Sail Plane Glider Parable
Posted by clint
In service today an unusual parable poured from the lips of Brother Freedom related to the sport of sail planes and gliding.
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Brother Freedom was speaking about the correct way in which the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to work. Suddenly Freedom started talking about gliders, a subject in which he has seldom ever mentioned. The Holy Spirit was upon him and later he was surprised to hear details of what he had said.
He said something to the effect of…, “The Church is like the sport of gliding in a sail plane. You know an airplane with a propeller has to pull a glider up into the air to launch it into flight. That towing plane is like the pastor in the church. That is the pastor’s job. Pastors are to get us airborne in the things of God.”
The glider represents a Christian growing in God. The pastor tows that believer up into the air of spiritual life. But then a glider towing plane should pull the glider to a point that is near to a “thermal.”
A thermal is a specific and rather small geographic location where hot air is rising in a swirling vortex. That vortex is invisible to the naked eye. Nevertheless if the glider can enter a thermal the glider can rise to amazing heights in the power of that thermal. The glider circles around and around in that thermal climbing ever higher. Eagles, hawks and buzzards use thermals to circle to great heights without having to flap their wings.
For the Christian that thermal is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is spiritually invisible to the world. Most pastors and most churches have totally missed the fact that they do not have the power to lift and keep a believer at the height that is pleasing to God. All a pastor, Sunday School teacher or discipler can do is lead a new believer toward the Holy Spirit [Holy Ghost]. They are to do this like a tow plane pulling a glider.
God wants to do the lions share of teaching, grooming and growing of a believer. Pastors have stepped way out of bounds when they have tried to be the main teacher. They keep a tow line on their church members. Pastors are only a towing aircraft and they must turn loose of the believer, weaning the believer from the tow plane, to God Almighty, the Holy Ghost. This is what the Baptism in the Holy Ghost is all about!
That is why Saint John was inspired to write:
“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in HIM.” [1st John 2:27]
Once a believer is fully anointed and filled with the Holy Ghost, with that Pentecostal Baptism, then they enter the school of the Holy Spirit. There in that school God HIMSELF takes over and takes the believer far, far above where any earthly teacher can take them. I believe the world altitude record for a glider in a thermal is over 46,000 feet! Tow planes don’t get that high!
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