Category: Old Testament

Posted in Luke, Psalms

Seeing Jesus

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was happening; and he was greatly perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen again. Herod said, ‘I myself had John beheaded; but who is this man about whom I hear such things?’ And he kept trying to see Him.” Luke 9:7-9

Herod Antipas was a “somebody.” After his father died, he was made a tetrarch in Israel (tetrarch means one fourth) and given the region of Galilee to rule. Why couldn’t he see Jesus who was from his own region?

In the chapter before the text above, a woman with an issue of blood saw Him. While Herod was curious, she was desperate. She had no options left because she had spent her life savings on doctors and had only become worse. She told herself that if she could get to Jesus, she would be healed. She pressed through the crowds until she found Him and when she did, was immediately healed. It’s not the curious who see Jesus apparently, it’s the desperate.

Herod Anitpas wanted to see Jesus but he was a busy man, maybe there wasn’t ever a convenient time for the two of them to meet? Yet Jairus, a ruler in the synagogue, saw Him. His only daughter was at the point of death and he knew the only One on earth who could help was Jesus. All of a sudden, this official had only one thing on his schedule: seeing Jesus. Maybe that’s why he found Him and Herod didn’t? Maybe Jesus can’t be seen unless He’s our top priority?

When Herod finally does see Jesus, he puts him on trial and asks for a miracle to be done in front of him. (Luke 23:8) Jesus came to serve mankind, not perform for us. Human pride puts God on trial and demands Him to prove Himself so we will believe, but Jesus didn’t submit to Herod’s request. In fact, He wouldn’t speak to him at all. (Luke 23:9) “The proud He knows from afar, but He is close to the humble of heart.” (Psalm 138:6) If we want to see Jesus, we must humble ourselves like children and ask Him to reveal Himself in whatever way He desires. “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to children. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.” (Luke 10:21)

Posted in Isaiah, Judges

A Minivan With Wings

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“When Gideon came, behold, a man was relating a dream to his friend. And he said, ‘Behold, I had a dream, a loaf of barley bread was tumbling into the camp of Midian, and it came to the tent and struck it so that it fell and turned it upside down so the tent lay flat.’ His friend replied, ‘This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon… God has given Midian and all the camp into his hand.” Judges 7:13-14

Three hundred Israelites were facing an army of 135,000 Midianites (Judges 8:10) when God told Gideon to go to the enemy’s camp and hear what they were saying. The dream related in the text above encouraged Gideon and led to a mighty victory for Israel. What was it about this dream that instilled such confidence?

Think for a moment of the pressure that weighed upon these three hundred men. The army had started with 32,000, and God Himself had chosen only these three hundred to fight in the battle, a battle whose outcome would determine the future of all Israel. What if they blew it? What if they weren’t up to the high calling required of them?

Then this dream comes. A loaf of barley bread tumbling into the camp. God was going to use something very ordinary in a very haphazard way to accomplish His purpose. It wasn’t about them or their clever strategy; God was going to do something great through them, but in a way where He would get all the glory. They didn’t have to be great; they just had to be willing.

One day my wife, and I were invited to attend a Connect Group from our church and at the end of the night, the group prayed for us. While praying one of the young mom’s said God was giving her a vision of a minivan with wings. She said she didn’t know why it was a minivan, but prayed that God would give us wings like eagles to soar with Him. (Isaiah 40:31)

It was the word I needed to hear. I don’t think I can be a Cadillac or a limousine but I can be a minivan. If the plan is that God can only use super Christians then I’m disqualified, but if He can give a minivan wings, I’m all in! How about you?

Posted in Leviticus, Mark

The Healing Presence

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“‘If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” Mark 5:28-29

In the Old Covenant, the immediate presence of a holy God was something to be feared by sinful humanity. God warned people to not get too close and those who were called to draw near had to be very careful or they could die.

Yet in Christ, the presence of God became a healing presence. So much so that this woman disregards the ceremonial law which demanded she stay separate from all around her. (Leviticus 15:25-31) Anyone she touched became unclean according to God’s law, yet she instinctively knew that if she touched Jesus she would be healed instead of Him becoming unclean.

In the Savior, the Holy Spirit is a healing presence. In 1997 I did a workshop for our youth camp in Minnesota on the topic of the Holy Spirit. When I was finished speaking, I asked any who wanted a fresh touch of the Spirit to stand. Although I went around and touched the head of each student while praying for them, I wasn’t aware of anything special happening.

Three days later, we were in our final evening service and were giving testimonies of what God had done. A ninth grade student from Duluth pulled me into a private room off the sanctuary to tell me what happened to him. He said he was too shy to speak in front of everyone but thought someone should know.

A few years earlier he had fallen down some stairs and hurt his back, but because his mom was so poor he never asked to have a doctor look at it. He had just suffered in silence and learned to live with the pain. “I was the first person you prayed for on Monday,” he told me, “and when you touched my head something went through me that took away all my pain. I’ve tested it for three days and the pain hasn’t returned. God healed me.”

He was now crying, and so was I. He hadn’t asked for healing and I hadn’t prayed for healing. Jesus just wanted to heal him, and in a way that he would know for the rest of his life that God is real.

Posted in 1Samuel, Luke, Mark, Revelation

Hear, and be Healed

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“A great number of people from all over Judea came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, and the people all tried to touch Him, because power was coming from Him and healing them all.” Luke 6:17-19

Health care is a problem today. As we age there are more pains and blockages as well as the risk of external parts and internal organs wearing down and no longer functioning as they should. The medical community can help, and they do what they can, but for many things there is only a pill to treat symptoms and no real promise of healing.

Jesus is a healer. He can and does use doctors, but sometimes He acts apart from them, like in the text above. Two things grip me in this passage – one relates to humanity; the other to Divinity.

The people came to “hear Him and be healed.” There is a great tendency in our culture to want to be healed from God without listening to God. The idea that God might want to correct me is offensive in a culture which insists that any correction is being “judgmental.” God loves us and wants us to be healed but to Him the heart, the inner person, is more important than the body. When He sees us He looks through the outward appearance to what’s really going on inside. (1Samuel 16:7) He wants to speak to us. Jesus’ last recorded words are found in the book of Revelation where seven times He repeats the same phrase: “He who has ears let him hear what the Spirit says to the church.” (See Revelation 2 and 3)

The second thing about this text that amazes me is the Divine generosity. Divine power flowed from Jesus and it was “healing them all.” When Jesus is free to be who He is in our midst, healing power to restore and deliver is available to all. Oftentimes we restrict what He is able to do by our unbelief (Mark 6:5-6), or by our busy schedule which distracts us from ever stopping long enough to hear, or be healed.

Posted in 2Samuel, John

The Michal Spirit

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

‘How the king of Israel distinguished himself today! He uncovered himself today in the eyes of his servants’ maids as one of the foolish ones shamelessly uncovers himself!’ … “I will be more lightly esteemed than this and will be humble in my own eyes, but with the maids of whom you have spoken, with them I will be distinguished.’ Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.” 2Samuel 6:20; 22-23

It was a great moment for the kingdom of God. David had conferred with all the leaders and there was great unity in the decision to bring the ark of God back and to make a place for it in Jerusalem. There was celebrating, rejoicing, dancing, and great wonder in the people of God because something significant was happening in their day and they were privileged to be part of it.

Unfortunately one of the main members of the team, David’s own wife, Michal, couldn’t participate. Instead of being part of the celebration, she was sitting on the sidelines despising David and everything that was going on. Before we rush to judgment on Michal, I think we need to get in her shoes.

She was a king’s daughter. She knew how to do things the right way and she probably wasn’t even consulted. What she was seeing was not the way her Dad, the king, had done it, so her own experience and tradition were actually in the way of her accepting what God was doing.

I’ve been under the Michal spirit before and it is miserable. Here are a few signs that you may be under its influence:

  1. You don’t enjoy God anymore. 
  2. You find you can’t enjoy people because you’re so critical.
  3. You can’t enjoy church because of what’s wrong with the preaching, or the worship, or something else.
  4. You are spiritually barren. There’s no such thing as being dead and right in Christianity. However right you may think you are, when you’re dead, you’re not right. (John 5:39-40)

The good news is that if we will agree with God about our sins, He will forgive us, and can remove the barrenness the Michal spirit causes.

Posted in Isaiah, John

Doing the Works of Redemption

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4

The disciples were confronted with a man who had been born blind, so they wanted to seek a reason for this calamity. They asked Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents that he should be born blind?” Jesus replied that neither answer was right, “but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Jesus didn’t dwell on those things that sin and Satan have brought into this world. His view was that all situations can be turned around and become a showcase for God’s redemption. He wants us to gain the same viewpoint.

Notice that He doesn’t say “I” must do the work, but “we.” He was modeling for His disciples the kind of works they would be doing after He was gone. A few chapters later He makes the same point in an even clearer way: “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Jesus did two kinds of work while He was on planet earth: Isaiah 53 work and Isaiah 61 works. Isaiah 53:5 tells of the work He did on the cross for us: “He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.” This is finished work and it is work that only He could do. All we can do is receive that work and be grateful for the forgiveness of our sins.

Isaiah 61:1 tells of the works of His ministry by the anointing of the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners.” This work He began while He was on earth but would be carried on by His disciples under the anointing of the same Spirit. Jesus modeled this work for them and then commissioned them to allow Him to continue these same works through them.

The church today preaches Jesus’ finished work of Isaiah 53 but largely ignores our responsibility to practice the Isaiah 61 works. I believe God is changing that. He wants us to recognize in a greater way the power of the Holy Spirit in us, and He wants us to gain His viewpoint, so that we can join Him each day in the works of redemption.

Posted in Exodus, Jeremiah, John, Revelation

Drinking the Spirit

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:37-39

We will never have rivers flowing out of us into this needy world until we learn how to regularly drink of God’s precious Spirit. It is not enough to believe in the Spirit, or even acknowledge our need for the Spirit; we must drink. Why don’t we regularly drink of the Spirit?

  1. We don’t drink because we are often trying to get a drink of something this world offers. “My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13) Sports, TV, hunting, fishing, video games, work, and education are all neutral things unless we are looking to them for the renewal that only God can give, then they become leaky cisterns. Alcohol, pornography, gambling, smoking, and drugs are often the doorways to addiction for desperate people that started out only knowing that there was a thirst in their souls. God said that He alone is a fountain; an unending supply of renewal and refreshing for those who truly bring their thirst to Him.
  2. We don’t drink because we presume we already have drunk because we go to church, pray, and read the Bible. One of the saddest pictures in the Bible is Jesus outside the door of His own church knocking in Revelation 3:20. He has everything they need but He’s unable to give it to them because they have adjusted their lives and expectations to what they already have so they aren’t even asking for more. “I have need of nothing,” is what they say. 
  3. We don’t drink because we aren’t confident of God’s heart toward us. Exodus 34:14 in the New Living Translation says, “The Lord your God is passionate about His relationship with you.” God doesn’t just love you and me, He likes us. He wants to be with us. Jesus didn’t just die so that we could be forgiven and go to heaven some day. He died so that we could come into God’s presence now, and regularly drink of His Spirit.
Posted in 2Corinthians, John, Psalms, Romans

The Holy Spirit and the Kingdom of God

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17

Scripture is clear that one day the kingdom of God will come visibly on earth, but for now the way it comes is to human hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. If you and I want to live and grow in the kingdom of God we must look not to what we can produce in ourselves, but to what God wants to do in us through His Spirit.

The kingdom of God is righteousness in the Holy Spirit. It is appropriate that this is listed first as there will be no joy or peace unless there is first righteousness. The way into the kingdom is through righteousness, not our own, but the righteousness God provides for sinful humanity by the cross of Jesus Christ. The main sin that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of is not believing in Jesus as their Savior. (John 16:9) When we come to Christ our sin becomes His, and His righteousness becomes ours. “He made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Corinthians 5:21) Once we are in Christ the Holy Spirit leads us continually away from self righteousness and into the fruits of true righteousness only He can produce. 

The kingdom of God is peace in the Holy Spirit. Jesus said “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:27)  The world only gives you peace when every circumstance in your life is peaceful and under control. Jesus can give us peace through the Spirit in the midst of outward troubles and strife. It is called “the peace that passes understanding” because people that understand your situation can’t believe you have peace. True peace doesn’t come through being in control, but by trusting the One who is in control!

The kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Spirit. You can do your Christian duty and make your children do theirs on your own, but no one can truly delight in God or in their Christianity apart from the Spirit’s touch. “In Your presence is fullness of joy…” (Psalm 16:11) Happiness depends on what’s happening in your life. Joy is much deeper, and depends on your relationship with God no matter what’s happening outwardly.

Posted in 1Corinthians, 1Kings

The Spirit of Revelation

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“The thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely given to us by God.” 1Corinthians 2:11b-12

In all of our seeking of God we must always remember that any progress we make is not because we’re good seekers, but because God is a generous, and merciful revealer. If we don’t keep this posture of deep humility, spiritual growth will stop simply because God resists the proud, even if they are His children.

We need to develop a close friendship with the Holy Spirit if we want to seek God in a way that we will find Him. When you fully trust Christ for salvation the Holy Spirit takes up residence in your Spirit. You are, according to the Bible, born again. You have a capacity to know God, hear His voice, and experience His love that an unbeliever doesn’t have. But the key is learning to live more and more by, and with, the Person of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you.

He will speak to you through the Scriptures, so devote time each day to reading. He will speak through circumstances if you will only listen. He will speak through whoever’s speaking and church friends, so make church a priority. He can also speak in a number of supernatural ways according to the Bible, including: dreams, visions, trances, and through angelic visitations.

Many people wish God would speak louder, but that is not usually His way. When Elijah was waiting to hear God a tornado came, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake came, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. Then a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire. It was in a still small voice, a whisper, that God spoke to him. (See 1Kings 19)

If a person yells they can communicate to you from far away. But if they whisper, you have to come very close or you won’t hear them. That’s what God wants more than anything else, you and I to draw near to Him.

Posted in Ephesians, John, Luke, Zechariah

Being Filled with the Holy Spirit

Posted on by Tom Flaherty

“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.” Ephesians 5:18

The greatest need of Christians today is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Not as a one time event, but each and every day. The literal Greek would read, “be being filled with the Spirit.” How can we be filled with the Spirit?

First, by recognizing the need. In Zechariah 4:6 God says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of hosts.” God’s work does not go forward by human strength, will, or cleverness, it requires the operation of His Spirit. We must be convinced this is true, or we will not sincerely seek the Spirit’s filling.

Second, we must be thirsty. John 7:37-39 reads, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me (Jesus) and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke of the Spirit, who those who believed in Him were to receive.” God wants a river of life flowing out of you and me to bless this hurting and dying world, but it starts when someone is thirsty enough to receive. Are you thirsty for more, or content with what you have? Our hearts are created to thirst for God, but many seek to quench that thirst with stuff, alcohol, entertainment, human relationships, or fill in the blank. If these other things have dampened your thirst for God ask Him to forgive you, and tell Him you want to thirst for Him again.

And finally, we must ask. Jesus said, “If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” (Luke 11:13) The Amplified Bible brings out the Greek tense, “to those who ask and continue to ask Him!” This is not a one time asking, but a continual relationship of dependence. As our cars regularly need to be refilled with gasoline, and our bodies regularly need to be refilled with food, so our spirits need to be regularly refilled with the Holy Spirit.

The main reluctance Christians have about asking is that they don’t feel they’re good enough to be filled. While God may lead you to repent of areas before He fills you, He wants you and I to know that His Spirit is a gift, not a reward for good behavior. In fact, He starts off this wonderful promise by alluding to his own disciples as “being evil.” He’s saying that our sinfulness is not preventing Him from pouring out His Spirit, rather the Spirit’s filling is actually the solution for our evil. No one washes up before taking a shower – that’s the point of the shower!