Opening Doors

"...Christianity [isn't] just a Sunday habit or a kind of a moral philosophy which we get to be called nice people by. No, the scariest thing about it is that there actually is someone there. Someone terrifyingly good and overwhelmingly merciful. But He's really there. And the application, surely, is this for each of us: there needs to be a point where we experience, perhaps as day breaks, we open our eyes, a daily reality check. It needs to come when you worry or when you're scared, or when you're uncertain of what to do or what life holds for you. You have to grab yourself by the shirt collar and tell yourself, 'Listen, it's not all up to me. I don't live in a closed system.' It's like a door has opened where there shouldn't have been a door. Perhaps if you've prayed and you've seen an answer to prayer, or you've read something in the Bible, and suddenly all of these lights have come on. Why? Because there is a door, and you have a sense now there's Someone standing in it. ... And the truth is this - this is where you get to check with reality - you either deal with Christ on this side of the door, or you deal with Him on the other."

"We need to say this and recognize this daily: 'God, I've grown crusty and forgetful. I know you told me I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, but I leak. And I know the door is there, but I haven't answered when You've been knocking. I want to know You again. I want to turn from all of the distractions which have stopped me answering the door when You've called. I want to know You better. I can't ask this for myself, I ask it because of Jesus, the Holy and the True.' And because it's not a closed system, because there's a door there that God opens, He will act, He will answer, He will listen. Because there's a door, and because there's Someone who keeps it."

"I was asking myself, 'Why is it that if I know I live in an open universe, a universe where God acts, where God is speaking truth, what is my problem in being able to speak clearly to the people I love about their condition?' It's striking, isn't it, Jesus tells the Philadelphians that He has set before them an open door, that He is the keyholder. And He tells them to go, to go through that door, not when the coast is clear and the skies are blue, but when they're under rocket fire. And He says, 'Go.' And they, perhaps like we, have said, 'God, come back when it's more convenient. God, come back when the coast is clear, when there's fewer troubles in my life. I'll talk to my father when the topic comes up. I'll talk to my grouchy neighbor when they're in the right mood. I'll talk to my boss when we're in line at the pearly gates.' But God says, 'Go, now.' And I want to put it to you that, many of us, this is where we get stuck. We're expecting for the coast to clear. We're expecting for clear skies and fair sailing, and God has presented to us an open door. A God who is sovereign doesn't need to remove all obstacles from the church's path for Him to call it to mission. So I want to say to you as you consider where God has put you, are there really as many obstacles for speaking and for walking through that door as you might think? Isn't the call of the Gospel to get up and to get the door for someone?"

"For us, when our tendency is to sit back in our deck chairs as if we've gotten first class fares on a cruise ship to the port of Heaven with nothing to do in life but to sit back spiritually, to do the regular stuff of life, to avoid icebergs, we think we've made it. Too many of us, I think, have been coasting in our discipleship; we've lost our passion. And really, I think we're missing the whole point of life and its adventure that God has placed before us. Because we have this sense that we only need those things for crisis when God really needs us to be keen on Him, so He'll get us out of some jam. ... If here and now is your adventure, if this is the big race and Heaven is the finish line, if this is where you must trust God and see Him work, if this is where He's calling you to step through doors of adventure and faith, as He steps into your world answering prayer inexplicably, but powerfully, what will that look like for you? What will it look like that there is an outpost of Heaven that God has placed on the street where you live, and it has your street address? How should it change your relationship with your nieghbors that there are Christians here that God has loved and called and invested with His spirit of endurance and creativity and rescue, and He has put you on their street? ... God has opened a door for us."

--Steve Constable