[RECAP]  The cross of Christ is the most misrepresented reality in the Bible. We trivialize it, civilize it, and scandalize it. And the most amazing thing of all is this: the cross became that very avenue to eternal life in the ancient Roman Empire.  [END RECAP]

I think all of us have said, have heard it said, about some deep pain or struggle in life, maybe some of us have even said it, “Well, that’s my cross and I must bear it.” That’s not what the cross is about. The most beautiful scar in history, the source of redemption, the power for release, ultimate freedom comes through the cross. And it’s turned into some terrible thing in life that we have to bear.

A while back, I was in Eastern Europe, actually teaching some pastors, about 30 or so, who were in the room. And I was teaching them, and I was talking about the cross. And one of the men raised his hand and said, “tell me, tell us about your cross, what is your cross?” Because you see, they had the impression that the cross is something very painful in their lives. Now, I’m not denying the possibility that pain and suffering and struggle can come through the cross. Of course it can. When we think about what it means to follow Jesus, when we think about what it means when the world around us rejects us, when we think about what it means in significant parts of the world for someone to say ‘I’m a follower of Jesus’ there are actual events that have occurred where families have murdered a family member because of faith in Christ. Of course it can mean suffering. But it’s suffering for the cause of Christ. It is deep, not only physical, but spiritual suffering as I will show you.

But even more important than that, the cross not only brings suffering, the cross, brings release. I’ve been saying it, the cross brings freedom. It's the only power that can deliver leaders from man’s interests to God’s interests. You see, my friend, when we’re caught up in the pursuit of man’s interest, and I’ve been there, I know what that means. When we’re caught up in the pursuit of man’s interest, we’re caught up in discouragement, we’re caught up in confusion, we’re caught up in paralysis, we’re caught up in shackles that hold us and grip us and keep us from moving out. And in those moments, our leadership is limited; we are enslaved to the bondage of self.

For some period of time, I was involved at the Center for Christian Leadership at Dallas Seminary and we brought into being an event called LEAD, it’s really an assessment process: Leadership, Evaluation and Development. At this point in time, there have been a thousand leaders who have come through LEAD and the time that I was engaged, I worked with over 400 leaders. Often, they would be couples in leadership positions together and so I worked with men and women. And I worked with people in multiple cultures. I went to Asia and did several LEADs with people from various parts of Asia. I went to Eastern Europe and did some LEADs with people who were living cross culturally, so we saw the basic realities of what we were exploring in many different parts of the globe.

We went to serve leaders and we gave them forms to fill out that required them to answer some of the most difficult questions about themselves they could answer and then we would work our way through those forms. And every time we read a form, we realized, ‘you know, I’m sitting right here and I could answer that question that same way or I could even answer it in a more difficult way than that person has.’ But here’s what we saw: we saw many people coming through LEAD, came through shackled. They came through struggling. They came through caught up in their fears and their confusions, in some instances, in their failure, in their uncertainty, in their lack of direction, in their great disappointment because things didn’t go the way they expected it to. It was almost like we found ‘Leader in a Box.’ That leaders would be boxed in and they would be boxed in by these various responses of fear, and disappointment, and different results in their lives that they never expected, blunted expectations.

And in that process, we began to realize, we saw a pattern: not only in those leaders we were serving but in our own lives, because we too had the same struggles they had. And that’s where I began to understand that the heart of the leader is the heart of the matter. No matter what knowledge we have, no matter what skills we have, unless the heart is transformed, unless the heart is set free, our skills and knowledge are going to be limited.

Only the cross has the power to deliver leaders from pursuing man’s interests and seeking for God’s.