Eagles Soar

This series on the Biblical metaphor of the eagle resulted from my most retweeted series ever. This is the fifth post inspired by the success of that series. In the first, we discussed how eagles wait upon thermal winds that lift them high above other birds and carry them along. This is the picture portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 where we are told to “wait upon the Lord” and we will “mount up with wings like eagles”. The winds that would topple us, if we accept them and turn into them become the winds that allow us to lift off. In the second, we considered the patience of eagles as hunters as compared to the Biblical view of “patience”. An environment that is peaceful includes people with patience. Thirdly, we noted that eagles are conspicuously marked; Christians are exhorted to be conspicuous in order to draw others, ultimately to God, as His work is displayed in our lives — we are to be “light” to the world. Last time we explored the idea that eagles are also majestic, they are pleasing to our senses and also powerful. We are built to understand majesty because we will one day see all majesty.

What does it feel like to soar like an eagle? When God created us to see the majesty of a soaring eagle, did He intend for us to draw something more from it. Would you like to soar? Let’s explore the Biblical evidence that “soaring” is being filled with the Spirit. Separately, we’ll consider two different Greek words used for “filled”, unveiling hard evidence for the two meanings of  filled with the Spirit and how it leads to soaring.

Let’s start with what we do know.

Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you … (John 16: 5-7a)

We know what it feels like to be filled with grief, it is consuming. Sometimes we can’t get out of bed, it feels like weighty sadness. It’s tangible and well known, so much so that there are agreed upon stages of grief. Jesus’ responds to the disciples’ grief by pointing out that the Counselor will come to them, so their grief was recognized and acknowledged.

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” He said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today. (Luke 5:24-26)

Like being filled with grief, we know the experience of being filled with awe. I recently went on an Alaskan cruise where the sights of Glacier Bay filled me with awe. I was also filled with awe when I got off the ship and spotted a bald eagle on top of a light post.  This feeling is tangible, it can be recognized, it is known. I would expect being filled with the Spirit to tangible, recognizable and known, because the same word is used.

And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together, and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?” (Acts 2:2-8)

This was an historic moment marking the transition to the time of the Holy Spirit enabling Christians to reach out to every nation under heaven. How? They were filled with the Spirit and supernaturally enabled to speak in the various languages spoken by this large and diverse group. This was recognizable, in fact, the observers were amazed and astonished (as in filled with awe). The experience was unknown tangible (mighty wind) and the reactions were known.

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem; and Annas the high priest was there, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of high-priestly descent. When they had placed them in the center, they began to inquire, “By what power, or in what name, have you done this?”
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead–by this name this man stands here before you in good health.” (Acts 4:5-10)

This is a historic opportunity. Not only is Peter being directly threatened the religious elite, he also has an opportunity to share Christ with them. He is filled with the Holy Spirit to empower him to speak boldly (Acts 4:31) despite the size of the threat and the opportunity. This is the context but what about the results?

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Once again the results are obvious, they were amazing and they were observed. In fact, later they prayed filled with the Spirit and the ground “was shaken” (Acts 4:31). That would be hard to miss. Paul (Acts 13:9-10) later is “filled with the Holy Spirit” in order to discern an evil spirit of sorcery.

Do these kinds of experiences happen today? It is undeniable that they do not, I’ve heard no reports of tongues of fire descending into a room nor of a gathering that included every nation where the Spirit spoke through emissaries to an entire crowd and it was knowingly received by the entire audience as its own language. There’s an element of the occurences of Acts that is historic, it was a time of transition, of big change, and God made His plan unmistakeably clear.

We are clearly in the time period now between Jesus’ first and second coming, the time of the Gentiles. What does still happen today? My interest was piqued a few months ago when I shared my testimony at Fellowship Cross Creek in Branson, Missouri. Pastor Joe Cross, both a college and seminary buddy, invited me to share my prodigal returned testimony with his congregation. God ran to me a couple of years before that but I had only just returned to church a few months before.

Pastor Cross reasoned that his congregation was full of returned prodigals and had recently committed to total honesty in their spiritual journey together. The stage was set, no traditional church in their right mind would let someone speak with my background at that time — no church has done so since.

I drove to Branson on Friday and Joe and I, along with his wife Rhonda, sat around and discussed our spiritual journeys. Joe was the last Christian I spoke to before beginning my 27-year prodigal run, now he was marking my return as well. We talked at one stretch for 20 consecutive hours, rejoicing in God’s handiwork in each of our lives and rejoicing in each other.

I was already prepared to speak on Sunday, but late on Saturday Joe suggested that I use a rope or similar prop to demonstrate the stages of my prodigal journey — I would tie knots to mark each segment. We made the short drive to Fellowship Cross Creek to find a prop. When we located a rope, he picked it up and asked me to talk him through the stages as he demonstrated his idea for the use of the rope. I couldn’t remember any of them, I froze with nervousness. The time was now near enough that stage fright was hijacking my heart and mind.

I awoke early on Sunday, as was my custom when I spoke, and began to turn my thoughts to the task at hand. I had two friends send me encouraging words on Facebook and I started to let go. I lay back down, now communing with God and ignoring my speaking ritual of going over ideas over and over and over. I felt the anxiety drain out of me and peace settle in.

I arrived at the church building where Joe set about doing whatever pastors do on Sunday mornings, so I was alone in a group that had no idea who I was. No one approached me. I desperately wanted the time to be recorded so I could share it with my family and online friends but soon discovered that the equipment was not working, something that would normally have bothered me. Instead I got a sense that what I shared was for this crowd and this day only or least not for the extended crowd I imagined.

I sat in a front seat where I was again approached by no one. I sat alone, something that would normally make me uneasy. The music started; Christian music makes me teary. I had requested “Raise Me Up“, my favorite song at the time and Rhonda volunteered to sing. Joe had “warned” me that she sang like an angel and she did. As the beautiful notes sprang from her lips I beg to sob uncontrollably in gratitude that God had called me back. I lost it so bad that they had to get me an entire box of tissues. Joe had his face on the floor praying. The song ended and it was time to speak.

My eyes bloodshot, my spirit drained of everything but gratitude, we took the floor. Joe had agreed to interview me to take the pressure off, so we sat on stools and he asked me the first question. That’s the last thing I remember, I don’t even remember the question. Joe told me later that I stood and spoke for 50 minutes. I stood amazed at what had just happened; I was possessed by the Spirit, I was aware that I was speaking but was not aware of what I was saying. I have foggy memories of picking up the rope to demonstrate the stages of my prodigal run and return but very foggy. I heard sobbing from the congregation, from more than one location, but it sounded like it was far off in the distance, I felt like I was observing my body from the outside. At one point I turned to see Joe, still on the stool beside the one I vacated, also sobbing.

As with the examples above of being filled with the Spirit, both the speaker and the audience knew what was happening, knew that it was an unknown occurrence but that the effect was known. After the service, people waited to speak with me for about a half hour. The first couple desperately pleaded for advice on how to approach their prodigal son. A second man wanted to compare notes with me on his own lengthy prodigal journey. A third thanked me for “putting the mystery back in Christianity”. One week later, in church-wide email, Pastor Cross described the day as “spiritual open-heart surgery”.

Kenneth Wuest, in Word Studies in the New Testament (Volume III), describes the meaning of this word pimplemi as the Spirit “possessing the mind and heart of the believer” (p. 103). “Pleroo”, the other Greek word sometimes translated “filled” (Ephesians 5:18) is more properly translated “controlled” (p. 104) but the former implies that the whole being is possessed by the Spirit. Wuest goes on to point out that this is not an experience to seek, the verb is “passive” in every case in the original language — the Spirit moves when God wills, not when we will.

Like the earlier Biblical examples, I can say that this filling of the Spirit still occurs, I experienced it myself and it fits the description of the text both in tone and effect. I can only guess why the Spirit moved that day, it’s fun to try and I think it plays to God’s sense of humor. However, there’s no experience to seek in any of these examples, we are passive, we can only seek to abide in Him, to live and breathe Him. I’ve described my role in this but it’s best described in a phrase I would utter a couple of weeks later that became my most successful single tweet ever (measured by retweets):

He works in ways we don’t expect toward an end we don’t imagine using tools we did not forge.

Tweet This Post

Eagles are Majestic

This series on the Biblical metaphor of the eagle resulted from a scheduled tweet series that was my most retweeted ever. This is the fourth post inspired by the success of that series. In the first, we discussed how eagles must soar rather than flap their wings to fly. To do this, they wait upon thermal winds that lift them high above other birds and carry them along. This is the picture portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 where we are told to “wait upon the Lord” and we will “mount up with wings like eagles”. The winds that would topple us, if we accept them and turn into them become the winds that allow us to truly soar. In the second, we considered the patience of eagles as hunters as compared to the Biblical view of “patience”. An environment that is peaceful includes people with patience. Last time we noted that eagles are conspicuously marked; Christians are exhorted to be conspicuous in order to draw others, ultimately to God, as His work is displayed in our lives — we are to be “light” to the world.

Eagles are also majestic. “Majestic” is a word that communicates well, because we all know what it means; however, it is hard to define. Here’s a definition from Dictionary.com

Ma-jes-tic [muh-jes-tik]

– adjective characterized by or possessing majesty; of lofty dignity or imposing aspect; stately; grand: the majestic Alps.

Please notice that even its own definition uses “majesty”, proving how self-evident yet difficult to explain is the meaning. We see the word in 2 Peter 1:16-18:

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

In the original language, the word for “majestic” is “megaloprepous”. We’re going to deconstruct this word to glean its full meaning. The word includes the root words “megaloi” and “prepo”. “Megaloi” translates well into English, we see it in a a word like “megastar”.  It’s not enough to be a star, Angela Lansbury is a star (Murder She Wrote, Beauty and the Beast), it’s better to be a “megastar” like George Clooney. Notice that I didn’t need to put movie credits after his name, everyone knows who he is, he’s a big star.

“Megaloi” is more than that though, we see it in the English word “megalomaniac”. An “egomaniac” is someone who is self-obsessed, someone who thinks very highly of themselves, but a megalomaniac is much more extreme; it’s someone who is very, very self-obsessed, to the point of viewing themselves as God-like. Adolph Hitler was a megalomaniac. Now if we extract “megaloi” from these examples, it stands alone as
Really, Really, Really … [fill in the blank]

The word is used twice in Luke 21:11 …

There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.

Here Luke uses the word to describe the end times as a period of …

Really, Really, Really … big earthquakes

Really, Really, Really … big signs from heaven

The meaning of “prepo” is not as obvious, because it is translated into English in various ways. It is “became” in Hebrews 2:10 …

For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many children to glory, to make the author of their salvation pefect through sufferings.

It is “appropriate” or “fitting” in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 …

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

The easier part of the meaning of this word is “attractive” or “pleasing” or “becoming”. We know what these words mean, but there’s a missing piece of the puzzle. “Fitting” or “appropriate” implies some standard against which a measurement is taken. What is the standard?

Really, Really, Really … big attractiveness

Really, Really, Really … big fit

Mountains can be majestic (Psalms 68:15):

The mountains of Bashan are majestic mountains; rugged are the mountains of Bashan.

A military procession with flags can be majestic (Solomon 6:4):

You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners.

A world power like Egypt can be majestic (Ezekial 31:2):

Who can be compared with you in majesty?

In each of these examples we get beauty (becoming) and power, but threateningly so. In each case the majesty is communicated through our eyes and through our instinct both to appreciate power and its implied threat. Therefore, the meaning of majesty is as follows:

Really, Really, Really … attractive to the eye

Really, Really, Really … perfect fit for our eyes and our instincts

We are perfectly built by God to appreciate both beauty and power. Our eyes and instincts are perfectly fitted to appreciate majesty in God, in man and in nature. Our eyes and instincts are the implied standard, the missing piece to complete the puzzle of the meaning of majesty.

When are you observing majesty? When you see a beautiful eagle, mountain or army procession, you are feeling their majesty. When will you feel every sense and every instinct fully observing and feeling majesty? Your sense of majesty will finally be fulfilled when seeing and feeling Jesus in His resurrected (transfigured) body (2 Peter 1:16-18). You are built to be filled with a sense of complete majesty at that moment.

The next time you worship or pray, will you yield to this idea? Yielding to a vision of Jesus in all His glory on His throne surrounded by His creation is surrendering to your own God-given senses and sense. It’s what you were perfectly created to do.

Just do it.

Please contribute to our understanding of “majestic” by commenting.

Recording: Eagles are Majestic

Tweet This Post

Law of Attraction: Eagles are Conspicuously Marked

This series on the Biblical metaphor of the eagle resulted from a scheduled tweet series that was my most retweeted ever. This is the third post inspired by the success of that series. In the first, we discussed how eagles must soar rather than flap their wings to fly. To do this, they wait upon thermal winds that lift them high above other birds and carry them along. This is the picture portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 where we are told to “wait upon the Lord” and we will “mount up with wings like eagles”. The winds that would topple us, if we accept them and turn become the winds that allow us to truly soar. In the second, we considered the patience of eagles as hunters as compared that to the Biblical view of “patience”. There is more to mine from this Biblical metaphor though, much more.

Eagles are conspicuously marked; Christians are exhorted to be conspicuous in order to draw others to us and ultimately to God as His work is displayed in our lives — we are to be “light” to the world.

1 Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.

2 See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.

3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you:
All assemble and come to you;
your sons come from afar,
and your daughters are carried on the arm.
(Isaiah 60)

When and where is this more evident than on Twitter. We need only look about to see who is drawn to us, who follows us. If we Google our name now, most of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are loaded with results from Facebook and Twitter. We have never been so transparently visible, there’s nowhere to hide. This is exactly how God wants it.

14 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5)

John the Baptist, who frequented the wilderness, is given as an example of the right kind of “light”. He stood out and drew people to him in spite of his environment.

35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light. (John 5)

John the Baptist lived it but notice that here we see a measurable result of John’s light. This is God’s Law of Attraction. This is made more clear in Ephesians 5:

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light

9(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

There is fruit from giving off this light, there are results. They include “goodness, righteousness and truth” as well as exposing deeds that are “fruitless”. If we want to go detective and find lights for God, we would look for these characteristics. Are there others?

14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,

15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe

16 as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. (Philippians 2)

We can also expect people who are lights for God to be “blameless and pure” against the backdrop of “complaining” and “arguing”. Are there any activities that would define these people?

18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,

20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5)

They don’t indulge themselves with alcohol but rather with God’s Word and music. In fact, according to Pastor John Piper, author of Desiring God: Confessions of a Christian Hedonist, this is one thing Christians can do without reserve and without moderation. Christians can be hedonistic, that is, seek their own pleasure at will and often when worshiping God, He desires it to be so.

Eagles are conspicuously marked, they stand out in all of nature. We should also stand out both by characteristic and by activity. We will exhibit a qualitative difference relative to those who live in darkness and we are marked by what we chose to do. The world chooses pleasure, we choose pleasure in worship; the former’s object is self, the latter is God. Pleasure in self-indulgence deplenishes the human spirit, pleasure in God replenishes the spirit. It is in this cycle of worship and walk that we draw from an unending energy source to empower our conspicuous light, enabling us, like the eagle, to stand out against our environment.

Recording: Eagles are Conspicuous

Tweet This Post

Eagles are Patient Hunters

This series on the Biblical metaphor of the eagle resulted from a scheduled tweet series that was my most retweeted ever. This is the second post inspired by the success of that series. In the first, we discussed how eagles must soar rather than flap their wings to fly. To do this, they wait upon thermal winds that lift them high above other birds and carry them along. This is the picture portrayed in Isaiah 40:31 where we are told to “wait upon the Lord” and we will “mount up with wings like eagles”. The winds that would topple us, if we accept them and turn become the winds that allow us to truly soar. There is more to mine from this Biblical metaphor though, much more.

Eagles are also patient, whether waiting for a thermal wind or hunting, they wait. Do you wait or do you rush? Let’s step back and reconsider our path.

Is your environment, that is, your home, your work, your ministry, warlike or not?

Better a patient man than a warrior,
a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city. Proverbs 16:32

Is your environment calm or contentious?

A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension,
but a patient man calms a quarrel. Proverbs 15:18

When trouble comes, how do you react?

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12

Do others learn from your suffering? Do you first learn and then share with others who have similar trials in a way that there is a tangible benefit to them? Does your patience bear fruit in others as patience?

If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 2 Corinthians 1:6

Do you know how, when patience is required, to recognize the sign posts that you are on the right track?

Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. James 5:7

What is it that you value enough to wait for patiently? This is your cheatsheet to what you and those around you truly value; what will you/they patiently pursue?

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:25

Paul tells us that love is most worthy of patience and is characterized by it.

Love is patient … And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:4,13

Patience is evidence that the Spirit is working in us, it is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22) and is a key component of love. The eagle waits for its prey patiently to feed itself and to feed its own; it must be patient to survive. When you see an eagle soar above all birds or swoop down and grab a fish, remember that beautiful moment requires a patient wait.

Next week’s eagle post will pick up here, with the beauty of the markings of an eagle. Eagles are conspicuous not camouflaged.

Tweet This Post

Fly Like an Eagle

I was considering my day today as I lay in bed this morning and began feeling overwhelmed. Financial lack was crouching at my door. The hopelessness of finding a job in a town of 6,000 people jumped up and down on my chest. My struggle to find a place to plug in and minister to others gnawed at the back of my neck like a beast looking to make a kill. I heard:

“You’re not good enough, you never were. There’s no hope.”

I abandoned all form and shouted to God:

“Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!”

I moved downstairs with Psalms 3:2-4 in my head:

2 Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”

3 But you are a shield around me, O LORD;
you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

4 To the LORD I cry aloud,
and he answers me from his holy hill.
Selah

I made my way downstairs only to be greeted with more bad news.

“Help! Help! Help! Help! Help!”

We sang a chorus long ago that I never forgot. Derived from Isaiah 40:31, the chorus went like this:

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength,
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

It was inspiring to think of myself flying like an eagle, soaring far above where other birds dared not go. I imagined myself as a large, menacing, powerful eagle who could see prey at great distances and take it with barely a flap of his wings.

I felt it then, the thermal winds that enable the eagle to soar with minimal flapping. I’m climbing the mountain, I’m near the top and I can feel the winds that lift up. So this is what those winds feel like, like an attack from the enemy. He wants to blow me over but he’s miscalculated, not because I’m going to soar but because I’m going to wait.

Waiting on Him will renew my strength and I will mount up with wings like an eagle. When the time is right, the wind intended to knock me over will carry me to God’s next lesson and to His purpose. I am waiting until I see his signature on the wind, only then will I leap into the expanse and be carried by His Spirit to His perfect purpose.

God wins.

A fitting song: I Know the Master of the Wind

Tweet This Post