Doors. Have you ever thought about doors? We deal with so many doors every day of our lives. There's the bathroom door, first thing in the morning. We keep it closed out of a sense of privacy; same as our bedroom doors. When that door is open, it's an invitation to our children to enter and fellowship with us; when it is closed, It's a signal that we don't want to be disturbed. We leave our houses through a door, making sure that it is securely locked behind us. We get into our cars, closing and locking the car door, giving us some measure of safety against the elements as well as keeping us safer in the event of an accident.
Arrive at work and encounter another set of doors, the door to our building, then our office. Both of them are usually kept locked, unfortunately to guard against those who would harm us. Once in our offices, our doors are either kept open (as mine is all day) or closed (as my boss's often is - when he needs privacy or to concentrate on the task at hand). I can knock, and receive permission to enter, but there is still a door.
There are other doors. We often talk of a door of opportunity and knocking on symbolic doors to see if there is something behind the door that we should do. The door can crack open, showing us a glimpse of a new adventure, only to slam shut because God sees what is on the other side that we do not see and is protecting us from it. The door can crack open a little further, inviting tentative steps in, or it can be swung wide open, beckoning us to come.
God talks a lot about doors, but there are three that come to mind more than any other. The first one is a warning found in Genesis 4:7 "Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it." Yea. Subdue is probably too subtle of a word at times. Just yesterday, it didn't subdue me, it grabbed me by the ankle and pulled me down into its abyss. I saw it sitting there, crouching, with darkness in its eye, felt it grab my ankle and didn't even resist when it pulled me down into its deadly hole. However, there was Someone on the other side, waiting to pull me up out of the pit. In fact, that Someone would let me have no rest at all until I dealt with the sin issue at hand. So today, I knocked on a door, confessing my sin to the person I had sinned against, and received forgiveness. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, but I did it.
That leads to the second door that I thought about, Revelation 3:20 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come to him, and sup with him and he with Me. " For so long, I thought that this verse was an evangelistic verse. I think now that it really is a symbol of Christ desiring fellowship with us. Do we have the door to Him open or closed? I definitely heard Him knocking on my door last night....all night... praying that He would just go away and let me ignore my sin, but He persisted in knocking, gently, on the door of my heart, until I gave in and opened it so He could come in and heal and forgive me.
The last door is also in Revelation chapter 3, verse 8. "I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name." The door to heaven is open, and will not shut. It's the door to the Throne room of the Almighty God. Israel did not have the access we have to God. The door to the Holy of Holies in the form of a curtain kept them apart from God, and the only one who could enter was the High Priest. Today, through the shed blood of Christ, we have an open door to God that no one, not even satan himself can shut. He can try to block it, he can trip us up and try to drag us down, but he cannot keep me away from God. 