Mount Up With Wings As Eagles

Every characteristic of an eagle is exactly what you as a believer should be. I want to spend some time in that, because the more you learn about this bird the more you understand what God was saying about you.

What does Isaiah 40 promise?

Strength to the people who have run out of it.

Turn to Isaiah 40:28–31. "Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable."

Then look at who He aims it at. "He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength."

Not to the capable. To the weak. To those who have no might. If you came in here this morning with nothing left, this verse has your name in it more than it has the name of the person beside you who is doing fine.

Why mention that even the youth will faint?

Because Isaiah is closing off the exit we all reach for.

"Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall."

The young and the strong still run out. That is the point. If natural strength were enough, the strongest people among us would never collapse — and they do. Isaiah is removing the option of white-knuckling it so that you will accept the only strength that does not run out.

What does waiting on the Lord actually produce?

Renewal, and then height.

"But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles."

Understand what an eagle is doing when it mounts up. It is not beating its wings harder than every other bird. It finds what is already rising and it sets its wings into it. The lift is not coming from the eagle.

That is the whole difference between the Christian who is exhausted and the Christian who is soaring. Not more effort. Different source.

We need to get back to that — mount up with wings as eagles. Go home and study the eagle this week. The way of the eagle is exactly what a Christian should be.