Pastor's Corner

4 Jan
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Mid-Week Challenge

“New Year, New You!” We have heard that statement many times in years past.  It is loaded with promise, opportunity and renewal.  The new year is always a chance for doors to be open and change to be made.  God is the ultimate provider and at the same time He can be the ultimate denier.  We don’t like to hear this truth but since our God is all knowing, being denied something by Him is for our ultimate good.  

As we think about the function of a door, it provides a passageway from one place to another. It offers privacy and protection and can be secured with a lock or an alarm system to prevent trespassers from entering.  Spiritually, a door can signify an outpouring of God's blessings, provision, and protection.  We like to think about open doors as being a new job, the beginning of a new relationship, the birth of a child, healing from an illness, or an outpouring of God’s favor and protection, ministry opportunities, and more as we identify them.  We don’t like to think about that same love for our wellbeing in the reverse.  In Revelation 3:7 John reminds us of the power Jesus has when he records, “These are the words of Him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open.”

Just as He opens a spiritual door to give us access to His blessings and favor, so too can God also close a door of opportunity, allowing a person in our lives to walk out on us or not granting us our heart’s desires or by seeing something we have planned slip away from our grasp.  In His divine might and power, God is the only One who has the power and authority to open and shut doors. He is our divine doorkeeper.

So, how can we find peace when God is closing a door? In Isaiah 55:8, the prophet writes, ‘“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’” declares the Lord.”  We have to accept the fact that what we may consider good or opportune for us is limited by our humanely finite understanding.

It is not wrong to pray for opened doors.  Multiple times Paul talks about open and closed doors to ministry.  Colossians 4:3 - And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains

We also have to keep in perspective the difference between doors of the world and doors of the Lord.  In John 10:7 Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep”.  These doors might look similar at times, but through prayer and patience we can hear the Savior’s voice and determine the door He is calling us to enter.  

The ultimate door, of course, is the one discussed in Revelation 3:20, the door to salvation.  Jesus allows us to open this door as He stands ready to enter into an eternal relationship with us as our Lord and Savior.  “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me”

As we head into this New Year, whenever we find ourselves disappointed by a lost opportunity (closed door) we can take the matter to God. Keep in mind God opens and closes and He always has our best in mind when He does one or the other.  

Serving the Savior,

Bro. Jonathan

By: Dr. Jonathan Richesron

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