God as our head

Now look, God Himself is with us as our head, and His priests with sounding trumpets to sound the alarm against you. O children of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you shall not prosper!" – 2 Chronicles 13v12

Abijah was now king of Judah while Jeroboam remained king of Israel. Another in a series of civil wars broke our between the two nations. Abijah tried to reform Judah and turn them back to God. He gave a speech that both nations could here. In it he blamed Jeroboam for the rebellion and claimed that Judah was going to depend on the Lord now. It was time for the nation to turn back to God.

At part of this very inspiring speech he said something interesting – ‘God Himself is with us as our head.’ I like this picture of headship. Headship, of course, implies control. The head leads and controls the rest of the body. The head tells the rest of the body what to do. Abijah’s claim was that since the Lord was their head, they could not fail. He warned the enemy – ‘Do not fight against the Lord, for you will not prosper.’

Isn’t it interesting that Christ uses the same analogy for His relationship to His church? He is the head, we are the body. He leads, guides, controls, and directs and we do His bidding. When a problem causes a part of the body to act seemingly independently there is a problem with the connection to the head. The same is true for the church. When we go off on our own and act contrary to the control of the Head there is something wrong with our connection.

Judah acted in response to the head’s control. Jesus’ body is called to do the same. Do we follow our head, or do we run off in some kind of unnatural self determination?