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“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Revelation 3:20 (NLT)
Closed doors can send a variety of messages. We close doors for protection at night or when we leave home, making sure they are locked to keep out intruders. We close doors for privacy when we need time for ‘personal business’. We close doors for time to think about issues of the heart. Sometimes we close doors to hide. We could be hiding for simple reasons like a friendly game of ‘hide and seek’, of because we are guilty and afraid or ashamed. Generally speaking, a closed door means ‘do not disturb’.
Physical doors are relatively easy to deal with. We can see a door to a room or building and know if it’s open or closed. We can try the handle and tell if it’s locked or unlocked. In emergency situations we can break it down and enter by force.
The door to our heart is quite a different matter. The door to our heart is impregnable. We close the door to our heart for a variety of reasons. We close the door to our heart to protect us from further damage. We get hurt in love and vow never to be hurt again. We close the door to our heart due to fear. We opened it once and it was abused, neglected or stomped on. We are afraid to open it again because it may bring more pain. We close the door to our heart in anger when people or God don’t measure up to our expectations. We close the door to our heart when the feelings of guilt or inferiority are too great.
Perhaps you can add your own reasons to the list. Reasons why you have shut up your heart to others or to God. Some may be perfectly understandable. Others, you’d admit are suspect. Whatever the reason for your closed heart, here is something you need to know. Jesus is at the door knocking.
People knock at a door for two reasons. People knock at a door because they desire admittance. Let that sink in for a moment in regards to Jesus. He knows your heart. He knows every room. He knows every secret sin. He knows where you store the feelings of anger and hate and bitterness. He knows where the box of unforgiveness is stored and the jar of judgmental attitudes is found. Still, regardless of the condition of your heart, Jesus desires to come in.
The people in thechurchofLaodiceahad done some things that were repulsive to Jesus Christ. They are likened to a drink that is lukewarm when it should be hot or cold. Their condition is such that were they to be drunk, would be vomited out of a person’s mouth. Even so, Jesus longed to enter in. Such Grace! Such Mercy! Such Love!
Secondly, a knock at the door means that the person knocking realizes and respects the right of the owner to keep the door closed. I don’t have to open the door of my house, my room, my business to you. I don’t have to open the door of my heart to Jesus.
Jesus Christ will never force himself on you. He’ll always respect your right to choose, but he earnestly desires for you to choose him so he can enter in and built a relationship of love and grace. He earnestly desires to come in and help clean out the corners of your heart that haven’t been touched in a long time.
I grew up hearing sermons on this verse in a variety of ways to refer to winning the lost to Christ. While there may be some justification to that line of thought, the letter was written to the church. Jesus stands at the door and knocks and calls to us. Will you recognize his voice? Will you realize his desire to enter in to heal those damaged rooms of your soul? He’s waiting patiently. He’ll never force himself on you. He loves you too much for that.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, you know my heart. You know the doors I’ve closed to you and others. You know the feelings of guilt and fear I have when I think of opening those doors. Thank you for your grace and mercy. Empower me by your Spirit to be willing to open myself completely to you. Every door. Every closet. In your name I pray, Amen.
The payment for sin is death. But God gives us the free gift of life forever in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23 (NCV)
Think about this. No matter where you are on the journey of life, there are certain things that are true for all of us. We were all created by God to be his pride and joy. God’s desire, from the beginning of time is to have a passionate relationship with each of us. A relationship like he had with Adam and Even at the beginning. To walk side by side, arm in arm, hand in hand. To laugh. To talk about the days events. To impart his wisdom, strength and joy to each of us.
Another thing that is true of all of us is that we all want to have our own way. We all seek to fill this void inside of us with things that are contrary to God’s desire for us. David did it when he decided to sleep with another man’s wife. Abraham did it when he took matters into his own hands. Moses did it when he murdered the Egyptian and struck the rock. And the list goes on and on. Your name is on that list.
We’ve all done it, we take matters into our own hands. Tried to fill the void on our own power. Call it sin. Call it poor choices or bad decisions. Call it whatever you want. The result is the same. When you live apart from God there’s an emptiness that can’t be satisfied.
Sin is sin. You can rationalize and say your ‘sin’ isn’t as bad. Really? Worry is just as ‘bad’ a sin as adultery because it breaks your trust in God’s ability to provide. Buying what you can’t afford is stealing from your future because debt ties us down. Legalistic attitudes steal the freedom God intended to give to others.
You can run from him, but that won’t remove the pain. You can ignore him but that doesn’t take away the anger. You can claim he doesn’t exist, but the void won’t go away. You can bury yourself in all sorts of religious activity or social advocacy to hide your pain. That usually only leads to guilt and self-destruction. There is nothing that beats the pain. There is nothing that pays the price…nothing except for Jesus.
Jesus paid the price for your worry. Jesus paid the price for your anger and frustration. Jesus paid the price for the guilt you harbor because of your past. He paid it in full so you can live free. He asks nothing from you except for you to confess (admit) your need for him, and ask forgiveness for your weakness. Nothing else will fill the void in your soul.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I confess to you that there are still many things in my life that I’m trying to control on my own. Thank you for the free gift of forgiveness you have given. Nothing is really free. Thank you for paying the price for my sin when you knew I would fail. Amen.
Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (CEV)
Like an old pair of shoes tossed in the garbage. Like a discarded, favorite pair of jeans. Like that car that finally gave up the ghost after years of trial and tribulation. That’s what life is like after Christ comes.
Once we were under the Law. The Law was God’s standard of living after sin entered into mankind. The Law was never meant to remove sin as much as it was an appeasement for sin.
Then grace entered the picture. Grace didn’t just appease God, Grace cleansed us. Before we became followers of Jesus we lived life according to our own conscience. A conscience based on the idea that we were the center of the universe. Right and wrong depended on what was best for us. It didn’t work. I was never intended to work.
When we came to a place in our lives where we realized our faults, we felt guilty. Guilt isn’t always a bad thing. Guilt, in a positive sense is simply agreeing with god that we made a mistake. Guilt can draw us back to him when the path we’ve taken separates us from the peace he intended for us to have. Guilt, in the positive sense, is terminated with repentance. Gone. Wiped out like an old pair of…well, you get the picture?
- The Law makes us aware of our guilt; but Grace cleanses us, even from the memories of our faults!
- The Law says we’ll never succeed; but Grace says we’ll never fail because of Jesus living in us!
- The Law says we are guilty; Grace says we are redeemed!
- The Law says you’ll never be free; Grace says you’ll never be held captive!
- The Law uses guilt as a tool to remind us of our past; Grace uses conviction (through the Holy Spirit) to remind us of our holiness through Christ!
- The Law focuses on external actions (rules); Grace focuses on the heart and emotions!
- The Law says you are doomed; Grace says enter into the presence of a loving Father!
As followers of Jesus Christ we no longer need to live under the oppression of guilt even though we continue to be attacked by sin. 1 John 1:9 reminds us that ‘when’ not ‘if’ we sin we can come to the Savior and receive forgiveness. The guilt we feel before that is our Father’s beckoning us to come home to his loving arms. Not for punishment. Jesus took that. He calls us home to be restored.
PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I continue to battle with feelings of guilt for past mistakes in my life. Mistakes that have hurt others. Mistakes that have hurt myself. Mistakes that have hurt you. Forgive me once and for all for those times when I’ve failed. Empower me with your Holy Spirit to live free of the false guilt Satan throws my way. Amen.
So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything belongs to you—whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (NLT)
You’ve seen the commercials on TV. A well-dressed, successful person tells you about themselves. They are smart, good looking and obviously have made the best of life. After telling you all about themselves, their successes and how they have made positive changes in their world, they summarize all the good things by telling you that they are a particular religious group. The next time you see the commercial notice that the person talking doesn’t say they belong to or are a part of the group. They ARE the group. Whether by design or otherwise the message is clear. If you want to know what my religious group looks like or what it can do for you, look at me. I’m the example of what you can be.
Now, this isn’t a treatise for or against this group. Whether you agree with their theology or not you have to admire the creativity of their marketing. Want to be successful in life? Want to make a difference in your world? It’s as though the speaker is looking straight into your eyes and saying, “Want to have people admire you like you are admiring me right now? Become a ____________. Your world will change!”
Don’t be too hard on them though. We do the same thing. A pastor friend of mine was telling me about one particular church that he served in. Unfortunately this church had a bad reputation in town because of how they treated people in the community and how they treated several of their former pastors. My friend brought a suggestion to the boardroom table one night shortly after he started his ministry. He asked what his church leaders would think of changing the name of the church. The new name he suggested would not have the denominational title included in it. He made sure to tell them the doctrinal statement would not change, the denominational affiliation would not change, and several other churches in this denomination had made similar changes with good success.
The reaction was pretty much along the lines he expected. No one was in favor of it for various reasons. Horror stories based largely on misinformation and rumors surfaced about other churches that had done something like this and either closed or became a cult. While he expected many of these arguments, the one statement that caught him off guard was given by the most respected person in the church. It was a statement that killed the discussion immediately. My friend later said he was so taken back by this statement that he was speechless to continue. Here was the sincere statement from a man who knew God’s word. “But I get my identity from the ___________ church.”
Character is defined as one of the attributes or features that make up and distinguish an individual. This person’s character was based on a set of doctrines and beliefs held in the confines of denominational affiliation. Such thinking isn’t new of course. The Apostle Paul struggled with it too. He didn’t have to mess with Baptists or Lutherans or Methodists or Presbyterians. He had to contend with followers of Peter or Apollos or, (and I imagine he shuddered at this), those who followed him! Paul says, in the book of 1Corinthians, “What are you thinking? Stop following the teachings and opinions of men. You have all you need in Jesus Christ who came from God himself!”
The enemy doesn’t like that way of thinking, by the way. The lie he uses in the battle for our CHARACTER is the subtle belief that ‘Your doctrine is the most important thing to you’. In our effort to love ourselves this attacks us in at least two ways. First of all, the standards of men are sometimes harder to live up to than the standards God has for us. Man’s standards don’t always offer much grace or mercy as is shown by the reaction of some church bodies to differences in a person’s lifestyle or their beliefs. Man made doctrine is often more about making cookie cutter Christians than it is growing in the freedom of grace and mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ.
In a love relationship it’s always amazing to me how the people involved think so much alike, or at least know what the other is thinking. It’s a process of course. The longer they are together the more they begin to look, think and act alike. Why? Because they have the same set of rules? No. They begin to ‘be each other’ because of relationship.
The second attack that this lie levels on our ability to love ourselves is that when we hold to strongly to man-made principles and doctrine we become legalistic and push people way. The nasty negative spiral comes in again. If I take to harsh a position I push you away. Since I don’t want to push you away I will guard my words. The result is I struggle to decide, ‘Do I hold my allegiance to you and watch you self-destruct, or hold my allegiance to what I know to be right and lose my chance to minister to you and bring you to the freedom I’ve found in Christ.
How does a person whose character is built on Jesus and not man-made rules react to people who are ‘different’ than us? Look at how Jesus responded to people in his day. People who struggled with greed, with lust, with sex, with addictions. How did Jesus respond? With love. “Neither do I condemn thee. Come to me you who are weary.” Paul says, “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26 (NIV))
The person of Christ-like character is the person that gently accepts people who are struggling and leaves the repentance and life change to the one who does it best, Jesus Christ. This is a huge relief for the follower of Christ because it takes the responsibility of life change out of my hands and puts it in the hands of God’s Holy Spirit.
The Truth Statement in the battle for our Character is: “When others watch you make sure they see Jesus and not a church name!”
PRAYER: Thank you Jesus for the freedom you have shown me through your grace, mercy and forgiveness. As I build relationships around me, help me to show them the patience and gentleness you showed those around you. In your name I pray, Amen.
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14
Sometimes I think we as Christ-followers have a warped view of our Bible heroes. Take the Apostle Paul for example. We lift him up as a man we all want to emulate. After all, he wrote most of the New Testament, was responsible for starting many, many churches and, among other things had the wisdom and chutzpa to stand up to Peter and get into his face on a couple of occasions. What a guy!
But I appreciate Paul for more than his godly wisdom and spiritual insight. I admire more the many times in Scripture when he speaks candidly about his own failures. I think Paul would scream in horror if he heard and saw how we elevate him sometimes.
Take for example his letter to the Philippians. Three times in the first few verses of chapter three it’s as if Paul is saying, “I haven’t reached perfection yet. I still fail. I struggle with the same old sins. I battle temptation constantly. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. But, I press on to the higher standard God has called me to in Christ Jesus.”
Isn’t that the way each of us feel when we are honest with ourselves? We aren’t called to perfection. We’re called to battle. We aren’t expected to win every battle with temptation, but we are encouraged to fight each battle with determination and will.
Sometimes that means giving up our ‘rights’. Sometimes we’ll be misunderstood or wrongfully accused. Sometimes we’ll just plain fail. Jesus is more interested in the direction you are heading than how many battles you win. He’s more excited about how hard you fight than your win-loss record. He knows you’ll lose some battles. He knows he’s already won the war.
Don’t get discouraged when it seems the old life has too much power over you. You have been called to battle with Jesus at your side. Don’t give up on yourself. Sometimes you’ll win the big battles; sometimes you’ll lose the small ones. Either way, pick yourself up, brush the dirt from your clothes and press on knowing the Jesus is running alongside cheering you on to victory and comforting you in defeat.
PRAYER: Jesus, there are so many times I’ve failed you. I get up in the morning determined to win and climb back in bed hours later battered, bruised and embarrassed by my weakness. Forgive me for my failure. Empower me to press on. In your name, Amen.
Mike Fisk & Built with Grace 