When I was a child, I used to play the game of follow the leader. One of the children would be the leader and all the other children would follow. Sometimes following the leader was great fun, but sometimes it got us in trouble because the leader led us to do things that were not right. As adults, we’re not a whole lot different from children. We all follow leaders in our lives. Your leader might be a person that you look up to or it might be that you are your own leader. The problem is that if you’re following a fallible human being, you are going to get in trouble. Only those who follow Jesus, the perfect leader, will never go wrong. Only those who follow Jesus both in private and in public will fulfill their purpose in life.
Now some leaders today claim that their own private beliefs have no bearing on their public actions. They say that we shouldn’t criticize them when what they say they believe in private and what they do in public doesn’t add up. Jesus had a word for those kinds of leaders, “Hypocrites.” A hypocrite is someone who flip flops between a private and a public image. Hypocrites cannot be trusted and if you follow one, he will lead you and all those who follow him into trouble. The private beliefs of a leader who can be trusted and his public actions are one and the same. Jesus came to bring the truth for every person to believe and act on. That truth will produce good in the lives of individuals and nations that live by it.
NLT John 18:37 Jesus said, “… I came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”