I stand at the door and knock

Read Revelation 3:14-22

We return again to the topic of hospitality, but more importantly with reference to God himself. Here we have a most famous verse, “I stand at the door and knock”. Often famous for its use in evangelistic messages, although the funny thing is, this passage comes from one of the seven letters to the…churches.

This was not a call to non-christians but to christians. The Laodiceans had grown comfortable, they approved of being called Christian but did not care for salvation or see any need for it. They were sufficient within themselves, and through their self-sufficiency had distanced themselves from God.

Jesus wishes to be in relationship with them once again, so he sits at the door and knocks. His knocking is his message, his declaration that they are sinful beyond measure, in desperate need of salvation and he is the only one who can save them.

Abraham was in desperate need of God to fulfill the promises given to him, he had no hope on his own. So he desperately sought after God, he honoured him and praised him wherever he went.

Our greatest desire should be like Abraham’s, to seek after God and to commune with him, as John puts it.

John 14:23 (ESV)
²³ Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

He will come and make his home with us, that means he will come and have fellowship with us, he will eat with us, we become his family. We enter into a depth of relationship with God few could imagine.

But this can only come one way, through heeding the voice of Jesus, which leads us to recognise our deep and desperate need for him and his salvation. Relationship with God happens no other way. You don’t get him as father unless you will also have him as saviour.

You will never be on equal footing with Jesus, you will always be undeserving, unworthy, and unable to pay him back. It is a friendship, a relationship founded upon grace and that way it will always be.

Prayer:

“Thank you Father that you have come and made your home with us. Help me to appreciate all the depth and blessing that comes with that, all the privileges that I now enjoy and the comforts it brings. Pray that you would continue to take up residence in all of me and help me to surrender every aspect of my life to your rule and reign. In Jesus name, Amen.”