Category: John

Posted in Hebrews, John, Romans

The Purpose of Pruning

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2

When we lived in Montevideo, MN we had some friends that decided they were going to surprise us while we were away at a conference by working on our yard. Included in their work was the pruning of our front bushes. When I first saw them I was shocked. Our once large, robust bushes looked like they were little, puny twigs stuck in the ground that were about to die. Fortunately one of the women saw my concern and assured me that this was actually a good thing, and that the pruning process was important for the bush. I took her word for it, but still thought that anyone passing by in the near future would be very unimpressed with our bushes.

Jesus said that if we please God by bearing fruit, God will prune us back, so that we will eventually bear more fruit. God always sees things from His eternal perspective. He sees our pain, but He still does what is best for the long term with, what seems to us, little regard for our short term comfort. As human beings we usually consider short term comfort before long term benefit, and can easily be offended that God doesn’t see it our way. “If God truly loved people then He would…” Our own ideas of what God’s love should look like can easily rob us of faith.

God’s end is to transform us into the image of His glorious Son. (Romans 8:29) He is firm in His purpose, so our lives will be a lot easier if we agree with His plan and try to work with it instead of resisting it. Hebrews 12:5 gives the two wrong responses to the pruning process called the Lord’s discipline:

  1. Don’t take it lightly – embrace God’s dealings with you and respond quickly. Blowing off conviction will only lead to God bringing the correction at a later time and usually in a bigger way. 
  2.  Don’t become discouraged – when life is hard we often conclude that God is angry with us or is somehow not pleased. Don’t jump to conclusions! Check your conscience, and if everything is clear then just trust that the God who delights in you is doing a little pruning so that your long term joy will be maximized. 

Part of God’s plan is that we supply comfort to each other while they are being pruned. Let’s be sensitive, gentle, and loving to people who are going through difficulties knowing full well that we may need comfort from them tomorrow.

Posted in Galatians, John, Matthew

The Root of all Fruit

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

The problem with this passage is that God allows people to do a lot apart from Him. People are busy everywhere promoting themselves and their ambitions, building their little mini-kingdoms, and constructing towers that reach to heaven just like Babylon of old. And God allows it all, for a time. When Jesus says, “…apart from Me you can do nothing,” He means nothing that is born of God, nothing that is beautiful, and nothing that will last. The fruit He would give those who allowed His life to live through them, He promised, would remain, not just through time, but for all eternity. (John 15:16)

The root of this fruit is a humility which agrees with God that we can do nothing truly good apart from Him. Without this agreement our Christianity amounts to sincere people trying to look like Jesus by their own commitment and constantly failing, instead of fully surrendered lives which allow Christ to live His powerful life through them. The gospel doesn’t just call us to do good, it shows us the way. We must die to our old selfish nature, not dress it up with the appearance of good, and then we must allow Christ to live through us by the new nature He has given us. Paul, one of the most fruitful Christians who ever lived, said it this way: “I am crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Jesus gave in the first beatitude the secret to all the other ones, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:1) When we agree that we have no righteousness of our own, we are able to embrace His. When we embrace our poverty apart from Him, all of heaven’s resources become ours. Four times in the gospels Jesus says the words, “whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Benjamin Franklin, a deist who never embraced Christianity, sought with all his power to master the virtues. He claimed that after many years of seeking perfection there was only one virtue that escaped him: humility. The difficulty was that whenever he did a good job being humble he found he was proud about it. The pride in a human heart can only be conquered by the Savior.

Posted in John

The Seriousness of Sin

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“’Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.’” John 8:10-11

Yesterday we looked at how the power to overcome sin is in hearing deeply in our hearts the truth of the cross, “I do not condemn you.” Today I want to look at the phrase after forgiveness has been secured, “From now on sin no more.”

Sin is not a popular topic in America today. We like to do our own thing, in our own way, and in our own timing without any interference from God. God is fine when we need help, but He had better not encroach on our “freedoms.” Hollywood has relentlessly told our culture that there is no sin in immorality and this message has taken a firm hold. Think for a moment of the price America has paid for neglecting God’s law in this one area.

If we had obeyed God’s boundaries instead of our passions there would have been no abortions (or the guilt and shame that go with them), no venereal diseases, no aids, no pornography industry, no rapes, no molestations, few divorces, few single parent homes, and no need for all the government programs that try to meet all of these needs. There would also be much less heartbreak as well as less depression and despair that often accompany a sexual relationship that has gone bad.

But before we blame America, let’s look at the church. The church has seemingly little power to “sin no more” according to all of George Barna’s research on church morality. As long as we’re acting just like the world, how can the world be expected to repent and turn to Jesus?

What is the gospel’s position on sin? Is it, “Go, and keep on sinning because I’ve died for you?” or “Go, for there is no such thing as sin anymore?” or “Go, sin’s not a big deal now that I have died for you?”

Jesus said, “Go. From now on sin no more.” He came to wash us of sin and the shame and guilt that accompany it, but He now expects us to be pursuing a lifestyle that is at least seeking to be free from sin. He forgives us again when we are seriously trying but fall because of weakness and immaturity, but that is different from a flippant attitude that presumes on God’s grace.

Let’s purpose to hear in our hearts His words of grace, “I do not condemn you,” and go from that place empowered to live for Jesus free from sin’s grip.

Posted in 1John, John

Free from Condemnation

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“’Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said, ‘I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.’” John 8:10-11

Today I want to write about the first part of what Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either.” Tomorrow we will look at the second phrase, “From now on sin no more.”

The Pharisees witnessed an outward act of sin and were ready to stone this woman who they roughly threw before Jesus. Jesus looked at her and saw not just the act of sin but everything behind the act: the fear, the previous abuse at the hands of men, the financial need, the guilt and shame… whatever it was that brought this precious creation of God to this horrible place of darkness. This is why Jesus warns us about judging people.  We simply don’t know all of what is going on in a person’s heart or the circumstances that are behind their present behavior. When Jesus saw her, He saw the reason that He had come. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (John 3:17)

Jesus loves you and me. When He comes to our darkness it is not to punish or condemn us, but to call us into the salvation He has provided. When condemnation rests on our spirit we feel shame and guilt that only serve to keep us doing the things that brought the shame and guilt in the first place. If you think God is only saying in a stern voice, “Sin no more,” you won’t be able to stay free because the power of freedom is in knowing that He has freed us from condemnation.

Jesus gives the truth that frees us from the slavery of sin later in this same chapter: “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:35-36) The slave’s place in the house is only secured by performance and so the slave lives driven by the fear of not being good enough. The way Jesus frees us is by making us children that know they have a permanent place. The key is first believing that we really are children, dearly loved by the Father (1John 3:1-3), and then living out of that identity. This is easy to agree with in our heads, but it’s only when it is real in our hearts that we find the power to “sin no more.”

Posted in John

The Key To Fruitfulness – Part Two

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” John 12:23-25

Yesterday we discussed the uncomfortable truth that the only way to real fruit in our lives is through death to self and covered dying to our plans and our property. Today I want to look at dying to our power and our popularity.

When Jesus tells His disciples that they will all forsake Him, Peter insists that he is willing to die even if the others fall away. Jesus then informs Peter that he will actually fall farther than all the others by denying Him three times before the cock crows.

After the resurrection, we can only imagine how ready they were to prove their faithfulness, but Jesus doesn’t allow them to minister until they’ve received power to be witnesses. The word witness in Greek is “martyras,” which is where we get our word martyr from, and it means to give witness by life or death. It was only after they received the Holy Spirit that they would have the power to stay loyal to Jesus even to the point of death. We’re not all called to be martyrs, but we are all called to die to our own ability to live the Christian life and embrace the power of the Holy Spirit.

The last important thing for us to die to is our desire to be liked. When the crowds following John the Baptist started to diminish, his disciples became concerned and brought this to his attention. His response: “I am the friend of the Bridegroom and my delight is to hear His voice. He must increase and I must decrease.” (John 3:29-30)

The best man is not trying to get the bride to like him. He’s been chosen by the groom and his desire is to serve him well. He wants the bride to love the bridegroom and recognizes that it doesn’t matter if the bride isn’t drawn to the best man – she’s not marrying him!

To be inordinately caught up with people liking us is to be flirting with the bride of Christ which is a serious betrayal of the Bridegroom. 2Corinthians 4:5 says, “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.” We’re trying to make Jesus famous, not ourselves. Any other attitude will hinder fruitfulness.

Posted in John, Proverbs

The Key To Fruitfulness – Part One

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” John 12:23-25

Jesus speaks first about the necessity of His own death but then He alludes to the necessity of ours. If Jesus chooses to preserve His life, He can’t save us.  If we choose to live protecting ourselves, we can’t bear fruit as Christians. What does death to self look like?

First, we must die to our plans. Proverbs 16:9 says: “Many are the plans of a man’s heart, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.” We are not discouraged from making plans, but only from clinging to them. Make a plan, give it to God, and then plan on the original plan changing to conform to God’s purpose. If our identity is in our plan, we will find ourselves continually disappointed and disillusioned when they don’t work out exactly how we thought.

We began a Sunday night service several years ago because we were having to turn people away from overcrowded nurseries in the morning services. Our plan didn’t work because we couldn’t get families to change to Sunday night, so we ended up solving the Sunday morning problem in another way. But in the process, we recognized God had a different purpose for Sunday nights. It has become the service of choice for many who want more and appreciate the culture of waiting on God at the altar since no one has to pick up their kids. 

A second area we need to die to is our property or wealth. Jesus answered the rich young ruler’s question about eternal life by telling him to sell everything and give to the poor, and to then, follow Him. He went away sad because he owned much property (one translation: “had great wealth”). The Lord impressed on my wife during a retreat we took, that her great wealth was her children and their unmet needs were what was making her sad. Jesus invited her to really let go of her “great wealth” by giving her children completely to Him, so she could follow Him without sadness anymore.

What’s your great wealth? What’s holding you back from complete abandonment to God? The reason why God pries things out of our hands is so that we will be open to receive all He has for us. He is not against us owning property, but He insists that our property doesn’t own us!

Posted in Genesis, John

Foreshadows

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Genesis 22:2

Genesis promises redemption both by what God says to Abraham, “in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed,” (Genesis 12:3) and by events that foreshadow His bigger plan.

First, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham which means, “Father of many nations.” Abraham foreshadows what the Father in heaven will do when He takes His Son, His only Son, and sacrifices Him for our salvation.

Isaac foreshadows Jesus, the only beloved Son of God. He goes up a mountain in the region of Moriah (Calvary is one of the mounts in this region) with wood on his back placed there by his father. (Genesis 22:6) When he asks, “Where is the lamb for sacrifice,” Abraham responds, “God Himself will provide the lamb.” (Genesis 22:7-8) When Abraham lifts the knife to kill his son, an angel stops him, and Abraham then sees a male lamb in a thicket caught by its horns. As that lamb was sacrificed, I can almost see tears in the eyes of the heavenly Father who knows His Son will be the Lamb He provides for the sins of the world.

After this powerful foreshadowing of Calvary, Abraham sends his servant back to his relatives in Haran to get a bride for his son. This unnamed servant represents the Holy Spirit who will be sent back to earth to prepare a bride for the Son of God. The servant brings a small sampling of wealth in his invitation to Rebekah, explaining that his abundantly wealthy master has left everything to his son. (Genesis 25:36) Jesus says, “All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is Mine and make it known to you.” (John 16:15)

Rebekah foreshadows us. The servant asked Abraham, “What if the woman will not come back with me?” Abraham said, “if she refuses, you will be released from my oath.” (Genesis 25:41) The Holy Spirit has authority to invite but not to force. When the servant explains that the invitation is urgent and that he will leave the next morning with or without her, her family asks Rebekah, “Will you go with this man?” (Genesis 25:58) Rebekah then leaves all security she has in her circumstances and goes with this servant on a journey that will end in her being the bride of the father’s only son. Amazingly, nothing less than this happens when we genuinely answer the Spirit’s call today.

Posted in 1Timothy, Hebrews, Job, John

The Mediator

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him, that we might confront each other in court. If only there were someone to mediate between us, someone to bring us together, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot.” Job 9:32-35

The longing of Job was for a mediator. Someone who could stand in the gap between him and God. Someone who could remove God’s judgment and then place one hand on God and one on him to bring them together. This longing, which is also the need of all human beings, was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Jesus was God, the eternal Son. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1; 14) Jesus was and is fully God. When the Jews asked Him if He had seen Abraham, He replied, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58) This is a clear reference to God’s Name in the Old Testament.

But Jesus was also a man. Hebrews 5:9 says that Jesus was “made perfect.” How could God be anything less than perfect? He was always perfect as God, but to become the perfect mediator He had to become a human being. “Once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be high priest.” (Hebrews 5:9) As our priest He offered the perfect sacrifice for sins, Himself. He needed to be God because He had to take the place of the whole human race; and He had to be man because it was man who had sinned. This sacrifice removed God’s wrath from all humanity and transformed God’s throne into a place of grace instead of judgment. “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Jesus Christ – fully God and fully man. We don’t have to understand the mystery of who He is to believe and worship. “There is one God and one mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus.” (1Timothy 2:5)

Posted in John, Mark, Philippians

Embracing the Cross

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.” Mark 8:34-35

Sometimes people refer to their difficulties as, “their cross to bear”, and assume that they’re bearing it just by going through the trouble. But the cross, to be a cross like our Lord’s, is something you must take up and bear of your own free will. Jesus said about His life, “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative.” (John 10:18)

You and I don’t choose the trouble that comes to us in various forms, but we do choose how we will deal with it. When we grumble, complain, blame, and get frustrated, angry, or depressed it’s evidence that we are still very much on the throne of our lives.  God’s inviting us to embrace suffering like Jesus did, knowing that this identification will lead to knowing Him more intimately, and result in a deeper faith in us. (See Philippians 3:10)

Francois de Fenelon, one of the great spiritual leaders of the 17th century, gave this wisdom to a struggling disciple:

“I am sorry to hear of your troubles, but I am sure you realize that you must carry the cross with Christ in this life. Soon enough there will come a time when you will no longer suffer. You will reign with God and He will wipe away your tears with His own hand. In His presence, pain and sighing will forever flee away.

So while you have the opportunity to experience difficult trials, do not lose the slightest opportunity to embrace the cross. Learn to suffer in humility and in peace. Your deep self-love makes the cross too heavy to bear. Learn to suffer with simplicity and a heart full of love. If you do you will not only be happy in spite of the cross, but because of it. Love is pleased to suffer for the Well-Beloved. The cross which conforms you into His image is a consoling bond of love between you and Him.” (100 Days in the Secret Place; page 21)

Posted in 1Corinthians, John, Luke, Mark, Psalms

An Intimate Appearance

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him just as He told you.’” Mark 16:7

Jesus told His disciples at the last supper that He would meet them in Galilee after His resurrection. The angel is repeating what he overheard Jesus Himself say to them at this last meeting, but he has also witnessed the devastation of Peter. His instructions from heaven evidently include this special reference to the fallen leader who has denied Christ three times after promising to die for Him: “…tell the disciples and Peter.”

Jesus, Himself, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, not in Galilee, but in Jerusalem on the day He was resurrected. This appearance was unpromised and unexpected. He also appeared the same day to two men on the road to Emmaus. And then, that same night, as the two of them were retelling their story, He appeared to all of them (except Thomas), and the details of this visit are given to us in Scripture as well. (See Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20)

But there is one appearance that happened where we are given no details. Jesus appeared personally, on resurrection day, to Peter. Two different New Testament authors reference this appearance, but give us no specifics. In Luke 24:34, while the men who saw Jesus on the road to Emmaus were telling their story, the disciples respond by saying: “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon (Peter).” In 1Corinthians 15, Paul is referencing all the resurrection appearances to men, and says: “I passed on to you…that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, and then to the others…” (1Corinthians 15:4-5)

Why aren’t we told of this interaction with Peter? What did Jesus say to him? What did Peter say? Maybe there are some interactions with the Lord that are so intimate they aren’t for others to hear about.

Here’s what we know for sure: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) He loved Peter so much that He singled him out on the most important day in history. He took time to come close and restore one who was being crushed by his own sin and failure. Isn’t He amazing?