“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” — Galatians 6:14
The sole purpose of our soul is to worship an almighty and holy God. In the end, all that we say and do is for that one purpose. And if everything we do does not somehow point to a holy God, a perfect Savior, and a real Holy Spirit, then we have missed the point.
That’s not a complicated statement. But it might be the most important one a leader can sit with.
Because in the middle of all the meetings, all the strategies, all the vision casting, all the team building, all the late nights and early mornings, all the wins and all the losses, there is one question that rises above everything else: did it point to Him?
Not did it grow. Not did it succeed. Not did it make an impact by the metrics we’ve been trained to measure. Did it point to a holy God?
In the end, that’s all that matters.
Paul’s Singular Obsession
Read some of the things that Paul said to the churches in Galatia. In Galatians 6:14, he writes that the only thing worth boasting in is the cross of Jesus Christ. Not his resume. Not his church plants. Not the size of his network or the reach of his influence. The cross. Period.
His sole desire was to look, act, even have the very fragrance of the Spirit of Christ. That’s a striking image. Paul didn’t just want to talk about Jesus. He wanted to smell like Him. He wanted people to encounter him and catch the scent of someone who had been with Christ. Second Corinthians 2:14–16 describes this beautifully — God uses us to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere we go.
Think about what that means for a leader. You walk into a room and something about your presence carries the aroma of Christ. Not because you quoted a verse or wore a cross on your lapel. But because you’ve been so close to Him, so saturated with His presence, that it lingers on you. That’s the kind of influence no leadership training can produce. It only comes from proximity.
I’ve been around leaders who had that fragrance. You couldn’t always name what was different about them. But you felt it. There was a peace that didn’t match their circumstances. A kindness that didn’t seem calculated. A steadiness that couldn’t be explained by personality alone. They smelled like Jesus. And it changed the atmosphere of everything they touched.
I’ve also been around leaders who had impressive skills but no fragrance. They could move rooms. They could build things. They could produce results. But there was nothing on them that pointed beyond themselves. In the end, all the results in the world don’t matter if the aroma is missing.
The Ambassador’s Assignment
Our responsibility is clearly described in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
We are to be wise and accepting of our roles as ambassadors of Christ. It was our own encounter with the cross of Jesus that makes us accept with joy and honor the role of ambassador, pleading with those not walking in a right relationship with Jesus to be reconciled to Him.
That word ambassador matters enormously for leaders. An ambassador doesn’t represent themselves. An ambassador represents the one who sent them. Their authority isn’t their own. Their message isn’t their own. Their purpose isn’t self-promotion. It’s faithful representation. Every word, every decision, every interaction is supposed to reflect the character and intentions of the one they serve.
This is the heart of what it means to be a reliable messenger. You’ve been sent by someone. You carry a message that isn’t yours. And your job is to deliver it so faithfully that people encounter the Sender, not just the messenger. When a leader truly embraces this identity, it changes everything about how they carry themselves. The pressure to perform for personal acclaim falls away. The need to build your own name loses its grip. The anxiety about your legacy dissolves. Because the legacy was never supposed to be yours. It was always supposed to be His.
In the end, the only question that matters about your leadership is whether people encountered Christ through you. Not whether they were impressed by you. Not whether they remembered your name. Whether the ambassador faithfully represented the King.
The Daily Exchange
Jesus laid it out plainly in Luke 9:23–25: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?”
Simple enough. We either give up all we have (which really, is it anything other than scraps and crumbs?) for all He is and has. We cannot follow Him and, at the same time, follow the desires of our flesh and the ways of this world.
For leaders, this daily exchange is where everything is decided. Every morning you wake up and make a choice. Will I lead for myself today, or for Him? Will I chase what feeds my ego, or what advances His kingdom? Will I hold onto the scraps of my own ambition, or will I open my hands and let Him fill them with something infinitely better?
The exchange isn’t a one-time event. It’s a daily surrender. Take up your cross daily. Not once. Not at the altar call that changed your life. Daily. That means today. Right now. In the middle of whatever leadership challenge you’re facing, whatever opportunity is in front of you, whatever pressure is bearing down on you. The cross is still the offer. Your scraps for His everything.
And the leaders who make that exchange daily are the ones whose lives produce a fragrance that lasts long after they leave the room.
Is It Worth It?
Is it worth it? Is it worth giving up your whole life for a life of following Jesus?
Every leader has to answer that question personally. Not with the answer they’d give from a stage. The answer they give when it’s just them and God and the honest reality of what following Jesus actually costs.
It costs your comfort. It costs your control. It costs the version of your life that you would have built if you were in charge. It costs the applause of people who want a different kind of leader. It costs the shortcuts that would have made things easier. It costs the reputation you could have built for yourself.
But what do you gain?
You gain a life that actually means something when the final account is taken. You gain the peace that comes from knowing you didn’t waste what you were given. You gain the joy of watching God do through your surrender what you never could have done through your striving. You gain the deep satisfaction of having been a faithful ambassador, not a perfect one, but a faithful one.
He has more than proven His faithfulness and love without fail. Through every season, every trial, every fire, every belly of every whale. He has been faithful. And the leader who has experienced that faithfulness firsthand knows the answer to the question without hesitation.
Yes. It is worth it. All of it.
What It All Comes Down To
We’ve covered a lot of ground in these posts. We’ve talked about presence and freedom and running and ashes. We’ve talked about stability and love and being all in. We’ve talked about listening and behavior strips and campfires and burdens. We’ve talked about water and chair lifts and church identity and peanut butter and jelly. We’ve talked about being conspicuous and which came first and seeing God clearly. We’ve talked about curtain calls and what matters and cause and effect. We’ve talked about reeling and ropes and delight and seasons.
And all of it, every single post, every metaphor, every Scripture, every next step, points to this one truth: the sole purpose of your soul is to worship an almighty and holy God. Everything else is commentary.
In the end, your leadership will not be measured by what you built. It will be measured by who you pointed people to. It will not be remembered for your strategies. It will be remembered for your faithfulness. The buildings will eventually come down. The programs will eventually change. The titles will eventually be given to someone else. But the lives that were changed because you carried the fragrance of Christ? Those last forever.
Next Steps for the Leader Who Wants to Get This Right In The End
Ask the one question that matters. Look at your leadership over the past year and ask honestly: did it point to Him? Not did it grow. Not did it succeed. Did it point to a holy God, a perfect Savior, and a real Holy Spirit? If the answer is yes, thank God and keep going. If the answer is uncertain, let that uncertainty drive you back to the cross today.
Pursue the fragrance, not the platform. What would it look like to lead this week with the primary goal of smelling like Jesus? Not building your brand. Not advancing your agenda. Just being so close to Him that His presence lingers on you when you walk into a room. That kind of leadership doesn’t come from strategy. It comes from proximity.
Embrace your identity as ambassador. You were not sent to represent yourself. You were sent to represent Christ. Let that identity reshape how you approach every meeting, every conversation, every decision this week. The ambassador’s only job is faithful representation. If people walk away from you talking about how great you are, you’ve misrepresented the King. If they walk away talking about how great He is, you’ve done your job.
Make the daily exchange. Tomorrow morning, before you check your phone, before you look at your calendar, before you step into the demands of leadership, make the exchange. Your scraps for His everything. Your agenda for His purposes. Your life for His glory. Do it again the next day. And the next. This is what taking up your cross daily looks like in real life.
Ask God to make this so real that it overflows. Ask Him to help you desire and maintain your dedicated passion for Jesus. Ask Him to make it so real that it would cause you to want others to know Jesus, salvation, the cross, and real life.
In the end, this is all that matters.
Not what you built. Not what you achieved. Not what people said about you. But whether your life, your leadership, and your very soul pointed to the only One worth pointing to.
In the end, did they see Him?
That’s the only question. And it’s the only one worth giving your life to answer.