Category: John

Posted in John, Matthew

Shutting the Door

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“When you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:6

Think about the words “shut your door.” Are we too available to this world and to the people of this world? Are we so connected that we struggle to shut the door on human contact to make ourselves fully available for fellowship with God? Bob Sorge says: “God’s not disappointed in you when you fail to spend time with Him alone; He’s disappointed for you.” He has so much to give us in the secret place. We lose our fear of man, we hear His whispers, He changes our desires, He adjusts our perspectives, He removes our weights, and of course, He hears our prayers.

Sometimes people do get alone with God and find their time disappointing because they don’t feel they really make a connection. Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:23) If you are a believer the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit and that is where God wants to meet you. Sometimes we close the physical door but we have trouble closing the door of our souls (mind, will, and emotions) so that we can really commune with God in our spirits.

Our emotions, anxieties, and continual thinking can keep us from true communion. Shut the door! Ask the Holy Spirit to help you and become comfortable with the fact that God lives in you. The challenge is to live from our spirits, so that the presence of God and the word of God dominate our souls instead of our carnal nature. When we take time to shut the door to have alone time with God it gets much easier to shut the door of our souls during the day when we need to drink from the Spirit.

The cool thing about disconnecting from this world and its relationships is how much more we will have to bring to them when we reconnect.

Posted in 1John, John

A World at Spiritual War

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“I have given them Your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.” John 17:14

When Morpheus offers Neo the choice of two pills in The Matrix he explains that the blue pill will put him back in his bed and back under the deception the world lives under. The red pill will give him the truth and a life of discomfort because he will see “how deep the rabbit hole is in Wonderland.” Neo said earlier that he sensed deep within himself that something was wrong with the world, but the reality of how bad it is will be shocking to him.

When John says that “…the whole world lies in the power of the evil one,” (1John 5:19) he is only expounding on the worldview of Jesus. There is something deeply wrong in the world around us beyond what the eyes can see. The spirit of the world, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life,” (1John 2:15) is being breathed on by spiritual darkness that is in opposition to God and His rule. Human beings have been born into this conflict and every one of us has to choose each day whether we will pretend all is well, or to embrace the truth. If Neo chooses the blue pill, Morpheus tells him he will find himself back in the comfort of his bed and then he can “believe whatever he wants to believe.” A lot of that is going on today, even in Christian circles.

It becomes us to embrace the worldview of Jesus so that we will live wisely in this present age, and be a light to those in darkness. The only way those under the world’s spirit will be able to see Jesus is if we look different than them yet continue to love them. This is the challenge in a world at spiritual war.

Posted in John

Free Indeed

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Jesus therefore was saying to those Jews who had believed in Him, ‘If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’” John 8:31-32

All that believe in Jesus are promised forgiveness, but only disciples are promised freedom. “I thought all believers were disciples?” Apparently not, because Jesus said to believers that they would only be disciples if they abided or continued in His word. Just because someone believes in Jesus doesn’t mean they have disciplined their lives to learn and live out of His truth.

What is the truth that will make us free? Jesus first talks about the slavery of sin and then gives the plan for freedom: “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:35-36) A slave is only secure while he performs – his master uses him to get work done but makes no long term commitment. A son, on the other hand, is loved just because he was born. He is born into favor and has nothing to prove.

Jesus frees us by making us the very children of God. Knowing this in our heads may be the beginning of freedom, but it’s when we continue in this truth until the Father fills our hearts with it that we experience the “free indeed.” Are you living your Christianity from the privileged position of favored child, or are you still struggling to perform well enough to be accepted? Let’s persevere in the truth of our favored position until our hearts fully catch it and we become free indeed.

Posted in 2Corinthians, Hebrews, John

Honoring the Son 

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” John 5:22-24

Honor means to give esteem, respect, and to place a high value on someone. Do you honor the Son? Does your life bring honor to His Name? To truly honor Jesus we must honor His position as our Judge, honor His word as the final authority in our lives, and honor His work as the only way to eternal life.

All judgment has been given to the Son. This means that at the end of our lives only One opinion of our thoughts, words, and deeds will matter, and that is the Son’s. Paul defines living in view of Christ’s judgment of our lives as the fear of the Lord: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord…” (2Corinthians 5:10-11) We honor Him by acknowledging His right to judge us.

In our text Jesus talks about the importance of hearing and believing His word. In fact, in John 12:48 He says that He won’t personally judge us but will only judge us by the word He has spoken. He has made His sayings known to the human race through the Bible. We cannot honor the Son without honoring His word.

The One who sent Jesus, the Father, sent Him to die on the cross so that those who believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) In fact, the reason the Father gave the Son the right to judge the human race was that He became a Son of man. (John 5:27) He is the only One worthy to open the scroll which brings the final day of the Lord because He was the Lamb who was slain. (Revelation 5:9) We honor His work on the cross when we put our trust in Christ for our salvation and trust Him for every need we have in this life. Because of His work, Hebrews 4:16 says we can come with confidence to a throne of grace whenever we have something we need help with. We aren’t bothering God when we ask, we’re actually honoring Christ’s work.