“Get your foot in the door!” The “door of opportunity!” “Shut the door!” We talk about doors more often than you think! This past week, I wrote the Scripture Writing Schedule on “Doors.” The memory verse was Revelation 3:20, where Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me.” Notice that this was written to the church in Laodicea. It was written to Christians – but they did not have Jesus in the hearts. I remember my Grandma Avent having a Holman Hunt painting of Jesus, knocking at a garden door. The thing about that painting was that there was no doorknob. The door had to be opened from the inside. Yes, if we hear His voice, obey it by opening the door, we will have fellowship together – me and Jesus. This is similar to what John said in I John 1:7, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. . .” Oh, how important it is to be in fellowship with God!
There are many Biblical examples of the importance of doors. Besides, Noah’s obedience, what saved his family from the flood was the fact that “the Lord shut him in” (Genesis 7:16). The death angel passed over the houses of the Israelites, when he saw the blood on the lintel and two side posts of their doors (Exodus 12:23). When the widow was faced with her sons being sold into slavery, she went to the prophet Elisha who asked, “What do you have in your house?” She replied, “A little cruse of oil.” She was then told to go to her friends and neighbors and “borrow not a few” vessels, and when they were gathered, she shut the door and the Lord provided enough to pay the debt (II Kings 4:3-5). A large stone was brought and Daniel was sealed in the lion’s den, but God also “shut the lions’ mouths, that they did not hurt him” (Daniel 6:17 and 22). Joseph of Arimathea took the body of Jesus and laid it in his own new tomb which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed” (Matthew 27:60) We know that that “door” didn’t keep Jesus in.
Jesus described Himself as the “door of the sheep” (John 10:7). If we want to get into the church, we must go in through the door – where we “are buried with him through baptism and raised to walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We must be ready when He returns. In the parable of the ten virgins, we are told that when the bridegroom came, they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 25:10 and 13).
The interesting thing about doors is that they come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve often heard that when “a door shuts, God opens a window,” but I believe that sometimes, we just need to “try that door again!” You know, that’s what doors are for – to open and shut! Try again! Simply blessed, Courtney