Doors

 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7....."Jesus urges us to come, to ask, and to believe." Chris Tiegreen

Some translations of Matthew 7:7 read that we are to "keep on" asking, seeking, and knocking, and I know there is truth in that. Yet to me, it gives the impression that the Father is One we must persistently "pester" until He finally (grudgingly?) gives in to us. I don't think that reflects the heart of God at all. I think a more correct understanding would be that we're to ask until we begin to ask for that which He wants to give us. We ask for trinkets. He wants us to receive the fullness of His Kingdom. As for our seeking, we can spend a lifetime seeking for what He says will rust and decay. He would have us seek the One thing, the best thing; Himself. When it comes to open doors in our lives, we tend to bang our heads against so many that will never open to us, or if they do, will lead us to some level of destruction. He desires that our spiritual perception, discernment, and wisdom recognizes His door, and then to walk through it. It's a pretty simple matter, but we can be masters at overcomplicating it all. What are we missing?

Maybe it's the first thing that Tiegreen says Christ calls us to, and that is to come to Him. I think most of us think that we do come to Him, but what is our heart attitude in the coming? Do we come before Him with a worshipping heart? Do we come before Him with a submitted heart? With praise, honor, and reverence? Or do we come with a demanding spirit? With an attitude of entitlement? Yes, we are to come before Him boldly, but not brazenly. we are never to lose our sense of holy reverence, and who it is that we come to. What is our heart attitude when we come to Him?

When He calls us to seek, have we already determined what it is we're seeking? Are we just looking for His OK on what it is we want, usually something that is rooted in self-centered motives. Or do we come with a surrendered heart that is willing to lay down all our desires, even our best ones, in order that we might know His desire and will for us? We sing a lot of choruses and worship songs that say our heart's one desire is to see and know Him, but if we're truly honest with ourselves, in our coming to Him, are we focused on Him, or upon what it is we want from Him? I know what my answer far too many times has been. How about yours?

His last call, the knocking upon the door does require our persistence, but mainly because the last thing the enemy wants is for us to be going through His open doors. Satan will seek to confuse, distract, and seduce us away from His doorway. The Lord would have us persevere through all of that, and grow stronger in Him, and more intimate with Him in the process. And we also learn to discern His door from all those counterfeit doors the devil would put before us.

That, for me at least, is what I see in Jesus' call. I think of His great promise, "You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." I key on those first three words; "you shall know." When we come before Him in reverent, yielded, worship, asking of Him the pure gold of all He has for us, and not the cheap baubles of this world, and seeking the door that leads us into ever deeper, higher, wider, fellowship and intimacy with Him, we are entering into the depths of all it is that He has for us. I want that for me, and I want it for you as well. May we have it. May we have all it from His hand. We simply come wholeheartedly, seek wholeheartedly, and believe.....wholeheartedly.

Blessings,

Pastor O