Day 10
T H E G O D WHO EMPOWERS
Revelation 3:20-22
‘Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. 21 To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.’
Don’t you just love these wonderful verses? They are amongst the most precious verses in the New Testament to so many Christians around the
world. One of the most famous paintings of Christ by Victorian artist William Holman Hunt shows Christ knocking on a door that has no handle on the outside and can only be opened from within. He said that he painted it, ‘…with what I thought to be divine command, and not simply a good subject.’
In these verses the Lord Jesus writes to Christians at Laodicea who thought themselves to be spiritually rich, better than others, and needing nothing. He invited them to realise that they were, ‘poor, blind and naked’; and to open the door of their church and the doors of their hearts, so that Christ could make them all they were meant to be.
Laodicea was known for its rich cloth, its eye medicine and its wealth; however we are not called to focus on materialistic things. We are called to be like the Lord Jesus. We are never to be defined simply by our nationality, our wealth or poverty, our education or our occupation but by our being, to use St Paul’s expression, ‘in Christ.’
Inviting Christ to share our life is not just a conversion decision, though it is that ‘great transaction’ of which baptism is the great illustration and symbol. It is a daily essential, no matter for how long we have been a Christian.
There is an African proverb which says, ‘A canoe is never too big to capsize.’ There are times when it is our pride, our determination to be self-made men and women, that gets in the way of our becoming more like the Lord Jesus. We are never too big, too old, too mature, too clever, too important to need to be carried by Christ.
Pray that your five may also have the humility to hear Christ knocking and calling at the door of their lives and open the door to welcome Jesus as He waits to welcome them.
Just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, we find that when we open the door to Christ, the guest becomes the host. May we show hospitality to all, for by so doing some people have offered hospitality to angels (Hebrews 13:2).
The VeryRReverend Bob Key with Leaders from South Korea
Paul