In the village next to the Niger River I had noticed a cage holding one lone, odd-looking eagle. All the basic features were there; the body, neck, and two-thirds of the wings were white. Yet the end of the wings and the head were black. I was told, “That is a white eagle.” You could understand my confusion, since it had black on its wings, and the head was completely black. Upon questioning I was told, “It is a young white eagle; as the bird grows, the white will push its way to the tip of the wings and beak. The mature bird will be completely white in the end.” Again, all things created are preaching Jesus. The DNA of the bird dictates that it will be a white bird. As the bird grows, it expands into what it really is in fact: a white eagle. It doesn’t become a white eagle; it is a white eagle even when the black is on it. Growth and maturity will force out what does not belong to the very nature of the bird. The head is where the thoughts of the flesh hide in hopes of manifesting themselves. The black on the wings, our unbelief, is the only thing associating us with earthly living. Would it in any way be possible to stop the growth of this bird? No, but if it remained caged, the expression and exercise of its growth and maturity will never be seen. This white eagle gives me hope. First, it will grow, and what it is will be revealed; it has no choice. Second, God will not keep it captive. There will be a mounting up in the fullness of time. Imagine giving birth to a child if it were up to you to make it grow. Wouldn’t you be a nervous wreck? You can’t make a child grow, for that is God’s work. Likewise, you don’t make yourself grow spiritually! That is God’s work, a work that He has ordained by writing into your very DNA that you are a child of God. In the end, you cannot make one hair [one feather] black or white. Your “color” is the outgrowth of the new nature that He has given you. Christ’s life is written into your very nature. By the way, eagles devour the serpent and are feared by all the other little creatures that sneak about.

“The Lord gives and Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

I actually believe that the Lord, on occasion, has allowed me to be cheated, stolen from, have money misplaced, and even to have it fly out a window or drop down a sewer. Why? We can say that our security is in Him, that we believe in His provision, and that we are living under His control. However, our reaction to money lost is an indication of where we really stand in relation to those things. When I give and give liberally, I am in faith. I have control over the giving. However, theft is uncontrolled giving without the consent of my will. It is giving what I had not planned to give. It is giving what I had laid aside for use I predetermined. If I react negatively when it disappears, what does that reveal about my heart? I am living under His provision, and as the Scripture says, “The Lord gives and Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

He enjoys living in you!

Col. 1:27, “to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

My unbelief astounds me! The fact that it astounds me is a revelation that I still think that in my flesh dwells some good thing. You see, I knew that Christ could live in the flesh of a man and conquer all things, but I never believed that He could live in my flesh and conquer all things. What was I thinking, that somehow, when Jesus moved into my flesh, His power was stripped away? What unbelief. Actually, when I had my last birthday, I just stopped and pondered. I never thought I would make it to that age. I didn’t think that He who had begun a good work in me would complete it. I didn’t think that He would prove to me that He was love. It was all proof of my unbelief. Well, I want to testify that He can live in your flesh. He has lived in thousands of people’s flesh, and He is more than able. And I will tell you one more secret: He enjoys living in you!

“But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.” –Hebrews 5:14
I remember as a child being given a toy hammer and pegs sticking in the holes in a piece of wood. I would beat on each peg until it was even with the surface, turn the board over, and do the same again. Many see their relationships this way, full of pegs to be driven down before moving on to the next task. However, a relationship is not a task but something living, something that is never “accomplished.” There is an old proverb about how one can know he (or she) is ready for marriage if first he manages to keep a plant living for one year, then a fish in a bowl alive for a year, and finally a dog or cat thriving for a year. If that can be done and nothing living around him suffers, he is ready for a relationship.

He is all around us.

John 6:53-56, “So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
I was thinking how the heart must pump the blood to the lungs in order for the blood to carry oxygen throughout the body and keep it alive. The life is in the blood, and that life is oxygen. Giving someone mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is restoring his life. It makes sense that God breathed life into man and man became a living soul. The breath of God, coming from outside man, is the life. In fact, all of creation is receiving life from God moment by moment. He is all around us. What if we had blood that had its own oxygen and didn’t need an outside source? Then we could live without breathing! This is exactly what we have, the blood of Jesus that possesses life in itself (it doesn’t require an outside source of life like my blood). It is this blood that will allow my spirit and soul to go on living when the body is destroyed and the world as a source is gone. Well, I’m just thinking, and you know how much trouble that can cause.

Time apart with the Lord is not a luxury but a necessity.

We are commanded not to muzzle the ox. This passage is applied to the fact that a workman is worthy of his hire. However, in talking with many believers, I believe that it also can apply to our spiritual lives in a different way. In many of the countries that I visit, the people are working seven days a week. In Asia they are only now thinking of six-day workweeks. In the West, the cost of living has gotten to the point that both husband and wife must work, often only passing each other sometime during the day. These situations have spiritually muzzled believers. We are not given the time of refreshing that we need before the Lord. We are not allowed to eat of the Lord. It isn’t right. Every believer needs to take time away. If Jesus took time apart, then we, His disciples, surely need it. Time apart with the Lord is not a luxury but a necessity. One summer I finished my travels with a total of five days off from January to July; I’d only had a day here and there between trips in which to prepare for the next trip. In the end I couldn’t hold a cup of coffee without shaking. I took two weeks in the mountains to do nothing but pray. The shaking stopped, I was refreshed, and I was fresh in the Lord. I am seeing that is something every believer needs, not just half an hour in the morning, but a few days away from others. I know that thought is shocking to those who can’t imagine doing anything without their mates. However, remember that your wife or husband belongs to the Lord first and foremost before belonging to you. Time with Him will change everything. Everyone needs time to step back and watch what falls apart. Everything that falls apart is of man, and everything that stays is of His making. You will find that you can continue working if you are not muzzled.

Can someone really make you miserable?

John 8: 36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

How much power does man have over you? Do you surrender your peace to men? Can someone really make you miserable? As a slave was being beaten by his Hindu master for preaching, the master said, “Now what can Jesus do for you?” The slave quickly replied, “He can help me love you!” The slave never surrendered his peace to a person. When you are mad because someone has upset you, and then you vent your frustration on that person, you are venting in the wrong direction. It is impossible that someone upset you. What really happened is that you allowed yourself to be upset. You should be mad at yourself; however, in pride, it is much more pleasant to say that it is another person’s fault, though it simply isn’t. Many men are angry because their wives will not follow. In reality they are mad at themselves for not taking a stand and leading. Living in such a way—“I am mad at myself, but I will say I am mad at you and blame you”–yields any solution for happiness to the hand of another. That will double the anger, but remember, you gave the person this power over you.

No one can be born again by the will of the flesh, insidious in its ability to take the eyes off of Jesus.

Job 34:15, “All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust.” John 1:13, “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
No one will be born of the will of the flesh. It is impossible. For in the flesh are the senses of man that constantly need feeding. One may think of them as instinct gone amuck. Senses in the body are given attention either by pain or reward, feeding or starving, or consciously avoiding or obsessing on. Either way it is in being activated that they are kept alive and in charge. The greater truth is that the senses want to be activated; the lesser truth is how they are activated, which is by eating from the tree of good and evil. The desire for food (wish fulfillment or fantasy) will keep senses alive just as much as condemnation from eating too much. Look at the anorexic or observe the obese, and both scream “flesh in control.” An overwhelming desire for sex or the condemnation of looking at porno both scream that the flesh has regained control. Thinking of oneself as intelligent or stupid are both still flesh. Again, flesh is simply the senses in control. The east denies the flesh in an attempt to appease it and the west feeds it in an attempt to appease it. Of course, the west doesn’t have a choice in that nothing is enough to satisfy it, nor does the east really choose, since there is ultimately no way to withhold from the flesh. Nevertheless, the flesh is flesh and is hostile to God. Now, why does flesh desire to be in control? It is because flesh desires man to be flesh-centered. If man becomes Christ-centered, the senses of flesh would not be fed but would be sublimated to Christ. The flesh can never be more than a slave, and a rebellious one at that, for by the works of the flesh will no flesh be justified. No one can be born again by the will of the flesh, insidious in its ability to take the eyes off of Jesus. The flesh constantly screams for attention and has a thousand methods at its disposal to get it. Believers and non-believers alike have flesh. The saddest thing is to witness someone who has abandoned his will to flesh. Like a tick, flesh will feed until it explodes and destroys itself. I meet many Christians that struggle with the sin of homosexuality but are not homosexual, and if you were to meet them, you would never guess what their particular deed of the flesh is. However, meet someone who has, by choice, yielded to that area of the flesh, and it is evident in his or her body. Just a few minutes with that person reveal to what they have yielded their flesh. Now, why would God put us in flesh? I am not talking about a physical body, but the desires of the senses that reside in the physical body. Well, it has been said that the greatness of a man is not determined by what he does but rather by what he refuses to do. The man who feeds his flesh through adventure and the procession of praise for victory or the mockery for defeat is not as great a man as he who says, “Not my will but Thy will be done.” Having flesh and its senses allows man the unique opportunity of choice, of living on the earth but not being of the earth, of living to God and not to senses, and the discovery of something higher in this life, spiritual fulfillment. Flesh, or rather the call of the senses to stay alive, is a constant reminder that we must move our eyes to Jesus. It is another stronghold allowing us to stay focused. If God is for us, then who can be against us? Again, the flesh is never a friend; you may buffet it and make it a slave, but it will never be a friend. The flesh is a strange thing in that it cannot live on its own but must live on something that is living. It adapts to resemble the thing on which it lives, but it isn’t really a living thing. When man dies, the fleshly condition of the man dies. It is weird.

“One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

Mark 10: 21, Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” I recently received an indoctrination concerning saving and financial responsibility. Well, amen, many have been stupid with their credit cards. Some have, in reality, stolen money through poor management. There is no question that they need to rein in their spending habits. However, reining in probably isn’t the root issue. More often than not I find that those with high debt are attempting to meet a need through the physical world. Some feel empowered with what they can purchase. Others have a false sense of control. Still others have been so hurt by relationships that they find more security in things. And there are those just meeting an obsession or compulsion. Having said that, when does the teaching of financial responsibility merely become a mask for carnal living? When does it cross the line and cause an obsession with money and security and even create unbelief? As I look at the books written on this topic, I generally find authors who are more obsessed with money than with Jesus; their security actually appears to be in money. I wonder what these authors would do if Jesus approached them and said, “One thing you lack; go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” The man talking to me had taken financial responsibility too far. It was time that the Master reined him in. At any point He may, in a like manner, rein us in.

Why are Christians in so much defeat? Don’t think I’m a heretic; just let me say it through to the end.

Christianity as a religion has failed. Christianity as a moral system has failed. The Bible as a source of power has failed. Truth is not only preached; it is demonstrated. Christian seminaries have failed and could be sued for false advertising; they have not created leaders or spiritual men. Christianity as a teaching is the best option; it has a better book and higher standards.

But what does that mean? Visit churches at the level at which I see them, and you will find that covert, self-righteous deeds of the flesh and covert, unrighteous deeds of the flesh abound. Very little can be found of loving an enemy, allowing another to wound, or blessing those that curse. Some of the rudest people I have met are Bible professors who know so very much.

We must admit it has failed. We have the same rate of divorce as the unbelieving world. Why? Because Christianity has schools, but it is not a school; it has a book, but it is not a book; it has a philosophy of living, but it is not a philosophy; and it has doctrines, but it is not a doctrine.

Christianity is Christ. Period. It was never meant to be another religion; it was always about a relationship with Christ.

The legalists–those who have attained their own form of righteousness–would like to rip two passages from the Bible, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that bear witness of Me” (John 5:39), and “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27.)

Man is made for Jesus to be connected to the Vine, not to imitate, but to participate. I’m not a heretic, but I can’t believe how much trouble I get into saying that Jesus is all we need.