Category: Old Testament

Posted in 2Corinthians, Ephesians, Isaiah, John, Matthew, Proverbs, Psalms

The Secret of the Lord

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant.” Psalm 25:14

The margin of my Bible has “intimacy” as an alternate translation of “secret.” I believe that  a certain measure of the fear of the Lord is necessary for anyone to come to Christ. Proverbs says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10) A revelation of God’s love for us in our weakness and immaturity is necessary to grow us up in our faith. (Ephesians 3:17-19) But I think to walk close to God’s Presence another level of the fear of the Lord is required. 

It says in Isaiah 11:3 that Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord. He experienced the secret promised by Psalm 25:14, enjoying the continual intimate friendship of His Father. He didn’t fear man, He didn’t fear death, He didn’t fear storms, He didn’t fear lack of supplies – He only feared God and cared only about obeying what the Father was saying. (John 5:19)

Maybe the idea of the fear of the Lord seems heavy to you. I think it was just the opposite for Jesus which was why He was able to say, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30) He only had to please the Father to be a complete success. Paul said something similar to this: “Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent (from the body), to be pleasing to Him. 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 5:9-11a)  

Only one ambition! What a simple life, what an easy yoke, what a light burden. May God pour out the Spirit of the fear of the Lord on each of us and make it our delight for His glory.

Posted in Hebrews, Psalms

Delighting in God

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Delight yourself in the Lord…” Psalm 37:4

A few years ago I had a life changing experience while preparing for church early one Sunday morning. The text on this particular morning was from Hebrews 12: “…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…” and I was praying through the message and planning the altar call.

I was going to tell a story about a father who was coaching his kindergarten son on how to win the “all class race” which was taking place that day. His son was very fast, but also easily distracted, and the dad knew it didn’t matter how fast he was.  If he didn’t run straight, he wouldn’t win. So he made a strategy: “Son, when the race starts I will be directly across from you at the finish line. Don’t worry about who is running next to you, or bother watching your own progress; just focus on me, and run straight into my arms.”

The question I was going to ask our people was: “What’s at the end of your race?” What are you really living for? Is it money? Pleasing people? Your retirement? etc… As I was thinking how powerful this was going to be, a question jumped into my mind which I knew was from the Lord. “What’s at the end of your race?” I knew instantly it wasn’t what I thought it was.

The answer came quickly as well as the consequences of my wrong priorities. “Jesus” was not at my finish line; it was something subtly different called, “Influence for Jesus.” It was plain to me that I had become a worker for God, before I was a lover of God, and equally clear what the costs were of my wrong priorities:

  1. I wasn’t delighting in God, because my reward was no longer Him, but in  how many people I was influencing for Him. 
  2. I had lost my delight in people. I could no longer enjoy people because I always needed them to do something. People were becoming projects that I had to work on instead of people that I could just enjoy. 

The final sentence I heard whispered in my spirit was this: “I’m calling you to be My bride, not My PR man.” 

A bride represents the Bridegroom in a different way than a promoter does. She knows Him intimately, and has even taken on some of His fragrance. Yes, she can answer all the basic questions, but that is not her joy. Her joy is to be with Him, and her influence is spontaneous, not forced. This is what Jesus wants from us.

Posted in Colossians, Ecclesiastes, Revelation

Bored

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“All things are wearisome… That which has been done is that which will be done. So, there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one might say, ‘See this, it is new?’” Ecclesiastes 1:8-10

King Solomon was in the same state that many Americans are in today. He was bored. He had money, position, and time to do everything and anything he wanted, so he tried it all and still found himself bored. He sought after pleasure through laughter, alcohol, and sex.  He sought satisfaction through work, education and the accumulation of wealth. (See Ecclesiastes 2) After all his pursuits he said, “All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them…. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)

Under the sun. That’s the key. If all you live for is that which is under the sun, your life will be mediocre at best. You may have an existence, but you won’t really live. You may accumulate a lot of stuff, and have lots of toys, but eventually they will bore you. I don’t think many Americans are caught up in gambling today because they want to get rich. I think it’s because people are bored with life under the sun, and gambling gives them a little excitement.

There’s a better way. Seek for the One who is over the sun. Jesus said, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) When a person truly lives for God a new purpose guides their activities; a new excitement comes into even the mundane duties of life. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.” (Colossians 3:23-24)  All of a sudden housework becomes holy. You’re not just cleaning for your family, you’re cleaning for Jesus. Work becomes more challenging because you’re not just trying to please the boss, who only checks once in a while, you’re trying to please the real Boss, who is watching all the time. Life is exciting over the sun.

Are you bored? Stir yourself to seek the One who makes all things new.

Posted in Luke, Psalms

The Longing of God’s Heart

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” Luke 13:34

Parents and all those in authority are used to taking care of everyone else, so it’s often hard to allow someone else to take care of us, even God. Why were the Jews unwilling to allow God to intimately care for them as He longed to do? I think it was because it meant they would have to humble themselves and admit they were really just vulnerable little chicks who needed to be taken care of.

We pride ourselves in America on our ability to be independent. The books on success encourage us to tell ourselves we are strong and can do anything we set our mind to do. But the truth is that we are not strong in ourselves, and we aren’t mother hens who are able to take care of everyone else. We too, are only little chicks, who need to be gathered under the wings of God.

Isn’t it awesome that the all sufficient One has a longing at all? He has a longing we can meet by simply acknowledging we are not as important as we thought, we aren’t as smart as we appear, and we are not as invincible as we would want everyone else to believe. We are in fact, like little chicks who need to be gathered under the wings of our Savior to simply be held and protected by Him. Could there be a more intimate picture than a chick being hidden in the secret place of its mother’s wings? God longs to have you and I that close to Him.

I love this truth even though I easily forget it. I often pray something like this, “Lord, here I am, your little chick. Go ahead and meet the longing of Your heart by holding me. Go ahead and do what you’ve been waiting to do, pour out your grace upon me.” David prayed along these lines in Psalm 61:4: “I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.” Is it any wonder he is remembered as the man after God’s own heart, when His longing to dwell under God’s wing was matched by God’s longing to gather him to that place of intimate care?

Maybe you’ve been weary taking care of everyone else and today you need to let God take care of you. Why don’t you pray right now and ask Him.

Posted in Genesis

Walking with God

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Genesis 5:24

You were made to walk with God. Before the fall God would meet with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day to walk together in a place of intimacy. After they fell, He gave a promise and a picture of what He was going to do in Jesus Christ to restore the place of intimacy, but it doesn’t seem like anyone until Enoch really got a hold of what God was after. Enoch walked with God. It doesn’t say he did any great thing, or that he built any huge monument, or that he held any important position; the Bible just says that he walked with God. This is the heart of what God wants from me and you.

We owned a Siberian husky named Kayla who was very hard to walk with.  I’d get out of the house and be jerked forward because Kayla couldn’t wait to go as fast as possible, but was restrained by the leash that would practically choke her. To take the strain off, I would start to run with her and we’d go along for awhile like that until she found something interesting along the way and then stop, so suddenly it would cause another jerk on her neck as I ran past her because I couldn’t stop as fast as she did. I’d wait patiently for awhile and then have to pull hard, once again almost choking her, to get her to leave the thing she was enamored with. I just wanted her to walk by me, but that rarely happened.

I think this is a good picture of God and us. As young believers we are often filled with our own ideas and zeal so we run ahead of God. We get self-righteous because others aren’t doing as much as we are, or being as “holy” as we think we are, and the whole time the Lord is trying to pull us back to the place of intimacy where He is the center of attention, and not us. Or we get enamored by something along life’s way and we get stuck. It could be a sin, our work, sports, shopping, or even a hobby that so dominates our thoughts and attention that God is put aside.. The Lord begins by pulling gently and then has to tug harder, because we aren’t responding.

My favorite part of our walk was when we got in the country and Kayla could run free because there was no danger. I loved to see her run uninhibited and then gladly run to me when I called her. This is the freedom God wants for each of us. 

The Lord doesn’t want to have to continually discipline us to keep us safe; He wants us to draw near willingly and learn to simply walk with Him.

Posted in Genesis

Intimacy with God

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” Genesis 3:7-9

You and I were created for intimacy with God. After the fall God came to the garden to walk with Adam and Eve and they were hiding from His presence. That walking with Him was a habit is evident by the reason they were hiding: “They heard the sound of the Lord walking…” How did they know it was the Lord and not an animal or the wind? I think it was the time of day He regularly came, and He never missed this appointment. You’d think that their sin would have caused the Lord to stay away, but He came as He always did as if to say, “I haven’t left the place of intimacy, you have.”

He asked, “Where are you?” not to get information, but to bring this first couple to a place of confession. This is the first question God asked in the Bible and I believe that He is still asking it today: “Where are you?” People today are hiding from God and from one another and it is leading to emptiness and depression because we were made for intimacy. Some of us hide in our work, others in bitterness, still others in alcohol, entertainment, or pornography, yet God is still asking, “where are you?”

Genesis 3:21 says, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” The killing of an innocent animal to make a skin is the first physical death in the Bible and it points to the need for a sacrifice to make atonement. Jesus was the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for the sins of the world. All that was required for Adam and Eve to have God clothe them was to take off the fig leaves they had sewn to hide themselves, and put on the skin God had made. Today God calls us to lay down whatever front we’re hiding behind whether it be pride, religious behavior, or our own self righteousness, and confess our faith in His sacrifice. He Himself then clothes us with the righteousness of Christ so that we can be forgiven and restored to His Presence. He’s still asking, “where are you?” today because He still longs to walk with each of us in the place of restored intimacy.

Posted in Psalms

Seeking His Face

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“My heart has heard You say, ‘seek My face.’  Your face, oh God, will I seek.”  Psalm 27:8

A few years ago I went to India to train pastors, but the Sunday before we began, I was asked to preach in a church that met in an orphanage.  Kids of all ages joined us and sat up front.

The message was about who God is, His face, verses what He can do for us, His hand.  My point was that the higher calling is to seek His face, and that sometimes God calls us, right in the midst of our needs, to seek His face.  This Psalm is written while David is being chased by Saul and has a whole army at the door.  He desperately needed God’s hand, but God spoke to his heart about seeking His face instead.

After I closed with a general prayer for those who wanted to say “yes” to God’s invitation, the pastor came up and encouraged people to be prayed for individually.  No one came for their needs but only for greater devotion to seek God’s face.

At some point while I was praying for people, I told the pastor to invite those who needed healing to come forward.  The first lady explained through an interpreter that she had horrible pain throughout her body.  I prayed a brief prayer, and she turned around to leave.  I called her back.  “Tell us how you’re feeling?” I asked.  She said, “I’m healed; the pain is gone.”  I said, “Do you mean you’re in less pain?”  She insisted, “No, I am completely healed!”

It was then I noticed something; my hands were burning.  I told the pastor to tell the people my hands were burning, and if they needed healing they should come right now.  I prayed for all ages for the next hour, and everyone I prayed for felt the pain immediately leave their bodies.  I prayed for the sick the rest of the time in India but never saw the power repeated that was present that Sunday morning.

I think God’s heart was touched by the devotion of these orphans.  If we would seek His face in the midst of our great needs, He wanted us to know, we would also have His generous hand!

Posted in Luke, Malachi

Confidence In God’s Provision

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full-pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” Luke 6:38

It was November of 2004 in Minnesota when I received the call no homeowner wants to get. It was from my wife.

“Tom, it’s raining in the house.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked.

“Here’s what it means,” she replied, “I’m in our bedroom watching water drip through the ceiling onto our bed.”

I quickly grasped the problem as fear took hold of my heart. This was not a broken pipe – there were no pipes in our attic – this could only be a leak in our roof. It had been raining for days and apparently enough had leaked into the attic so that it was now coming through the ceiling of our bedroom!

We were a single income family living on a pastor’s salary with one child in college and three other children still at home. There was no extra money, no “rainy day fund,” though this was what we literally needed at the time.

We received a bid for a newly shingled house (that included removing the old shingles) from a roofing guy at our church for $5,800. Patching was not an option and the work had to be done quickly because winter was coming, so I needed to make a choice.

I had a talk with God. I reminded Him that we were His and that everything we had belonged to Him, and therefore it was His roof that was leaking. I reminded Him that I was a faithful tither and beyond, and that He had promised to open up heaven and pour out resources in my time of need.  He said He would rebuke the devourer for my sake. (Malachi 3:10-11)  I told Him that I was going to accept this bid unless He showed me a different way, and that His reputation was at stake if I couldn’t pay the bill.

In my journal at the time I recorded six different sources of money that came unexpectedly into my hands in the two weeks that followed my prayer. The roof was fixed, the bill was paid, and God’s reputation was intact!

Posted in 2Corinthians, Daniel, Genesis, Hebrews, John, Matthew, Psalms

The Gifts of the Magi

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.” Matthew 2:11

As we think about Christmas let us reflect on the gifts given by the magi which speak to the Gift given by the Father to the human race. “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” (2Corinthians 9:15)

  1. Gold – The gift given to kings. The magi didn’t come to worship one who would become king; they came to worship Him who was born king. This caste of wise men from the east were likely in the order of Daniel with access to his prophecies. Daniel gave the time Messiah would appear (see Daniel 9:24-27) and alluded to His Divine nature as well as His universal rule. “One like a son of man…was given power; all the peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped Him.” (Daniel 7:13-14)
  2. Incense – The gift offered by priests. In the Old Covenant kings were from the tribe of Judah and the family of David; high priests came from the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. But God’s promised Messiah would be both king and priest as was an obscure person in the Old Testament named Melchizedek. (Genesis 14:18) David prophesied about this new order of priesthood that meant there would have to be a new covenant: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Psalm 110:4)
  3. Myrrh – The spice used for burial. Messiah would not only be the priest to offer sacrifice; He Himself would be the sacrifice. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) The shepherds who were called to witness the birth were rabbinic shepherds whose job it was to watch over the lambs that would be sacrificed in the temple. On Christmas, God called them to watch over the Lamb that would replace all other sacrifices. “Jesus sacrificed for our sins once for all when He offered Himself.” (Hebrews 7:27) Let’s remember the true wonder of Christmas is the One born for us.
Posted in Isaiah, John

The Christmas Light

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The people (Galilee of the Gentiles) who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them…For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on his shoulders; and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:2; 6

We didn’t get the best looking Christmas tree one year. It wasn’t exactly a Charlie Brown tree, but it was kind of unshapely and rough looking. Our solution was to put an extra string of lights on it to take attention away from the tree and put it on the lights. It worked! When we turned  it on at night it rivaled any tree we ever had.

Our tree is like the human race – we need light. Our text refers to those in Galilee who will see a great light. What is the light? It turns out it will be a child, a son, who will be given to us. Oh, and by the way, this child will be called God in the flesh (Mighty God).

While Isaiah looks forward to the coming Messiah, John looks backward and sees something very similar. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… In Him was life (zoe) and the life (zoe) was the light of men… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:1, 4; 14)

The Greek word for God’s kind of life is zoe. The zoe in Jesus was the light of men. In John 5:26 He says, “Just as the Father has life (zoe) in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life (zoe) in Himself.” Then Jesus goes on to say something amazing in John 10:10, “I came that they (us) may have life (zoe).”

Jesus came to light us up. We don’t look good or do much good when we’re walking in darkness. It’s time to forsake the darkness and turn on the great light that first appeared in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. It’s time to receive the light (John 1:12) and then learn how to live looking up, so the light can draw others who are trapped in darkness.

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60:1-3)