Scripture: Revelations 3 v 20 - 21: "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."
The older we get, the more set in our ways we become, and the coma of complacency robs us of motivation and zeal to change ourselves or allow ourselves to be changed. We have hung the DND notice on the doorknobs of our hearts and if we don't remove it we will miss the best God has for us.
We need to overcome our reluctance to advance with Jesus. We have ticked all the right boxes and feel we have done enough to satisfy God and man, and no further effort is required. We show up at church and pew sit, but at least the register in Heaven has marked our presence.
Jesus is not knocking at the doors of sinners in the verses above, He is inviting us to have a meal with Him. He wants to bring us into intimate fellowship with His Father and with Him. He needs us to overcome some barrier that causes us to want to be left alone. The enemy of our souls does not want us getting closer to God, as he will lose his last opportunity to recapture us for eternity, so he bombards our minds with logical reasons to continue doing the least possible that satisfies our conscience.
The war for our souls is raging constantly around us through every portal of our lives. Whether from TV, or other media, friendships with the wrong crowd, bad personal habits, traditions, cultures, incorrect teaching, dead churches or just our own laziness, we are under constant bombardment. We are so used to it that we don't notice it.
It is like air. We don't notice it until something changes that alarms us. What is that terrible smell in the air we may cry? If it persists we need to discover the cause and eliminate it. Our God has to do this to us too. He will allow something to disturb our spirits until we respond. He will send something to irritate us into action. He will allow something to stimulate us to seek His face in earnest prayer.
It would be so much easier if we opened the door to Jesus and gave Him more than a distant wave once a day, or once a week. God loves us so much that He gave the best He had to re-establish ties with us. He wants to maintain and improve His relationship with us. He needs us to have that same desire and longing to be with Him.
In James it says that friendship with the world is enmity with God. The world system is controlled by Satan since Eden. Jesus brought us out of the world into His kingdom. We must not be complacent about this. We must engage with Him as often as we can just to keep our heads above water.
We dearly love our children and if anyone poses even the smallest threat to them we gather them close to love and protect them. Do you know where we got those instincts and feelings from? Our Creator, Lord Jesus! He has saved us and does not want to see us falling into those same old traps again. He needs to change us to be more like Him, then the enemy is defeated.
To do this successfully, He needs our co-operation. The Bible is full of words to encourage our participation. If we forgive others from the heart, then God will forgive our sins. If we open the door Jesus will come in and sup with us. If we give, God will bless us a hundredfold. If we withhold our giving, He will withhold blessing us. What we take away from others will be taken from us.
We shrug off these problems without realising that if only we followed the actual teachings of the Bible, things could be abundantly different. So take that Do Not Disturb notice off the door of your heart today, and let Jesus take full control. Stop resisting the promptings the Holy Spirit gives to live outside the box this world buries us in. Move, flow, grow in the power of the Holy Spirit and His power, protection, blessing and gifts will overtake us.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we need to be awakened out of spiritual slumber and walk and talk with You as Adam did before the fall. We are at the mercy of the elements of the world when we neglect our relationship with You. Today we remove our do not disturb notices to fully engage with Your plans for us. In Jesus' name. Amen.
