A House for His Governmental Authority
Written by Ben Dismukes
In the Book of Matthew, Jesus tells us, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head,” (8:20). When I was a teenager, I heard a Bible Study on this verse, and the teacher pointed to an idea that Jesus was homeless as a sign of the cost of discipleship. I’m okay with that interpretation to a certain extent, but there’s a much more profound message in this passage.
Jesus isn’t lamenting physical homelessness. It’s not even clear from scriptures whether or not he owned a home. But Jesus isn’t speaking here about the natural circumstances surrounding the man, Jesus of Nazareth. He’s speaking of the eternal longing of the Son of God to have a permanent resting place. And that’s not just any resting place, but a dwelling place for his headship.
The head represents governmental authority. Think of a physical body. Which of the members of your anatomy governs the rest? It’s certainly not the little toe or the kidney or an ear hair! None of the lesser members could operate without the master computer at the core of the body’s extraordinary central nervous system. The mind of man decides to act, and his brain sends electrical signals to each of the relevant parts of his body, signaling them to move in a coordinated and sustained way to accomplish what he envisioned. In a functional body, each of the parts are subject to the governmental headship of the man. None of his parts operates, in any way or at any time, outside the government of the head, unless he is in a serious state of disorder.
The church is depicted scripturally as the body of Christ, and God is being quite specific with this imagery. Christ is the head. We are merely lesser parts. But this is clearly not the vantage point of the present-day church. Oh sure, we may give lip service to Jesus by calling Him “lord,” but a close examination of our own lives will tell us all we need to know. We are a far cry from the body that operates entirely within the boundaries of His governmental authority – a government that requires total submission to His will, a refusal to act outside of His counsel and complete and whole-hearted obedience to His every command, without the slightest objection.
“Well, that’s not realistic, Ben! You’ve taken this too far! After all, we’re sinful creatures,” you may think. “Total obedience isn’t even possible!”
And while it’s true that we’re sinful and prone to wandering, the imagery was still chosen by the Lord. His longing is to have a body that expresses the will of the Head, in every way, completely forsaking the nature of fallenness. Though we have a propensity towards rebellion, we have another life within us – the life of the obedient Son who overcame the world. He’s certainly capable of overcoming us… if we allow Him to. He’ll teach us to seek His face above all else, empower us to yield to His desires above our own, and cause His life to gush forth as a fragrance of submission and obedience to God, which is precisely what is depicted in the body analogy.
This is not our present understanding of Christianity. We have an “every man does what’s right in his own eyes, then asks the Lord to bless it” mentality. We presume to know the will of God outside of true fellowship with God. We twist the scriptures to fit our own desires and fail to recognize the ulterior motivations of a sick and unyielded heart within. And the Lord is none too pleased. We’ve made the House of God into a house for fallen Adam, where our so-called “good ideas” and “good intentions” are championed over the longing of the Godhead. We have built in the wrong strength, with the wrong material on the wrong foundation. Oh sure… we’re saying some of the right things, but like hypocrites, we fail to live out the gospel we claim to believe. This is precisely the sin of Israel, for which they were sent into Babylon. Pay attention folks! The storm is coming, just as the scriptures promised. Only that which is built on the Person and Governmental Headship of Christ will stand.
The Lord gave the ministry both to tear down and build up to the prophet Jeremiah, and in our day, the Lord will do both once again. He will judge the house built by the foolish on the wrong foundation, and He will arise within His chosen vessels to rebuild the House of God, which presently lies in ruins. The ministry of Zerubbabel is back on the scene, and as long as Zerubbabel remembers that it’s Christ who is the true builder, we will see the House of God established in our day, in a way that surpasses even what is testified of in the Book of Acts.
By that, I am not speaking of signs, wonders and miracles. Too many wrongly equate those things as the necessary ingredients for a true move of God. While I believe they are always present within a true move of the Spirit, they are not the primary focus. In the same way, those things are not proof of the true move of the Spirit. False signs and wonders were prophesied in the Bible to be prominent here at the end of the age. The true focus of the Lord in this hour is in gathering hearts under His governmental authority. That’s what caused the little handful of men who were in the upper room to turn the world upside down, and once again, the Lord intends to upend the natural state of things.
This is precisely why we have been called to plant in Clarksville. We have been commissioned to rebuild the House of God. We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only ones. We are part of a greater move of God to reclaim His house, and we will simply labor on our portion of that House as He leads. We’re not out to become famous or to build a large church or to garner any recognition by others. We are simply desiring that He should have a place in which to rest His head. We exist to see a people go all the way with the Lord. “How far is all the way,” you may ask? Until He has a body that is no longer in a state of disorder.
