Chickens or Eagles
Isaiah 40:29-31
ARE YOU CLOSER TO BEING A SPIRITUAL EAGLE OR A SPIRITUAL CHICKEN?
I. Facts about chickens
#1. Chickens love to go with the flow and follow other chickens.
- If one chicken wonders out of the chicken coop all of the others follow
- They may not know where they are going, but they don’t want to miss out on anything that is going on.
#2. They make big deals over small matters.
-When a chicken lays an egg. All the other chickens in the chicken yard find out.
-If one finds a worm or a bug in the dirt. They all want it (all the chickens in the yard will pursue and kill that other chicken for a little bug).
-They eat anything they can pick on (especially if another chicken is eating it).
#3. Some chickens are bullies
They love to take stuff away from other fellow chicken and they pick on others smaller than them.
#4. Some love to show off.
-Have you seen a chicken crowing at 4 in the morning?
-They are real wimps, run after it and you will see.
#5. Chickens are not interested in heavenly things.
- They are content with the chicken coop
- scratching the dirt for food,
- always looking down
- They are earth bound and most will not fly long distances.
LIVING A CHICKEN LIFE IS NOT for Christians!
-They spend all their time fighting, arguing, eating dirt, looking at the ground, and confined to the chicken yard.
II. Character Traits of an Eagle – Characteristics we derive from the Eagle
1. Strength Two types of eagles are called Golden and Imperial. Golden refers to divinity. Imperial means having supreme authority.
2. Keenness – Eagle Eye
3. Swiftness
4. Courage
5. Freedom
#1 - Anatomy
1. 7ft. wing span
2. 12 pounds in weight
3. keen eye sight - spot a rabbit at 2miles-The ruler of the sky and nothing escapes its vision or eyesight
4. 270 degree peripheral vision
5. Acute depth perception
6. Clear membrane that protects it’s eye
7. It’s strength enables it to carry well over it’s own body weight – reported an eagle carrying a baby lamb.
8. It replaces it’s feathers each year –
- Feathers are designed to conserve body heat in the winter and to keep the eagle cool in the summer (it adapts to his own territory and external conditions cannot effect the eagles flight) What is unique about the eagle when molting it never is left incapacitated like some molting birds.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength – they shall replenish, replace or refresh themselves
Psalm 103:5 – youth is renewed like the eagles•
#2 -The Flight of an Eagle – Proverbs 30:18-19
1. Reach speeds of over 150 miles per hour
2. Soars to heights of 1/2 miles
3. Dives at speeds of 200 miles per hour
4. Glides at altitudes of over 2,500 feet
Does all this and appear to do it so effortlessly Eagle’s have been seen to be soaring almost motionless in hurricane force winds
Turbulent Winds
Great lifting power causes the eagle to fly higher greater lift power in the updrafts of turbulent winds
Gives him a bigger view because he can get higher Gets him to levels no one else is Allows the eagle to use less effort to get there – He rides the winds – He doesn’t flutter his wings like a humming bird.
allows the eagle to stay higher longer. Spiral to find the updraft. Trust on the wings of His Word
allows the eagle to fly faster
#3 - The Care for it’s Young
1. Eagle’s mate for life
2. Nest in high places
Protection
Surveying
Launch pad
3. Return to the same nest each year
4. Shade the young with their wings – Psalm 63:7
5. Male hunts, Female feeds Both parents sit on the eggs, guard the nest, feed the young and train them. Little eagles cannot survive on worms and grasshoppers but it must eventually move on to a diet that will allow them to grow healthy. Every need is supplied for the young till they can manage on their own.
6. Teach their young to fly by creating an air current which lifts the trailing eaglet – Exodus 19:4
Bare – lift up Eagles are born to fly (the sky is their atmosphere, they are trained by the parents If the eagle does not learn to fly on its own it will eventually become the hunted instead of the hunter, the victim instead of the victor, the prey instead of the pursuer.) When storms come. They mount up and fly above the storm instead of letting the storm get the best of them.
III. How to overcome the chicken mentality.
1. Be watchful and vigilant as an eagle ( I Peter 5:8 says; "Be sober and vigilant because; "your adversary the devil walks about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour")
2. Be confident and at rest, soar above the storms of life.Col.3: 1-2 says; "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth".
* Eph.2:6 says; "God has quickened us together with Christ and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus".
3. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by anything. "God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power of love and a sound mind".
4. Be confident when going through a dry season. "God is going to supply all of your needs according to His Riches in Glory".
5. Don’t give up and stand on your faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please God".
6. Adapt to and defend the territory that God has given you.
* Eph. 6:13 says; "Take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand on the evil day, and having done all to stand".
* (Read Eph.6: 13ff)
7. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. I Corint. 1:25 says; "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men".
