Q & A -- Do We Need To Work On Ourselves In Order To Provide Leadership To Others?

Question: 

I heard a Christian speaker say that we need to “work on ourselves” before we can lead others.  But that doesn’t sound right to me.  Isn’t working on ourselves an inherently selfish thing to do?  Jesus said that leaders are supposed to be humble.

Answer: 

I suppose working on ourselves can become a form of selfishness, because we have the ability to take just about any pursuit to the point where it becomes unhealthy. 

(I made a trip to the gym unhealthy, one time.  It involved a deep fryer and several packages of Twinkies.)

However, the idea of working on ourselves could be understood to mean that we are actively pursuing spiritual growth and maturity, i.e., becoming more like Christ.  Hebrews chapter 12, vs. 1, tells us: “…Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”  This is speaking of spiritual discipline using the metaphor of a long race.  It’s a form of working on ourselves.  In this case, working on ourselves would, obviously, be good and it would be important to spiritual leadership.

Sometimes Christian teachers will attempt to give insight and help involving aspects of life in Christ that they have not personally experienced.  I heard a Christian teacher refer to this as the preaching of “rumors and innuendo”.  (That’s a pretty effective way of putting it.)  Working on ourselves becomes critical because there is a sense in which we cannot lead people very capably into areas where we have not gone ourselves. 

So, although it may sound selfish, working on ourselves is actually an aspect of becoming the kind of person who can genuinely lead and assist others.