Head On: Apply Directly to the Forehead – I’m All Out

As a pastor, people regularly contact me to see if I inventory “Head On.”  They want something they can apply directly to their “forehead.”

Hurting people don’t always want the “Head On” for their forehead.  Sometimes, they want a salve for their aching marriage,

or a problem in their church,

or, for their children.

Wherever or whatever the spiritual ache, people want a product that has simple directions and is fast acting.  If I can produce a stick of it, they’ll smile while they rub it around and get relief.

To be fair, not everyone who asks for “Head On” insist on immediate results.  Some are willing to wait 15 or 20 minutes.  Maybe even a couple of days.  Not a lot longer.

Before this sounds like I’m being flippant about people’s “head aches”, let me assure you I am not.  To be honest, I have some aches myself.  The sin which I grow most weary of is my own.  It seems like everywhere I go, there I am.

But, I don’t inventory spiritual Head On.  If I did, I’d go through a case or two myself before selling it on the open market.

The reason that there is pain in the world is because there is sin – – our own and other people’s.  Having first been regenerated by the Spirit and trusted Christ for salvation, the solution both for dealing with our own sin and the sin of others is to be increasingly conformed to the image of Christ.  We call the process of being conformed to the image of Christ, sanctification.

God doesn’t dispense sanctification in a tooth paste tube; it is not instant.  While God does occasionally intervene and cure a spiritual ache or pain in our lives immediately, most of the time God intends that we will work out our salvation with fear and trembling over time, even as He graciously and powerfully works in us (Phil 2:12-13).  Sanctification is a process that takes place over time as we are actively involved in our local church, sit under the preached Word, pray with other believers, worship the Triune God, and share life together.

(Incidentally, if you’re not working out your salvation now, it’s only a matter of time before you wake up with a splitting head ache). 

When people come in to talk with me about one head ache or another, I encourage them for the need to be increasingly conformed to the image of Christ by being in the Word, sharing life with other believers, through worship, and prayer – – that is by working out their salvation.  And, often, when I give this encouragement, people “go away sad” because they were looking for a stick of “Head On” which would treat the pain locally and instantly.

But, God’s plan is so much more glorious: that the Holy Spirit works powerfully in our lives so that as we cooperate with his grace, we are changed so that we say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and live increasingly godly lives in this present age, all while we wait for his glorious appearing (Titus 2:11-14).  When we do work out our salvation with fear and trembling, we discover the glory and wonder of God’s gracious work in the life of the believer.

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I am not the only one who doesn’t inventory “spiritual Head On.”  Read these quotes of theologians who remind us that God sanctifies us over time.

John Calvin:

"And, indeed, this restoration does not take place in one moment or one day or one year; but through continual and sometimes even slow advances God wipes out in his elect the corruptions of the flesh, cleanses them of guilt, consecrates them to himself as temples renewing all their minds to true purity that they may practice repentance through their lives and know that this warfare will end only at death (Calvin, Institutes., 3.3.9, page 601)."

Wayne Grudem:

The New Testament does not suggest any short-cuts by which we can grow in sanctification, but simply encourages us repeatedly to give ourselves to the old-fashioned, time-honored means for Bible reading and meditation (Ps. 1:3; Matt. 4:4, 17:17), prayer (Eph. 6:18; Phil. 4:6), worship (Eph. 5:18-20), witnessing (Matt 28:19-20), Christian fellowship (Heb. 10:24-25), and self-discipline or self-control (Gal. 5:23; Titus 1:8).  (Grudem, 755).

Lewis and Demarest:

Too often the foundations of moral courage and spiritual faithfulness are sidestepped in favor of pragmatic shortcuts or popular fads.  Christians need to ground individual understanding of their experiences in a fully developed theology, including the purposes of God in the Atonement, the lordship of Christ, and the ministries of the Spirit.  Created for holy living, we are unfulfilled by anything less than growth in a viable ethic and spirituality.  God’s active image-bearers sooner or later find life unfulfilling if they live for material acquisition, titillation of the senses, intellectual achievement, or political power.   We may become slaves to these ends rather than to the fundamental values of God’s kingdom.  The process of sanctification in God’s redemptive kingdom involves maturation in the disciplined exercise of all the convert’s Spirit-renewed abilities (Lewis and Demarest, 225)."