I believe we were meant to fly
We speak of the Holy Spirit because the Bible mentions it sometimes, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Yet, Jesus said, “He shall not speak of Himself; but… He shall glorify Me.” (John 16:13,14 ). Thus we can expect that when the Spirit of God is moving a person, that person will primarily desire to talk about Jesus. When the Spirit becomes the main topic of conversation, we can become a little nervous that that “spirit” isn’t the Holy Spirit.
So let’s be led to discover the glories of Christ, His well-balanced character, His love, His promises. Nevertheless, in this post we will touch on the Holy Ghost because of its central place in the work of God on Earth.
In the beginning, even before creation, Earth had already been selected for the location of an epoch that would hold a special place in the Great Controversy, a controversy that had already begun by the contention and defection of Lucifer and the displacement of a huge multitude of angelic hosts. It is written that on the day of creation, “God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” (Gen. 1:2) (The Message translation).
This describes a fundamental characteristic of the Holy Spirit: that of loving protection. As God’s leading representative in the forefront of all His enterprises, the Spirit of God was expectant and anxious to begin this most important work of turning this watery, lifeless world into a paradise. It brooded over the future home of teeming millions of species, both of flora and fauna, with the creation of mankind as the crowning work.
Then God (Elohim) drew near. Elohim, a plural Hebrew word, denotes that Father and Son both partook in the work of making our home an exquisite gem in space. John revealed, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made....And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1,3,14) So, the Son of God was personally engaged in the birth of this world, yet the Holy Spirit was intimately involved, as well. We get an insight in the Holy Spirit’s work of creation at the conception of Christ. “The angel answered and said unto her (Mary), The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35).
The composite view we get of the work of creation is a three-fold work, possibly even a three-tiered work of delegation. The Father commands the Son, the Son commands the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit makes it happen. This arrangement is also seen in the order of the divine government and chain of command. “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” (1 Cor. 12: 4-7). The Father is ultimately in charge, feeling the full weight of responsibility. The Son makes known the intentions and thoughts of His Father to all His heavenly intelligences throughout the universe; thus He is called “the Word.” The Spirit takes what the Father commands the Son and which the Son commands the Spirit, and actually does the work.
Now let’s turn to the work of recreating the image of God in humanity. That work began in its fullness after Jesus ascended up on high and gave gifts to men. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Yet another ten days must pass before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost.
What’s interesting is that despite 3 ½ years of walking in the very presence of the Master Teacher, they could not receive the outpouring of the Spirit of God while Christ was with them. At the very end of that period of His earthly ministry, He had this to say to them: “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever;…He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (Jn. 14:16-18). “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” (Jn. 16:7)
The point He was making was that as long as He continued with them, their development would be limited. Like an infant who has fed off his mother’s milk must be weaned or physical development will be hampered, the apostles had been baby-fed by Jesus for those wonder-filled years while He walked with them, but now it was time for them to let go of the Messiah’s apron strings.
The mother bird comes and goes from a nest full of chicks in search of food for them. All the while she feeds their gaping mouths and keeps them warm under her wings, she bonds with them. Little does mother know that God gives their little brains the skill of observation. They see her fly away and return many times. Something in them begins to say, “Mother flaps her wings and flies. I must be able to fly too!”
The day arrives that God gives mother the intuition that her babies can fly, and even must fly, in order to lead their own lives and continue the cycle of life she had been a part of. So she pushes them out of her nest. It’s not that she is being mean, but the reality is that they cannot remain in the nest forever. Neither can she continue to feed them forever. They must fly.
Thus Christ must leave His beloved disciples. He had nurtured them, He had drawn them away from the spirit of the world, He had broken the spell that kept them attracted to this life, and taught them life lessons and prepared them to walk by faith. Now they must walk or become crippled. He had prepared them for the new thrill awaiting them of flying on the wings of faith. Now to stay with them would have only staunched the burgeoning potential that He had personally instilled in their new spiritual make-up. He must depart.
That instilled potential led them daily to draw near to the ascended Christ on the throne of heaven, where they looked to Him by a faith that was growing stronger and stronger. It led them to come to terms with their ambitious contempt one for another. They forgave and reconciled with each other. All the lessons of Jesus came to their minds, fresh and new; and they bitterly blamed themselves for not taking better advantage of the amazing lessons their Master had been trying to teach them. They grew closer together, and more and more tightly bonded to one another.
All of that became the recipe for what happened on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit of God swept in, as promised by Christ. They found themselves enabled to speak of His grace and love and righteousness with a boldness and eloquence they had never before known.
That was the Early Rain of the Holy Spirit. Now we await the more abundant Latter Rain. But how can that happen if we haven’t physically walked with the Master Teacher? We must have a personal knowledge of Jesus, being nurtured by Him, being brooded over by His loving attention, mustn’t we? How can we fly without personally seeing Him fly?
I complained to Him in prayer once that we didn’t get to have the privilege that the disciples had, of personally living with Him, of personally being loved and instructed by Him, but rather were stuck with the intangible Holy Spirit instead. I don’t know that He has yet given me a resolution for that complaint.
Somehow He must bring us to the point of flying before He requires us to fly. It’s only reasonable. But, perhaps that is happening today. Perhaps, with the volumes of knowledge handed to us of His divine character and agape love, with the brilliant light of Righteousness by Faith, and through the accelerating mountain of scientific evidence being uncovered that testifies along side of faith and Christ’s prophecies being fulfilled right before our very eyes, perhaps He is doing a work of instructing us through His providential crafting of our life experiences.
Perhaps, we don’t realize that many are learning to fly.
So let’s be led to discover the glories of Christ, His well-balanced character, His love, His promises. Nevertheless, in this post we will touch on the Holy Ghost because of its central place in the work of God on Earth.
In the beginning, even before creation, Earth had already been selected for the location of an epoch that would hold a special place in the Great Controversy, a controversy that had already begun by the contention and defection of Lucifer and the displacement of a huge multitude of angelic hosts. It is written that on the day of creation, “God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” (Gen. 1:2) (The Message translation).
This describes a fundamental characteristic of the Holy Spirit: that of loving protection. As God’s leading representative in the forefront of all His enterprises, the Spirit of God was expectant and anxious to begin this most important work of turning this watery, lifeless world into a paradise. It brooded over the future home of teeming millions of species, both of flora and fauna, with the creation of mankind as the crowning work.
Then God (Elohim) drew near. Elohim, a plural Hebrew word, denotes that Father and Son both partook in the work of making our home an exquisite gem in space. John revealed, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made....And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1,3,14) So, the Son of God was personally engaged in the birth of this world, yet the Holy Spirit was intimately involved, as well. We get an insight in the Holy Spirit’s work of creation at the conception of Christ. “The angel answered and said unto her (Mary), The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35).
The composite view we get of the work of creation is a three-fold work, possibly even a three-tiered work of delegation. The Father commands the Son, the Son commands the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit makes it happen. This arrangement is also seen in the order of the divine government and chain of command. “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” (1 Cor. 12: 4-7). The Father is ultimately in charge, feeling the full weight of responsibility. The Son makes known the intentions and thoughts of His Father to all His heavenly intelligences throughout the universe; thus He is called “the Word.” The Spirit takes what the Father commands the Son and which the Son commands the Spirit, and actually does the work.
Now let’s turn to the work of recreating the image of God in humanity. That work began in its fullness after Jesus ascended up on high and gave gifts to men. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Yet another ten days must pass before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost.
What’s interesting is that despite 3 ½ years of walking in the very presence of the Master Teacher, they could not receive the outpouring of the Spirit of God while Christ was with them. At the very end of that period of His earthly ministry, He had this to say to them: “I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever;…He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (Jn. 14:16-18). “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” (Jn. 16:7)
The point He was making was that as long as He continued with them, their development would be limited. Like an infant who has fed off his mother’s milk must be weaned or physical development will be hampered, the apostles had been baby-fed by Jesus for those wonder-filled years while He walked with them, but now it was time for them to let go of the Messiah’s apron strings.
The mother bird comes and goes from a nest full of chicks in search of food for them. All the while she feeds their gaping mouths and keeps them warm under her wings, she bonds with them. Little does mother know that God gives their little brains the skill of observation. They see her fly away and return many times. Something in them begins to say, “Mother flaps her wings and flies. I must be able to fly too!”
The day arrives that God gives mother the intuition that her babies can fly, and even must fly, in order to lead their own lives and continue the cycle of life she had been a part of. So she pushes them out of her nest. It’s not that she is being mean, but the reality is that they cannot remain in the nest forever. Neither can she continue to feed them forever. They must fly.
Thus Christ must leave His beloved disciples. He had nurtured them, He had drawn them away from the spirit of the world, He had broken the spell that kept them attracted to this life, and taught them life lessons and prepared them to walk by faith. Now they must walk or become crippled. He had prepared them for the new thrill awaiting them of flying on the wings of faith. Now to stay with them would have only staunched the burgeoning potential that He had personally instilled in their new spiritual make-up. He must depart.
That instilled potential led them daily to draw near to the ascended Christ on the throne of heaven, where they looked to Him by a faith that was growing stronger and stronger. It led them to come to terms with their ambitious contempt one for another. They forgave and reconciled with each other. All the lessons of Jesus came to their minds, fresh and new; and they bitterly blamed themselves for not taking better advantage of the amazing lessons their Master had been trying to teach them. They grew closer together, and more and more tightly bonded to one another.
All of that became the recipe for what happened on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit of God swept in, as promised by Christ. They found themselves enabled to speak of His grace and love and righteousness with a boldness and eloquence they had never before known.
That was the Early Rain of the Holy Spirit. Now we await the more abundant Latter Rain. But how can that happen if we haven’t physically walked with the Master Teacher? We must have a personal knowledge of Jesus, being nurtured by Him, being brooded over by His loving attention, mustn’t we? How can we fly without personally seeing Him fly?
I complained to Him in prayer once that we didn’t get to have the privilege that the disciples had, of personally living with Him, of personally being loved and instructed by Him, but rather were stuck with the intangible Holy Spirit instead. I don’t know that He has yet given me a resolution for that complaint.
Somehow He must bring us to the point of flying before He requires us to fly. It’s only reasonable. But, perhaps that is happening today. Perhaps, with the volumes of knowledge handed to us of His divine character and agape love, with the brilliant light of Righteousness by Faith, and through the accelerating mountain of scientific evidence being uncovered that testifies along side of faith and Christ’s prophecies being fulfilled right before our very eyes, perhaps He is doing a work of instructing us through His providential crafting of our life experiences.
Perhaps, we don’t realize that many are learning to fly.
posted by David | 6:56 AM
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