me were written in your book, Psalm 139:13,16. And Isaiah says, aren’t we all the work of His hands, Isaiah 64:8.
Leaders are very much born because we come out of the womb created and destined by God himself.
Leaders are made. There is a very definite ability to grow and develop in your leadership. In fact, it’s a necessity. It’s learned mastery over yourself so that you can lead others for good, with integrity and bring honor to God doing it.
People boil down leadership to one word, Influence. There are people all over the planet wielding great influence, it doesn’t mean they are great leaders. They can be hurting more people than they are helping.
Moses was destined by God, from birth, to lead Israel out of the oppressive slavery of the Egyptians. Moses was raised in the household of Pharaoh. He had the best education money could buy. He was in a position of influence and power over the whole Nation of Egypt.
He had massive influence, yet he didn’t have mastery over his own thinking and emotions. He lacked self control, which is another way to say he lacked self-mastery.
He saw an abuse of an Israelite slave and thought he was standing up for justice by rashly attacking and killing the abuser, an Egyptian. He was acting upon an impulse and without wisdom or understanding, he got it wrong. Very wrong.
Rejected by both the Israelites he was trying to help and running from the consequence of his crime against the Egyptian, he went into hiding.
He spent the next 40 years in isolation learning to master himself. There on the backside of the desert, Moses learned to master his emotions and his thinking. He learned about people. He learned to listen to the voice of wisdom in his life and to submit to leadership. He faithfully shepherded the flocks of another man, His father-in-law, Jethro (from Exodus 2, 3 and 18).
For forty years he submitted to another mans leadership and served. He learned the vital lesson of living under someone else’s authority. No leader can lead with authority if they have not first served someone else and done it with integrity.
It was in the tents of Jethro that Moses learned many lessons in self-mastery. One of the biggest lessons would have been patience. Moses knew there was a great big call of God on his life and he knew of the injustices suffered by the Israelites. He would have carried that knowledge with him those 40 years in the desert.
Jethro, we know was a man of wisdom. It was Jethro who gave Moses a much needed lesson in leadership delegation, so that Moses could effectively lead the millions of Israelites, Exodus 18:13-26.
Moses was born with a call from God and leadership on his life. Yet it took him decades to master himself so that he could lead God’s people the way God wanted him to lead.
Moses was a born leader and he was made a great leader.
