When I think about the leaders I know — and when I look honestly at myself — I see a pattern. The higher we climb, the more we carry. The more responsibility we hold, the tighter we grip. We become experts at managing outcomes, reading rooms, and holding things together. And somewhere along the way, without even realizing it, we start managing God the same way we manage everything else.

Maybe it started with good intentions. Early in your leadership journey, you were hungry, idealistic, and desperate enough to actually depend on God. But as experience built and results followed, something subtle shifted. You got better at figuring things out. You learned what works. And God — if we’re honest — started to feel less like a King and more like a silent board member whose blessing you’d appreciate, but whose veto you rarely expected.

The Upgraded Version of the Same Problem

Most leaders I know have moved past the “fairy godmother” version of faith — asking God to sprinkle blessing on their plans. That feels too naive, too transactional. Instead, we’ve upgraded to something more sophisticated: we treat God like a strategic partner. We seek Him in the morning, bring Him the big decisions, do our best with excellence and integrity — and handle the rest ourselves. Like a good executive.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: the upgrade is an illusion. Whether God is your fairy godmother or your silent partner, the core posture hasn’t changed. You’re still in the driver’s seat. You’re still using God to get where you want to go.

So let me ask you directly: Is God your consultant, your co-pilot, or your King?

What Galatians 2:20 Actually Means for Leaders

Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

For leaders, this verse is either deeply liberating or deeply threatening — depending on how tightly you’re holding the wheel.

My version of it goes like this: “Not only do I not have control — I have been crucified with Christ. The old self, the one who needed to prove something, who built identity around results and recognition, who was terrified of losing control — is dead. And now? The one who loved me and gave himself for me lives in me. It is Christ who leads, not me.”

This isn’t a call to passivity or poor leadership. It’s a call to a completely different source. The most dangerous leader in any room is not the one with the least talent — it’s the one with the most talent and no King.

The Loneliness Nobody Talks About

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes with leadership. You’re rarely alone, but you’re often deeply lonely. You carry things you can’t say out loud. You hold the weight of others’ expectations. You project strength because the room needs it, even when you’re running on empty.

And in that loneliness, the temptation is to perform — to keep building, keep achieving, keep proving — because stopping feels like losing.

But Christ is with you in that room. He knows exactly what you’re carrying. You don’t need to extract strength from your reputation, your network, or your track record. The one who is love itself is already in you. That changes not just how you lead — it changes what you’re leading for.

Obedience Is Not Weakness — It’s the Source

Here’s what stops many leaders from fully surrendering: it feels like shrinking. Like giving up agency. Like becoming less effective.

The opposite is true.

When you stop leading from your own reserves and start leading from Christ in you, something remarkable happens. Your wisdom deepens beyond your experience. Your patience outlasts your personality. Your love for difficult people exceeds your natural capacity. Because it is no longer you operating — it is Christ operating through you.

Complete obedience to Christ as King doesn’t make you a smaller leader. It makes you a dangerous one — in the best possible way. Because our King is all-knowing, all-powerful, and loves the people in your care more than you ever could.

What It Does to the People Around You

When Christ is genuinely King of your heart, the people you lead feel it — even if they can’t name it.

They feel safe telling you the truth. They feel seen, not just utilized. They feel like the mission is bigger than your ego. And that creates a culture that no leadership framework, no team offsite, no values statement can manufacture on its own.

You might lead a team, a family, a church, or a company. But the ripple effect of one leader fully surrendered to Christ goes far beyond org charts. It shifts the culture of a room. It changes what people believe is possible. It redeems relationships that everyone else had written off.

The Work You Cannot Do — and the One Who Can

Some of you are reading this and thinking about someone on your team you’ve given up on. A relationship at home that feels beyond repair. A version of yourself you’ve stopped believing could change.

God is not asking you to try harder. He never was. That’s not the Gospel — that’s just more self-reliance dressed in spiritual language.

God says: “I know you cannot do this. So let Me.”

The question is whether you actually believe that Christ lives in you. Not as a theological statement you affirm — but as a living reality you lead from. Because if you do, then the love, the patience, the wisdom, the redemption — none of it is yours to produce. It’s His to give, through you.

Don’t trust your past experiences with people or with yourself. Put your faith in the living Word of God. Trust the living Christ in you to do the work of redemption in every room you walk into.

The Leaders We Need

It only takes one. One leader in a team, a family, a community who fully obeys Christ — not perfectly, but genuinely — to change the entire dynamic.

My prayer is that you won’t carry this alone. That you’ll find others in leadership who also confess Christ as King — not just in their personal devotion, but in how they make decisions, build teams, and wield influence. Leaders who sharpen each other, hold each other accountable, and keep pointing each other back to the one who is actually in charge.



Christ is with you, and He is your King. Obey and trust Him. He will redeem.