The Knock On Your Door
By
January 12, 2015
Revelation 3:20 (CEB): Look! I’m standing at the door and knocking. If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to be with them, and will have dinner with them, and they will have dinner with me.
Every once in a while, a Bible verse seems to follow me. It’s like wherever I look this certain verse keeps popping up. This week the verse that kept coming into my life was Revelation 3:20. It is a well-known verse and one that has been portrayed in artwork many times over the centuries. The message is that Jesus stands just outside our heart and all we have to do is open up and let him in. What a great concept to kick off a new year!
The verse shows up in John’s writing about Jesus’ scolding of Laodicea. This city considered itself pretty important and had rejected Christ at many levels. It would be an easy city to cast aside as too unbelieving to save but then comes verse 20. Jesus says (Translation by Bill): “Dude, I am here at your door trying to get in. I want you to turn from your ways and follow me. I know you have really messed up your life but I am not giving up on you.”
This is the message so many people miss when they look at their lives! All they think about is that they have messed up too much for anyone to love them, let alone someone perfect like Jesus. They think that like here on earth when only the cool kids have cool friends, only the perfect can be friends with the Perfect One. This can’t be further from the truth! Ironically, that is the very reason for Jesus’ words. He is the one who will keep knocking—no matter how imperfect we may be, the Perfect One continues to knock at our door. He is the one who will keep pursuing us even as we do everything we can to reject him. He loves us and wants to be our friend that much.
Where are you in this picture? As I write this, I can’t help think of the old TV commercial with the tagline: “Get the door; it’s Dominos.” According to this commercial, a pizza is not hard to come by. All you need to do is call Dominos and open the door when you hear the knock. Open the door and your pizza craving will be satisfied—after some cash has been exchanged, of course, but the commercial never mentions that part of it.
This advertisement is for people who are hungering for a pizza—but just as easily could be a tagline for this Scripture: Get the door; it’s Jesus. In our lives, we hunger to be loved. We hunger for someone to care for us, to love us just as we are, marred and battered and hungry for acceptance. We hunger for someone to step into our lives and protect us from the harshness of this world. We hunger for someone who can promise us a future.
Jesus is the only one who can satisfy the hunger we have—and we only have to call on him. When the knock comes on the door, open it and invite him in! He will not only satisfy our hunger but will sit at the table with us to enjoy time together. And as far as paying for it, he picked up the tab; the price of this delivery was paid on a hill called Calvary.
Is there a knock on your door? What are you waiting for? Get the door; it’s Jesus.
