The Head of This Giant

"We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the crafty presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love." Ephesians 4:14-16

​Now there's a perfect picture of what we’re aiming for! You and I are not meant to be helpless children anymore; we’re meant to mature and grow up…into Jesus. Into Jesus! And this isn’t some generic “grow up” Paul is talking about. No, the Greek word he uses means to “bring up to manhood” (sorry, ladies!) with all the power and weight involved in that wording. And how will we grow up into the fullness of that phrase?

“For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love.” Can you see that picture in your mind’s eye? It’s like in so many children’s movies where the characters get a set of grown-up clothes and then, by stacking themselves, working all together, defeat the bad guys by looking like a terrifying giant. But, in the arrangement of the Body of Christ, Jesus is the head of our big unwieldy, put-together, tottering giant! And how’s He working to make it a “harmonious structure”? By teaching us, as Paul writes in the beginning of Ephesians 4, to “make it your aim to be at one in the Spirit, and you will inevitably be at peace with one another”!

Amen and Amen.