HEADS I WIN - TAILS YOU LOSE!

A promise of God for His people is "that He will make them the head and not the tail." That teaching has recently been used to teach financial prosperity and spiritual authority.

It created faith in many that they could be in favor with both God and man, that everything they set their hand to would be blessed. They would no longer be borrowers, but lenders.

Can you imagine anyone saying, "I want to be the tail. I want to be from beneath and not from above. I want to be sickly, oppressed, in debt and fearful all the time. I want others to rule over me. I would like to beg for everything I get and someday I hope to be a dismal failure. I would also like to be lazy, unmotivated, and apathetic as well as pathetic."

I’m not going to dampen your enthusiasm for getting ahead. I’m not going to squelch your ambitions or throw ‘doubt-darts’ into your faith.

But - I want to show you the other side of the coin.

First of all - who is the true, absolute and undeniable head of all things? That’s right - Jesus Christ the Righteous! He is seated at the right hand of the Almighty. All power in heaven and earth has been given to Him. We are to be conformed to His image. We are to desire to be like Him.

But - the Shepherd was first a ‘lamb’. A lamb being led to slaughter. He laid down His life for the sheep.

The head of the body had to die for that body. He had to suffer for those who were the tail. While we were yet sinners, He died for the ungodly - for those who were unlike Him. Then He dared to say to you and me - "Come - take up your own cross and follow me. Be the head like I was the head. Be a leader like I was a leader. If the Captain of your salvation had to suffer - do you think you will be let off the hook?"

Do you think the carpenter says to his son, "Son, I became a Master carpenter and excelled in all of my work, so that you could feel free to be as sloppy and careless as you want to be in your work. You will always be able to point to the beautiful houses I built and say, ‘My dad did that.’

And you know what son, I did that so you could spend your life building lean-to shacks down by the river."

That doesn’t make sense, does it? Jesus didn’t excel so we could be slip-shod. So, you want to be ‘THE HEAD’ - LIKE CHRIST? Prepare to leave your throne in glory to hobnob with sinners - come down off your pedestal to help the homeless and those who have failed to ‘make something of themselves - by themselves’. Be the originator of grace for the bum, the derelict, the prisoner, the drug addict, the alcoholic and the poor welfare families who have become the tail and not the head.

Realize that with the honor of becoming the head, there is a responsibility which goes with that position. Don’t you realize that it is the head that has to tie shoes and watch out for mud holes so the shoes won’t get dirty. It’s the head that has to put warm clothes on the body in the winter and try to keep the body cool in the summer.

It’s the head that has to make sure the body doesn’t get food poisoning or too many calories and cholesterol. The head has to make sure the ‘underarms’ get washed and treated with deodorant.

When I was a kid, my head talked me into getting into big time trouble. My dad never did ‘slap me up-side-the-head’ . Oh no! You know what he did, don’t you? He took a razor strap and let my tail have it - and have it and have it - until my head cried out for mercy. You see, he was a lot smarter than some religious people I know. He punished the tail to teach the head a lesson. But, you say, "How is that possible?" It’s simple my dear Watson…the Head is touched by the feelings of our infirmities. Nerves and pain receptors have a way of making sure the head can never disassociate itself from that which it never wants to be - the tail.

If the tail can hurt and you don’t feel a thing, then you are probably deceived. God probably hasn’t made you ‘The Head’ at all. You may just think you are! You may have exalted yourself - an act which sets you up to be demoted and abased in the final judgment. The real promise of God for you reads like this: "He that exalts himself shall be abased." And for someone else, God has made another promise, saying, "He that humbles himself shall be exalted."

So if you are delirious with fever and having hallucinations of being someone great and exalted in the kingdom of God - beware - you may start to get dizzy with all those swirling feelings of grandeur and greatness. Dizzy people often lose their equilibrium and fall down. They are inebriated from the dregs of their own ego. They get drunk on their own self-righteousness. They forgot the warning of God which says, "Be sober and vigilant for your adversary, the devil, goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour."

But, a drunk man hasn’t got sense enough to be afraid or cautious. He says, "Let me at that lion. I’ll tear him apart. Ain’t no lion gonna mess with me. No sirree! I’m a child of the king. I’m the head and not the tail. Me? I’ve got my whip out and I’ll train that lion to do whatever I want him to do. He doesn’t know who he’s messing with. I’m the Head. I’m the one in charge. I’m the engineer of this here train. Ain’t nobody telling me what to do. I don’t gots to be watching out for no devil. He’s got to be watching out for me!"

There is an arrogance in some which is unwarranted and unjustified. It is the boisterous babbling of fools, just before they step into the quicksand.

I’m not trying to tear down a rightful confidence in God and His promises. Don’t abandon the assurances you get from God’s word – that fearless faith in the face of adversity.

I’m cutting past all the good tissue in this operation and aiming for the ‘wild growth of cells’ which we call ‘cancer’. It’s a destructive mentality which has it’s origin in pride and it’s destination in hell. It’s a raging zeal for pre-eminence without responsibility and accountability.

I am my brother’s keeper. Jesus said, "He who breaks commandments and teaches others to do so - is ‘least’ in the Kingdom of God." What I do to the ‘least of these’, I am doing unto Christ - the Head of the church. My attitude toward the ‘tail’ is my attitude toward Christ. My attitude toward weak Christians and worldly sinners is my attitude toward God.

When Jesus shone His great light around Saul of Tarsus, He exclaimed, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" And today, the light of God is shining now into the very midst of many darkened hearts and the Spirit of God is saying, "Why are you resenting Me, hating Me, bad-mouthing Me and putting Me down?"

And our innocent little face turns toward Him and our surprised answer is: "Lord, when did I ever put You down and criticize You, treat You like the tail end of a bad dream?" And He will answer, "When you did it to the stinkiest part of My body. When you did it to the lowliest member of society." Then, there’s the chance that He will give you the same message He gave Paul the Apostle, saying, "I will show you what great things you must suffer for My sake!" Now, which part of "My" don’t you understand. Was He talking about the head of "My" or the tail of "My"?

When you spend a quarter, do you spend the head or the tail? When you spend a dollar, do you spend the front side or the back side? Why doesn’t our government leave the back side of a hundred dollar bill blank? It can’t be that important. It doesn’t have the head of a president on it. Don’t you understand it, yet? The front and the back, the top and the bottom, the head and the tail are all a part of the same unit and cannot be separated that easily.

We know the ungodly are like the chaff which the wind is going to blow away. God even tells us that. But, we act like the devil invented chaff. Who made chaff in the beginning anyway? Was it your invention? Did Hitler or Stalin come up with the idea of chaff? Don’t you know that God created chaff for a purpose. It is a protective covering for the wheat until the day of separation and judgment. If you try to separate wheat and chaff before the wheat is ripe and ready for harvest you will have ruined everything. God Himself says, "Let the wheat and the tares grow up together, lest you damage that which is good in trying to root out that which is bad." He goes on to say, "The angels are the ones who make the separations. They are the ones who will bind the tares into bundles and see to it that they are destroyed. It is the angels who will gather the wheat together and put it in a safe place, a place where it can be kept for a future use."

So, why are you trying to do the work of angels in your own way and in your own time. Who are you to judge people whom you did not create? Why don’t you leave that up to the Creator? He might be better suited for that job than you. Why do you judge the people for whom Christ died, just because the day of their salvation or perfection has not yet arrived.

The Word says: "Don’t judge anything before the time." Don’t get hasty and premature in your judgments.

You might be digging a pit for a Joseph or making fun of a young David. You might not recognize Saul as God’s anointed, just because Jesus hasn’t changed his name to Paul yet.

Yes, Jonathan was a king’s kid, but he laid down his right to that position of ‘headship’ over the nation - in favor of the one that God wanted to put in that position. Jonathan is the one who helped David escape from the hand of a murderous spirit. He did not aspire to ‘be the head’. He merely wanted to do the will of God.

The will of God for you may be to let someone else be the leader in the church. Let someone else control the finances. Let someone else have the authority, whether they are doing it exactly right or not. Who are you to judge a Moses just because things aren’t going right in the church and it looks like the one in charge is messing up. Let God take care of His own servants. If the man is acting like the devil, then let the devil take care of his own servants. But, if you judge God’s servants or the devil’s servants - you are in trouble either way. Maybe you ought to back off and simply set about to find the right paths for your own feet. That sounds like good advice to me.

If you are going to stay in the church, then become a force for good where you are.

Have a lamb’s

Develop an intercessor’s soul and cry out to God about things that are not right in the church. Let the Head of the church feel your pain. Let Him deal with the matter in His own way. He’s smarter than you - and a little more loving too!

Learn a little patience and forbearance from Him. Ask Him to show you how to be meek and lowly. I’m sure He would be glad to disciple you and help you to become conformed to His image.

Be willing to be the tail for now. Be willing to be a nothing and a nobody.

Walk in the wisdom that remembers that someday ‘THE LAW OF REVERSAL’ will go into effect. The first will become the last. The least will become the greatest. Those who are servants will be given the mastery over all things. And those who have languished as the tail for a long time, will trade places with those who have acted like ‘big heads’ while they could.

Position yourself now, so that when the Law of Reversal takes effect you will be where you want to be – forever.

You know - it would really be wise for you to think about that for a while. It would probably be good if I thought about that a little bit, too.