the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. (Daniel 11:32, KJV)

Christian Do You Really Know Who You Are?

There is an old story which you may have heard:

“While walking through the forest one day, a man found a baby eagle who had fallen out of his nest. He took it home and put in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passes by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens. The farmer replied that since he had given it chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken, it had never learned to fly. “Since it now behaved as the chickens, it was no longer an eagle.”

“ ‘Still it has the heart of eagle,’ replied the naturalist, ‘and can surely be taught to fly.’ He lifted the eagle toward the sky and said, ‘You belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly.’ But the eagle was afraid of his unknown capacity and inherent strength and jumped down once more for the chicken food. Finally the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain. There he held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again, saying, ‘You are an eagle. You belong to the sky. Stretch forth your wings and fly.’ The eagle looked around, back towards the barnyard and up to the sky.”

“Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly he stretched his wings, and with a triumphant cry, soared away into the heavens. It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia. It may even be that he occasionally re-visit’s the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows, he has never returned to lead the life of a chicken.”

God Wants You To Soar For Him

It’s been pointed out in reference to this parable the truth that “God turns chickens into eagles.” The Bible clearly says – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17). What this literally means is that when a regenerated person repents from his sin and places his complete trust in Jesus as Lord, he has been born again. Here’s how this verse reads in the original Greek – So that if anyone is in Christ, that one is new creation; the old things have become new! (The Interlinear Bible, One Vol. Ed., Jay P. Green, Sr., Gen. Ed., 897).

How wonderful that this means exactly what it says! Those who are “born again” are actually made new and God’s image is re-created inside the once spiritually dead man or woman. That’s why there is nothing you can ever do in your natural state that could earn your way to Heaven. As Jesus says – “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3). And Isaiah reminds us another most encouraging truth – But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles (Isaiah 40:31, KJV).

Closing with the analogy of our opening our story, the Lord is saying to His true children, “You belong to the sky, and not to the earth. Now is the time you to fly, so spread out your wings and rise in the Spirit.” Yet still there are those who really are eagles but have remained in the chicken coop of the world eating its cracked corn. An old Yiddish proverb comes to mind that says: “If one man calleth thee a donkey, pay him no mind. If two men calleth thee a donkey, get thee a saddle.” O how sad that so many Christians have done so. They have never learned to fly because they have been trained to be chickens.

Unfortunately, there are too many in the Church of our Lord, though we should be eagles, who have instead bought the Devil’s lie that we still belong in the barnyard of this world. But dear Christian, if you listen in the Spirit I’m sure you will hear our Lord telling us to look up because we belong to His sky. Beloved, today let us take wing and fly with Him as we truly are the eagles of God.