Pastor Buddy’s Blog

Silver wings slowly fading out of sight…

Filed in General |

This morning I took the love of my life to the airport and watched as she headed for the silver wings that would begin her trip to Oklahoma.

Yep, this lady has been my true love for forty-five years. Truth of the matter is the first time I looked deeply into her blue eyes, I knew I was toast. Remains the same to this day — Every time I look into her eyes my heart does a silly jig.

My sweet lady is off to be with her mom for a couple of weeks. Mom Green is having an operation. The four sisters will share time with her. Of course I’ve been through this often before. Betty needs to have time with her family. And I’ve always admired those girls. Each one of them is a jewel.

Ok, here is a tribute to my lady. Silver Wings by Jewel and Merle Haggard…

Well, about the best I can do right now is offer a bit of Bible study.

Let’s call it…

The Imprinting of the Lord…

In this study we will look more closely at a spiritual phenomena that is unique to the Christian faith. It can be compared to ‘imprinting’ that takes place between children and their parents. It seems that even nature teaches us many lessons about our heavenly life.

Jesus spoke of the new covenant experience by the use of prophetic pictures. He said, “Out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) This is a picture of a believer who is deeply acquainted with the spiritual life of our covenant in Christ.

Peter adds to this by saying that we have been delivered from a futile way of life that belonged to our fathers, and that we now have life that is joyful, being inexpressible, and full of glory. (1 Peter 1:8,17-19)

Nature seems to carry pictures of the spiritual imprinting that takes place between the Lord and a person born from above. You see it in the bird kingdom. Imprinting is what causes the penguin chick, and the mother penguin to recognize one another, even in the midst of literally hundreds of thousands of birds chirping loudly, and covering the beaches like a huge blanket.

How does the mother penguin know her chick? How does the chick know which mother is the parent? The mother penguin knows even sooner than does the chick. And so it is with our heavenly Father. He knew us, and loved us long before we had a capacity to return our love to Him.

Among earthly creatures, such as the penguins, imprinting is an activity of sound & smell, along with other things. With the case of God’s heavenly children, imprinting is a work of the Holy Spirit. It is this process that causes believers to know and recognize the voice of Jesus. The Lord said, “I am the good Shepherd, and I know My own and my own know Me.” (John 10:14)

Think about the natural human family. Infants imprint with the mother soon after birth. And even to some extent with the father. What happens is that the infant begins to recognize the ’sounds’ of the mother, her smell, and various other stimuli.

If you’ll notice, the mother will adjust her voice to a special tone when speaking, or singing, or playing with the infant. Fathers do this also. This is nature. But the strongest stimuli is ‘the voice.’

Scientist tell us that if for some reason an infant does not bond or imprint at an early stage with someone, that child will actually enter adult life with psychological, and even physical problems. In fact, they will never be able to bond with other adults properly. (Of course, in Christ this all changes.) This lets us know how very crucial imprinting is to our human nature.

To bring this over into the new covenant realm, it seems the natural is a reflection of the spiritual. In fact, Paul even makes such a comparison. He says, “The spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 15:46)

Perhaps it would be well to say that all of nature carries a spiritual message. I can tell you that I have observed the imprinting process hundreds of times over the years.

Generally new believers begin to imprint quickly. This is especially true when their spiritual environment is conducive to them learning the voice of Jesus early on.

Is there any Bible for such a thing as imprinting in a spiritual sense? Perhaps there is. Paul wrote the Galatian Christians, and said, “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” (Galatians 4:19)

I don’t believe that Paul was speaking of them being born again, again. His concern was for their inability to know and recognize the things of the Lord in their lives. The Greek word for ‘formed’ is ‘morphoo.’ It literally means ‘to form the nature of.’ This statement can be translated, “Until you become like Christ was.” The idea carries over as a sense of imprinting.

Many of the Galatians believers were not yet familiar with the voice of Jesus. Because of this they were being pulled back and forth with bad teachings.

Paul said a similar thing to the Ephesian Christians. He said, “We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him.” (Ephesians 4:14)

It could be said that one cause of immaturity among believer is that they have yet to bond properly with the heavenly Father. They become restless and unbalanced. They are easily misled. A pastor’s greatest job is to help the flock bond with the Lord. (Not with him.)

I want to pick up a word in the Bible that carries a similar idea as bonding. Our English word ‘believe’ comes from the Greek ‘pisteuo’, which, means to bond, to adhere to, to cleave to. (We get our word glue from this word.)

If a young believer is not under the kind of teaching that will lead him to believe deeply in his salvation and in God’s love, he will manifest psychological problems. This believer can become fear driven. The first need of a child of God, is the need to know they are loved without conditions. This is set forth by the apostle John.

This is why Paul instructed us to be very careful with the weak. He said, “Accept the one who is weak in faith (keep imprinting in view), but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions.”

Paul concludes that we are to never put an obstacle or stumbling block in a brother’s way. We are to encourage and let each believer progress on the level where he is. What Paul said was, “To his own Master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” (Romans 14:4)

Did Jesus say anything about interfering with the bonding process of believers? I think so. He said, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

Doesn’t that sound just like a mama? “You touch my kids, you will have to deal with me.”

What is it we need to know? We need to know that in the new covenant we have the Holy Spirit to parent us into the processes of the covenant. It is God’s Spirit who imprints us to the Lord.

Just some things to think about.

Love in Christ,

Buddy