Learn From The Eagle

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Living Word; A healthy Christian's diet.

 

Hebrews 4:12

 
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

John chapter one verse 1 and 14
In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

 
14) and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.

 

Let us now examine these verses. The word of God is quick. You may have heard the saying "The quick and the dead" in other words quick means alive. Something that has life in it. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. The bible is Jesus Christ from cover to cover. The old testament points to him and the new testifies of him and the living way that he brought.

 

We know that he was alive and is still alive and will be forever more and it is through him that we receive everlasting life.

So with this in mind let us think of spiritually what we should be eating.

 
There is a saying , we are what we eat and this may be true in some respects naturally speaking. A person who is on a very low calorie diet and is not getting sufficient nutrition for strength and handling daily stress of life may be edgy and grumpy where as a person on a well balanced nutritional diet who is getting all the nutrients and vitamins their body needs is better able to face the day and meet it's challenges. We have more energy and our body tends to be stronger to fight off sicknesses when compared to someone on a poor diet.

 
Now I would like to compare our spiritual diet again to the Eagle's which is mentioned various times in the scriptures as a spiritual example for us.

 
The most common Eagle in the middle East was the golden Eagle. Even the word Gold is referred to as an example to us of purity. The Golden Eagle has a beauty about it having a golden crown for which it was named. We too attain that crown of life in salvation and people should be able to tell what we are by looking at us and how we live. These are the physical features of a Golden Eagle just as a clean life devoted to God is a plain spiritual feature of a Christian. Another feature that is similar for us Christians and Eagles is diet.
 
An Eagle is a very picky eater. It is not like other birds who may go pecking in the dirt for berries or worms nor is it like the vultures who feed off whatever they can find, mostly dead carcasses. No the Eagle actually chooses it's food each day! If it wants fish then it goes and finds fish, if it wants squirrel or rabbit then it goes and finds one. So by this we learn that the Eagle does not eat what it finds, it finds what it wants.
An Eagle will see it's prey, swoop down on it and as it carries it to it's nest high in the rocks it squeezes the life out of it with it's powerful talons or claws and then it will tear it apart and eat it while it is still warm. This is the Eagle's source of strength. Fresh meat.

 
This too should be a Christians source of strength; The meat of the word.

 
W e too should be picky of our spiritual diet not willing to eat just anything. If it is not the true word of God then it will not give you strength it will instead make you weak. It can make you spiritually sick. If we regularly eat from God's word each day we get familiar with it's spiritual taste. If we are served something then that is supposed to be fresh and pure spiritual meat but it isn't then we will recognize it instantly we will spit it out, knowing if we eat of it it will make us sick.

So the Eagle's food source is it's source of strength as is our spiritual food source. We must be picky eaters. If we are like the vulture who will eat anything then we are going to be weak and vulnerable. A vulture's nature is to gorge himself until he is so full that he becomes sick and then he cannot fly, then becoming a prey himself! Watch what you eat!

 

Be familiar with the taste of God's food that has life in it instead of death in the pot. Satan does not want us strong. He does not want us to grow. He will say "Oh just eat a little nibble or two and don't complain, it won't hurt you, if you say something you might hurt someone's feelings" or have you heard this one ? "take the good and leave the bad?" My philosophy is if it's not meat of the word, don't eat it.

 
Be like the eagle and the you can mount up on wings full of power and take to the sky. All worldly things and problems being below you because you are being carried on the strength from God's word. If it isn't living, then it's dead. If it's not good it's bad. there is no middle ground or in between. It's either spiritually healthy or spiritually rotten. There are many rotten and false doctrines in our world today being served on platters proclaiming to be the truth but they are deceiving and rotten. They can bring spiritual death. They can kill your influence with people, they can cause you to become a stumbling block for someone else. The Vulture has no hair on it's head or neck so that it can bury it's head in just about any dead carcass but an Eagle is crowned with a crown of Golden feathers. She will not lower herself and dirty her pretty head or waste her time on such unclean filthy things. She doesn't have a taste for it. She has been taught wisely and has learned what makes her strong and she will settle for nothing else. Be an Eagle not a vulture.

 

 

 

 

A spiritual Vision

"Without a vision, the People perish"

Job 39: 27-29
Doth the Eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?
She dwelleth and abideth on the rock,upon the crag of the rock,and the strong place.
From thence she seeketh the prey and her eyes behold afar off.

As Christians the scripture teaches us to come out from among the world and be separate. The Eagle does this. She makes her home up in the clefts and the rocks or in a high tree if there is no rocks suitable but she will choose the rock if she can. She wants a safe place for her young to be raised. We should have the same desire for our children. To raise them in that solid place of refuge, the Rock. The Eagles are loving and devoted parents.

They spend much time on their nest and use it over and over again, they do not move unless for some reason the nest falls. This seldom happens because of the way the Eagles build it and where they build it. It is away from most dangers and predators. The Eagle only has one enemy. The serpent. The serpent will slither quietly up the rock and will try to steal eggs or devour young eaglets.

Mother Eagle is hardly away from the nest during incubation. Father Eagle Lovingly brings her food and he also brings in little trinkets that he thinks baby Eagle will want to play with. Toys so to speak. It may be a little fuzzy branch or perhaps a discarded child's toy if he finds one. Isn't this just the way that our lovingly heavenly Father does us, bringing us extra little gifts of love each day? He supplies the food for Mother bird so that she can guard the nests from serpents and help bring life to the eggs that she is sitting on..

The church has a weapon against the devil, It is the word of God which is our spiritual food. If A serpent crawls into a nest with a baby eaglet then it will start squawking and crying out for help. Mother Eagle is never far away and she comes immediately to the rescue. Most of the time using her beak to kill the serpent. The word of God is a mighty defense for us. At other times she will pull his head clean off other times she will pick the snake up and take him to a rocky place and drop him, crushing him.

"Without a vision the people perish". Without Mother Eagle's keen vision she might not could get to baby's rescue so quickly. But she can see danger afar off.

Now we get to the Eagle's eye sight. Eagles can see ahead of them and to the side at the same time. They can see movement of a rabbit sometimes as far as three miles off!

When we are lost we are blind and in darkness but when we become a child of God then we are given a spiritual vision of things. We can see things, perhaps even trouble before it happens and we can stop it before it gets started. We also, as Job did, can by faith see afar off to the promises God left us in his words. Job looked afar off for Christ .He knew he would be born and would die for our sins but he also knew the rest. Job waited for a resurrection being able by faith to see the promise afar off. Just as Abraham when he had to take Isaac up to the mountain, it said he seen the place afar off just as God saw in the beginning a far off hill at Calvary where his son would bleed and die. We have a vision that the world does not have. The Eagle also has a second eyelid that allows them to look directly into the sun! We too can see into the sunlight of God's holy word , his word the light that surrounds us and guides our way.

The Eagle is also born with what are called pectin's in their eyes. This unusual gift acts sort of as a homing device for the Eagle. This allows the Eagle to find their way back home even from a distance of thousands of miles away. When they are away from their nest there is a certain amount of pain and pressure in their eyes and as they get closer to home it decreases. This gives them an instinct to always want to return to the place of comfort and rest. Just as we Christians long for the comfort of the church and our heavenly home someday.

The Eagles build huge nests that sometimes weigh anywhere from 800 lbs to two tons!
You wouldn't want one to fall on your head that's for sure!

We should constantly, as the Eagle be building upon that rock, our place of refuge. We should make room for others . The church grows each time a soul is born into the Kingdom. There is always room for more.

Another sacrifice of love Mother Eagle makes is that she will pluck a soft feathery material called "down" from her breast. It is much softer than her feathers and she pulls this from her chest with her sharp beak and she does this to make a bed of warmth for baby Eaglet that even when she is away from the nest a part of her is still bringing warmth to baby.

The work of the church should still surround our young Christians today and be a source of warmth and strength for them. Even though it means self sacrifice, these young ones need our help. They are still immature and weak. The church is to be a help to them.

I hope that this lesson today has helped you to gain more insight to our duties as a church and as a Christian. The bible is full of examples and the Eagle is used more than once. Think upon your spiritual vision today. Use it to search and see into God's word, where you will find your meat and source of strength and grow thereby.
You have been given an extraordinary ability. Do not waste it.

 

On Eagle's wings
 

Deuteronomy 32:11-12
As an Eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings.
So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange God with him.

Exodus 19:4
Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself.

Let us look at the first verse above and talk a little first about the Eagle stirring up her nest.
First of all Mother Eagle comes into the nest one day and startles baby Eagle with her intense wing flapping. She screeches and takes all of baby Eagle's toys and throws them from the nest, next goes all of the furry down that has kept baby Eagle comfortable and warm and leaves baby Eagle trying to stand and balance the rough sticks now uncomfortably poking little Eaglet and forcing him to move about and try to stand.

 
Mother Eagle is trying to teach baby a very important lesson here; How to stand.
She doesn't push him from the nest before he learns to stand and teach him to fly first because if he could not stand then he would surely fall to his death. So Baby Must learn to stand. Think of a newborn Christian, safe and sheltered still by all the love of those around him then there comes a time when as a Christian we have a few comforts removed, things get a little rough and trials come our way. It hurts, it pricks but it teaches us to stand on our own two spiritual legs and is preparing us for our Journey.

After Baby Masters this task then again comes Mommy Eagle into the nest in what seems like another very bad mood. She screeches and flutters her wings at Baby Eagle backing him up to the edge of the nest finally pushing him over.

 
Baby Eagle starts to fall, an instinct to live takes over, he starts imitating what he has watched Mom and Dad do while he was sitting in the nest;He watched them fly; He watched them soar.
(See how our Christian walk can be a help to others and an example.)

 

Instead of giving up he starts flapping his wings but he still lacks the skill. He continues to fall. Father Eagle has been soaring around the whole time watching it all and at the very last moment and with lightning speed swoops down under baby Eagle and bears him up on his great wings before he reaches the ground. He returns baby Eagle to the nest only for Momma to start all over again.

 
Have you ever felt that the message the preacher preached was a little rough or that a friend's spiritual advice was a little stern? Well you should be thankful because it is all for your learning and your spiritual education. It will help you to develop the skills that will be able to lift you high above your troubles and cares, that will help you find spiritual food and to prepare you for maturity so that you too can become fruitful and multiply as Christians.

 
How wonderful to have the church as our example to learn from and Christ which is the church's example. How thankful we should be for the word of God which helps us learn to stand and eventually to fly on our own.

 
There is a beautiful picture of Love from the Father Eagle of our heavenly Father. How he swoops down just at the right moment to catch the young, and sometimes baby can be the same size as Daddy Eagle so we think this might not be too Easy for Father Eagle but I am reminded of the scripture where the Lord says "My Yoke is Easy and my burden is light".

There is also a good lesson here for the unmarried. Let me explain.

When Eagles reach maturity at about three or four years of age then the males will go on a search for a mate. They will pair for life. Till death do they part so to speak but the female Eagle is a very picky bird and we also should be when choosing a partner for life.

 
When the male comes along the female will start with a simple game of tag. After this she will start what seems to be a game but it is really her testing his skills as a potential Father Eagle someday. She will make a wide figure 8 in the sky with the male following right behind her, then she will dive down and pick up a stick and fly up so high then drop it. Male Eagle trying to be a courteous courter dives down and retrieves and and tries to return it to her. She is not interested. She dives again and again, each time with a larger and larger stick and circles in faster figure 8 motions that are closer together making it very hard for the male to keep up. Each time she drops it, each time he dives to retrieve it until the stick becomes small logs of greater weight. If he drops one stick or log then she fly's off and shows no more interest at all. If he doesn't drop any then finally they meet in the air and lock talons and screeching with joy turn head over heels in the air. Eagle experts claim this is their marriage vows because after this they are paired up for life and go off to start building a nest. You see, her little test with the sticks were to test his skill to see if he was going to be able to catch baby Eaglets when she pushed them from her nest. I believe we should also choose a mate for life who , when our children are in trouble, will be there as a good example and will be able to lift our children up on wings of prayer and be a help to them.We can learn alot from the Eagle.

 
That is why they are mentioned in the scriptures to give us a lesson in life.
May God bless you today!

 

 

 

 

Wait

 

Isaiah 40:28-31
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?

There is no searching of his understanding.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.

 
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as Eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.

As we have hopefully learned this week, we must wait upon the Lord.

We must wait upon him for our soul's salvation.
As young Christians we must wait for instruction to live by.

We must learn patience.
We will fail, we will fall but he will be there to catch us.

 
The whole process all the while is making us stronger and more able to endure hardness. The Eagle's aren't like other birds who migrate south for the winter, they tough it out and weather the cold. When things get a bit uncomfortable and it seems all others are going away it can be a lonely time spiritually, Eve one of the prophets one time thought he was the only one left but God showed him otherwise. We needn't follow the crowd, God will supply our needs as he does for the Eagle.

 
The Eagle gains strength. It's wings are strong enough to carry their young. Their wings are strong enough to let them fly for four to five hours a day.

 
Just as the Eagle does, we grow, we mature, we gain strength, we can see things afar off and prepare to meet the challenge.

There is one other fact about the Eagle that when I read the above highlighted verse I think of this each time.

I hope it will be a strength to you as well.
When a storm approaches, all other birds seek shelter and refuge from the winds but the wind is what the Eagle waits for. The storm begins in all of it's fury with all other birds below it but not the Eagle. When the winds are at their highest she takes off and literally mounts up on the wind. The winds lift her higher and higher until she is soaring above the storm.

 
What a picture of strength and encouragement this should be to us!

 
When the storms come, wait on the Lord, through his spirit we can rise above the storms of this life up where the skies are clear. Letting the very winds the others fear carry us. We can be as strong as the Eagle if we will let God lead us and mold us, if we will tough out the lonely times when it seems we are all alone and we endure the coldness that we sometimes encounter then the storms will be no match for us you see if we but wait upon the Lord.
Consider the Eagle and learn from her.
 

 

Keep yourself clean

 

The Golden Eagle spends one hour each day cleaning her feathers. It will take each feather in it's beak and  sort of steam clean it with her breath from beginning to end. It also secrets an oil that will make it water resistant which comes in handy during rain or when diving into water. A beautiful example of how we should keep ourselves clean and unspotted from the world.

 

2nd Corinthians 7:1 says

Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

 

 

A Beautiful change.

 

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord. are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as  by the spirit of the Lord.

We have  been studying this week on the Golden Eagle.

I would like to again use the Eagle as an Example for our bonus thought for the week.

When an Eagle is born it is not  a creature of beauty, it puts one in mind of the story of the ugly duckling. At Birth the Eagle is not covered with beautiful feathers and a golden crown as the adults are. They are covered in a fuzzy down like fur and often have black rings around their eyes. Eaglets are sometimes born only a day apart but grow at different rates of speed. This is typical of all Christians. Some grow faster than others. As the Eagle grows it's beauty increases. As a baby it has observed it's father and mother, watching intently and learning from them. Jesus is our example for us to learn from and as we grow people begin to see more of him in us.  A Christian who  will learn from their elders and the word of God and follow the instructions of the holy spirit will also mature in Beauty.

It is said that the Eaglet will have all the features of it's parent's when it is ready to go on it's first hunt. This is what I want to focus on. When we are born again, we become a child of God. We still lack a lot of knowledge and skill and experience and are still weak but as we grow we gain strength and as we grow and learn so there is a difference seen in us but then when the eagle takes to the air it is in the same image as it's Father.

I can see this as a good example of a maturing Christian but the more beautiful picture I see in it is a change. I speak of the morning of the resurrection to come, when we meet Jesus in the air then we shall be like him in all of his glory and splendor. We will be changed in his likeness. Having then a glorified body (not another one, not a new one, but a changed glorified one.. there is a big difference!)  The Eagle becomes transformed from a weak ugly creature into the most glorious creature of the air! No other bird can compare with it's beauty and majesty.

We too shall be changed from corruption to incorruption from mortal to immortal. Glorified! I know you have probably either saw an Eagle flying in a national park or perhaps on a movie. There is nothing like the sight! It is breathtaking to watch them in all their glory and splendor!

What a hope this should give to us! What a day that will be!

When we are caught up in the air with him and  forever shall we be with the Lord in his likeness in all glory and splendor!

May You be blessed by the reading of his word today!

 

All Eagles referred to in reference to these scripture comes from studying the Golden Eagle. Other breeds differ in habits. Since the Golden Eagle is most majestic of all the Eagles I found it more suitable and a better example. The Golden Eagle is known as "KING"

 

 

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