Month: February 2017

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

When I read this passage, I imagine Jesus at the door of my life, saying, “I’m here. Will you let me in?”

What happens after we answer the knock? We open the door, we invite Jesus in. But too often we want Him to stay in the foyer. It’s not necessarily that we want Him to leave in a hurry, but we don’t really want Him to come in any further.

Maybe the house looks pretty good from the foyer. But if He were to come further in, He’d see the mess in the family room, the dirty dishes in the kitchen. The filth and dirt and mess of an unredeemed life.  And we don’t want that.  So we try to keep Him from going past the surface of our lives.

Here’s the thing – Jesus doesn’t ask us to clean up before we invite Him in. He doesn’t want us to clean up before we answer the door. Actually, He is like the greatest cleaning service ever. He says, “If you let me in, I’ll wash you and you will be clean; you will be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7).

What good is it if we only look good on the outside? We know what it’s like on the inside, where we really live, and that’s where we long for things to be straightened out. If we only focus on the external, we run the risk of becoming whitewashed tombs – presentable on the outside but only containing something dead on the inside.

When we invite Jesus in, we must let Him get to work cleaning house. He’s going to throw open the curtains we’ve tried to hide behind and let God’s light come shining in. He’s going to throw out the useless junk. We must let Him deeper into the house, into every room.

As Christians, we can’t close off doors in our lives and say, “God, you can have your way everywhere else, but not here. You can be Lord over all the areas of my life, except this one.” Every door must be thrown open, His light brought into every corner. If you refuse to allow Him into a room, chances are that’s where sin is lurking, just waiting for an opportunity to ambush you.

The relationship Christ wants with us is this – He knocks and we respond, we welcome Him in. He patiently and lovingly, with great care, goes through room by room, cleaning, renewing, setting things right. Then He sits down to a meal with us like old friends, and we feast on God’s goodness. Later He kicks off His shoes and we go hang out on the couch, feet up, laughing and sharing, enjoying life together as friends.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.

Ephesians 3:17

For some immigrants, once they set foot on the American shore, their hopes were fulfilled. For others, a brighter future beckoned further on, deeper in. Their journey wasn’t over yet. They had to continue on past where others had found fulfillment to less traveled roads. Despite how far they had come, their destination remained far off, a dream on the horizon.

Our journey with Christ can be this way, too.  We accept wholeheartedly that God’s promises are true. We believe that He is a promise-keeper. And yet we see those promises, and we see our circumstances, and we wonder – are these promises even for me? Their fulfillment seems so far off, like an impossible dream, you can hardly imagine how you could ever get there. The journey feels too long, too hard, and from our limited perspective, it seems like we’ll never arrive at our destination.

In response, God invites us to see our journey from His unlimited perspective.

Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.

Deuteronomy 31:8

Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. Joel 2:32

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

We cannot rely on our vision to get us to our destination because discouraging circumstances block our view and distort our perspective. Instead, it is faith that “gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1). It is precisely when we feel we can’t take one more step on the journey that faith reveals itself. The author of Hebrews describes a litany of people who had extraordinary faith. Then he goes on to say, “All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it” (11:13).

They believed even though the promise seemed far off. They kept moving towards it, closer to God. Their perspectives were changed. God “grew” bigger than their circumstances, dwarfing them until He filled their vision. When God assumed His proper proportions, their difficult circumstances shrank to their proper proportions as well. They didn’t move forward because they could see the destination. They moved forward because they could see God, and their unshakable confidence in who He is fueled them with hope.

The same can be true for us. We can draw close to God and allow Him to fill our vision and fuel our hope. Hope then allows us to run recklessly forward, believing that all that God has promised will surely be ours.

For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!”

2 Corinthians 1:20

Are God’s promises for you?  YES!  Which of God’s promises are for you?  ALL OF THEM! How can you know this to be true? Because a baby was born in Bethlehem who was God-in-the-flesh. Because an innocent man was put to death on the Cross. Because the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty on Easter morning. Through His life and death and resurrection, Jesus testified that God will never fail or abandon you, that He offers salvation to everyone who recognizes their need for Him, that His intentions towards you flow from a heart wants the very best for you.

May we have eyes of faith and feet put into motion by hope. May we move with courage into the unknown because He fills our vision and we know He is our final destination.