Tag: head

  • Letter #60 (The Body’s Head–3)

    Dear Small Church Congregation,

         You begin to feel rough and sluggish.  You decide to go see your doctor and discover that you have gained too much weight and are taxing your circulatory system to the point that it has affected your overall physical abilities.  Your doctor suggests a change in diet, more exercise and regular checkups to keep a watch on your progress toward better health.  You now have to decide if you are going to follow his suggestions or continue doing what you have been doing that has created this poor health.

         Now your brain takes over, and you have to choose to ignore the warning signs of a possible heart attack, or even a stroke, or are you going to do what the doctor suggests.  The situation now becomes a matter of your will, your ability to choose.  You know the consequences of each choice.  Why in the world would you choose poor health over improvement when your brain is trying to get you to make a good choice?  Why would you ignore your doctor?

         Suppose that, instead of poor physical health, that rough, sluggish feeling, we are talking about your spiritual health.  Maybe you don’t feel like you’re as close to God as you once were.  Maybe you know you have slacked off on reading your Bible and you seldom pray.  Perhaps you have not attended a worship service or Bible study in a week or two, or a month or two.

         And then it happens—the Holy Spirit nudges your spirit and reveals to you that you need to do some correcting in your spiritual disciplines so you can gain spiritual health again.  A friend tells you he has missed seeing you in the congregation, and you respond with, “I’ve been really busy lately,” knowing that is not really why you missed worship services.  The pastor sends a text or calls to check up on you, and you begin to feel like “they’re harassing me.”

         It’s at this point that your spiritual brain (the will of God being presented to you through Jesus) lets you know what you’re going to have to do in order to regain your spiritual health.  I have to ask the same questions I did about your physical health—Why in the world would you choose poor spiritual health over improvement when your spiritual brain is trying to get you to make a good choice?  Why would you ignore the will of God for your life?

         In the physical realm, we ignore our doctors because we simply do not want to do what it will take to improve our health.  We like potatoes with plenty of butter and sour cream.  We enjoy the chocolate-glazed donuts.  We see no reason to have to do without the foods we have always relished.

         And exercise?  Why would I exercise when I know I already walk plenty at work?  I’m active.  I’m no sluggard.  I’m not a morning person, and I can’t see myself getting up an hour early to go to a gym.  And in the evening, can’t a guy (or gal) simply rest in the lounge chair after a good supper?

         In the spiritual realm, we ignore that spiritual nudging because we simply do not want to do what it will take to improve our relationship with Jesus.  We’ve always enjoyed our favorite singers, regardless of the song lyrics.  I relax while I’m watching  those sit-coms that present all of life as one long laugh, regardless of their themes.  I see no reason to change what I’ve always done when it comes to entertainment.

        Spiritual disciplines?  Why would I attend every worship service possible when I can tune in on the net without having to get out of my pajamas.  Bible study?  I get bored reading the Old Testament.  Prayer meetings?  I can pray at home. (But will I?) 

         If we make a poor choice when it comes to our physical health, the result can be devastating.  If we make a poor choice when it comes to our spiritual health, the result can be just as devastating, only this devastation can last for all eternity.  If we refuse to listen to our spiritual brain, if we reject God’s will for our lives, if we choose to reject a close relationship with Jesus, we have chosen spiritual death over life. 

         It has often been said that people do what they want to do.  When it comes to your spiritual life, what do you want to do?  Do you want to listen to your spiritual brain and act on the will of God that the Jesus reveals to you?

    Sincerely,

    A Small Church Pastor

  • Letter #59 (The Body’s Head–2)

    Dear Small Church Congregation,

         In the last letter, I challenged you to take a serious look at your relationship with Jesus to see if there is anything that separates you from following the will of God for your life.  If there is, name it.  This is the first step in overcoming whatever obstacle could interfere with your fulfilling God’s will.

         That obstacle could be anything form self-righteousness to basic selfishness to outright disobedience to scripture and the teachings of Christ.  How might you now overcome this obstacle?  Now that you know what it is, the only way to overcome it is to choose to set that obstacle aside by dying to your self-will, repenting of falling to the temptation to disobey God and seeking His forgiveness.

         Let me be absolutely clear about this—Jesus has taken care of the obstacle already on the cross when He shed His blood so you could be forgiven.  Any obstacle, temptation, trial, or disobedient choice you have made has already been defeated through the shed blood of Jesus.  When Jesus died, was buried and rose from the grave, He conquered every work of the devil.  In fact, Jesus destroyed the works of the devil so you can have victory over the enemy of your soul.  Jesus has already won the victory over sin and all its evil consequences that separate members of His Body from Him.

         Obstacles to our relationships with God, our neighbors and even ourselves have been dealt with by Christ.  The Head of the Body has already done what was necessary for you to get back into right standing inside the Body of Christ.  By doing that, Jesus has given you the pathway to fulfilling God’s will.

         When you admit an obstacle exists, name it, repent of it and seek forgiveness, and choose to live according to God’s instructions on how to live in holiness before Him, you have won.  Allow me to repeat myself—And you have won because Jesus did what was necessary for you to win through faith in His name.  Jesus, the Head of the Body that you belong to because you belong to God now, won the spiritual battle first a very long time ago so you can win your battle today.  (If you feel like shouting a praise to Jesus, now would be a good time to do that.)

         Understand that you will need to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit as you daily live for Christ.  Understand that you will continually need to examine your life, defeat any obstacle that tries to interfere with your relationship with Christ and choose Jesus over the obstacles.  In other words, your walk with Jesus is an ongoing journey in which you intentionally choose to examine yourself to be sure you are fulfilling the call on your life that God has placed in you as part of the Body of Christ.  As you do that, you will win victories over the enemy of your soul, and you will complete your function in the Body.  And you will stay connected to the Body’s Head.

    Sincerely,

    A Small Church Pastor

  • Letter #58 (The Body’s Head)

    Dear Small Church Congregation,

         Our brain directs the functioning of our physical body.  Without a properly operating brain, the body will cease to function as it should.  Our five physical senses are centered in our head and send signals to the brain so we can experience the world around us.  Hence our head can be considered the source of all the other functions our body performs.  It is the source of directions that are sent to the rest of the body.  Without the head, which contains the brain, the body ceases to function.

         The spiritual body of Christ has a head, too, that contains a “spiritual brain.”  That head is Jesus Christ.  That spiritual brain, if you will, is the will of God, the direction toward which God desires Christ’s Body to go.  If the Body of Christ is separated from Jesus and His direction (God’s will), it ceases to function, just as the physical body ceases to operate if the head is severed from it.

         If Jesus is building His church (the Body), one might ask how is it possible for the Body of Christ (the church) to be separated from its head?  Allow me to give an illustration of how I have seen this occur in the spiritual realm as demonstrated in the physical realm.

         If an individual ingests a sufficient amount of alcoholic beverages, the function of the body is altered because the brain housed in the head reacts to the chemical elements found in the alcoholic beverage.  Alcohol is naturally found in the body, but only in very minute amounts in the digestive system.  Ingested alcohol becomes a contaminant to the body and alters its operation.     

         Should that happen, the senses are dulled, the hand-eye motor coordination slows, speech can be slurred, memory becomes “fuzzy,” and inhibitions about proper behavior can stop controlling emotional and rational responses to surrounding circumstances.  The alcohol affects the brain and the senses housed in the head, whether mental, emotional, or physical, resulting in a breakdown of the operation of the body.

         The same kind of thing happens spiritually when the body ingests spiritual contaminants.  Jesus, as the head of the Church, delivers His desires for how His body is to operate through scripture, prayer, anointed messages from his servants, and any other method He chooses to communicate with His Body.  When Satan is able to disrupt the flow of Christ’s communication with His Church, when he is able to interject spiritually unhealthy contaminants into that flow, the head ceases to have its intended effect on the functioning of the Body of Christ. 

         Doubt, fear, stress, persecution, personal preferences, men’s traditions, unbiblical denominational demands, carnal lusts, pride, anger, jealousy, gluttony, greed, cruelty—and any number of other physical, emotional, mental or spiritual obstacles—all act as contaminants that cause Jesus’s Church to reach a point of malfunction.  The devil will use anything he can to keep Christ’s will from being performed within His Body.

         In order for the physical body to stop the detrimental effects of alcohol, the consumption of the alcohol has to be stopped.  Sometimes that comes through a choice made by the consumer.  At other times, incarceration caused by improper behavior occurs, and the access to alcohol is stopped for some period of time.  The bottom line is the body must stop having the alcohol introduced so the bad effects can cease.

         In order for the spiritual Body of Christ to stop the detrimental effects of spiritual contaminants, those contaminants must be dealt with, too.  In order to deal with something the devil is using to hinder the Body, whether it involves the overall Church or one specific congregation, the people involved must be willing to admit that the hindrance exists.  They must be willing to examine their lives, their spiritual status in the Body, their functioning, and then choose to take the steps necessary in order to overcome the obstacles that are interfering with how the body is operating.

         The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar often said that the first step in overcoming a problem is to admit a problem exists and then identify the problem.  When the members of a congregation, or individual disciples of Christ, for that matter, are willing to admit there is a problem that is causing them to stray from the will of Christ, then the problem must be identified.  It must be named.  Only after being named can the obstacle be overcome.  Only after overcoming the obstacle can the Head of the Body, Jesus, regain proper spiritual nerve signals to His Body.

         We’ll look at how to overcome the obstacles, the contaminants that obstruct God’s will, in the next letter.  Before that letter, allow me to encourage you to take a long, serious look at whether or not your life is reflecting the will of God for your life.  Ask yourself if there is anything that could interfere with how you function as one of Jesus’s disciples.  Ask the Holy Spirit to point out to you anything that the devil is using to interrupt the flow of Christ’s will into your life.  If there is something revealed to you, name it.  Identify it.  Then ask God to help you reconnect to the Head of the Body.

    Sincerely,

    A Small Church Pastor