When you come to the land which the Lord your God gives you and you possess it and live there, and then say, We will set a king over us like all the nations that are about us, – Deuteronomy 17:14, Amplified Bible (AMP)

In Deuteronomy 17, long before the days of the Judges or of Samuel the prophet, God (through Moses) informed the Israelites that they would one day demand that a human king reign over them. In preparation for that time, God commanded Moses to inform the Israelites – both verbally and in writing (in the Book of Deuteronomy) – of the characteristics a good king should have. These criteria included:

• (Verse 15) Let God choose the ruler. In other words, let the king be someone who agrees with God’s teachings.
• (Verse 15) The king should be a person born in the country of Israel. The king should not be a foreigner. (Incidentally, this is where the American Founding Fathers got the idea of the president being a natural born citizen, not a foreigner.)
• (Verses 16-17) The king should not be greedy of gain or desire many wives.
• (Verse 18 – 20) The king shall write his own copy of the Bible, read it regularly, and meditate on it frequently.

Why require such things of the king? Such a man would love and serve God more than himself, and he would love and serve his people more than himself. In short, he would fulfill the two great commandments listed in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 and repeated by Jesus in Matthew 22:37-39, thus pleasing God and bringing peace and harmony to his people.

As with all things regarding His creation, God has provided us with the perfect blueprint of a leader. Whether you lead a country, a company, a church, a civic club, a Bible study, or a family, the power behind your leadership won’t be in self-help books, how-to seminars, or college degrees.* The power behind your leadership will come through thinking and acting like God, and you can only think and act like God by burying yourself in His Word and by committing to His holy style of living.

So, do you have the power to be a good leader?

* To be fair, these things have value. But, they don’t provide the power behind the leadership model that God constructed for His creation. Only the Bible can do that!