(Written by Mark Stanifer, SightShift Certified Coach and founder of Dare2LiveCoaching.com)

You’ll recall from Part 1 of this series that the question being explored is this: “What questions must be answered to ensure your public persona matches your behind-the-curtain private one?” The first question that must be asked is, “Where am I trying to take for me rather than give for others?” There are two more questions a leader must wrestle with in order to ensure alignment between public and private personas.

Let’s return to the account of Jesus in the wilderness and explore the second test.

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Compromise or Commit

The second test Jesus faced went straight to his values. The tempter was inviting him to compromise. Testing if he would stay committed. Yet Jesus, as our leader example, modeled what his ultimate value was in the way he responded to this second test.

None of us will face stakes as high as what Jesus faced in this test. The tempter was offering him the kingdom of earth. Now, we know the enemy’s pattern from the early pages of the Bible. It is to cast doubt on the authority and trustworthiness of God, to undermine Him and his creation. We should not presume that Jesus wasn’t affected by his offer. The enemy knows how to exploit our humanness.

The second question a leader can ask is this: Where am I compromising, rather than committed to, my values?

It may be helpful here for you to think of values in this way: centered on God and committed to becoming who He made you to be.

The offer Jesus was given was the antithesis to those values: substitute something other than God as the center and deviate from the path of becoming the best and fullest expression of himself. Understanding his test in this light makes it directly relatable to the tests (the refining) that leaders face. How are you answering that question, in the things that seem insignificant and in the things where the significance is great?

You may read that last statement and feel the pressure to double down striving to be good in all things. The intent here is not to heap perfectionistic pressure on you and make the striving any heavier to bear. Relax and let Father’s refining do its good work. Or you may discount the insignificant and focus only on the big things. Recognize, however, that big things always start off as little ones. For you, the growth opportunity is to notice the smaller testing moments and stay committed vs compromising. In both cases, God’s process is refining you to be “mature and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:4)

Photo by Mark Duffel on Unsplash

(Post #3 tomorrow)