“…grow up into Him who is The Head.” Ephesians 4:15
Something is head, when it is in charge. The spirit is the Head of the soul, as the soul is the head of the body. Jesus is The Head of all! When the head is in place, the rest of the body is in order.
The head of the body is the spirit. Individually, we are to be growing until the head is in charge–until the spirit is in its proper place! On a collective level, we are then to be growing until The Body of Christ is actually led by its Head who is Christ. His Headship means that the whole Body or the church will be led and directed by Christ Himself–not programs, not ideas about Christ, not good service, not homeless programs, not social activism–but Christ Himself who is Our Head.
Just as on an individual level we can do many “good” things, but not from being led by the spirit; on the collective level we can do many good services but not out of His leadership. God is not always asking us to heal or even encounter every person we pass. Our work is to be led from our spirits by His Spirit. Here is the importance of being able to discern our spirits from our souls. For to be led by His Spirit is often to not do what we perceive as good in the moment. Our good is often the worst enemy of His best. Jesus did only what he saw (with His spiritual eyes) His Father doing. Much of our service is soul led, not led by The Head on both an individual and collective level. This must change, and it will as Jesus Himself is established as The Head!
Many have been led by the “good”–even scriptural–ideas of serving others. But Jesus only healed when He saw the Father healing. It is good to do good, but it is best to be led to do the particular good God is having you do that day. The word divides spirit motivations from the souls; and allows us to discern the inner motivations of our hearts (Hebrew 4:13). It is essential for us to allow His living word to do just that–separate the percieved “good deeds” that the soul is leading us to do, from the things which His Spirit is leading us to do!
The church has often suffered from powerless deeds of kindness! It may be trying to do good, but if not led by His Spirit, these very actions bear witness to a powerless spiritual life. So that we participate in separating His Words from His Power. This bears false testimony about Jesus, and can only be overcome by letting Him be Head within us! Our task in this life is to be led by The Head who is Jesus, through His Spirit which dwells within us and lead us through our spirits. When we are led by His Spirit, we are becoming the sons and daughters of God! When we are led by the needs of others, by our bright ideas, or by our desires to do good, we falter repeatedly and misrepresent The Head!
But as we grow up into The Head who is Christ, we will find ourselves led to “do” the exact things He has for us each day. As the church learns to be led by His Spirit, we will immediately see the dynamism of God! God is dynamic and creative, so we will see a much more exciting and thorough work occuring through our lives as He is established as Head within us individually and collectively! As we lay down our own “good works”, and take up His, we will experience the dynamism of God and bear witness to the true life of His Son which He desires to live through us!
Jesus wants to live His Life through us. To do so, He must become Our Head!
