This past week, two people, Pastor Debbie and (via video) Nicky Gumbel, have cited the same verse Revelation 3:20, and it has stuck with me. It reads: “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come to you and eat with you, and you with me.”
This strikes me as slightly different, in an important way, from Matthew 7:7 which says, “… knock, and the door will be opened for you.” In Revelation, the person doing the knocking is Jesus. In Matthew, we are the ones knocking. What is required of us in the two verses is distinctly different.
Matthew requires us to be much more assertive in our pursuit of Jesus and his grace. We must ask. We must seek. We must knock.
The verse in Revelation, however, implies an action that is much more passive. Jesus knocks. All we have to do is open the door. So simple. There’s no pursuit of Jesus. He’s already there, waiting. We just have to let him in.
When I look back on my own life, especially this past year, I tend to think the verse from Revelation is more applicable to my life. Despite everything else I had already accomplished and done in my life, it was something so simple that changed it completely.
It was an open door—on Easter Sunday—at a tiny church.
And I didn’t even have to open the door. I’m pretty sure the door was already open, literally, and all I had to do was walk through it.
Coming to Jesus (and I know how overused that phrase is) is actually a blessedly simple step.
When Jesus knocks, open the door.
Don’t be startled, don’t turn back to the TV and think if it’s important they’ll come back later. Don’t turn off the lights and pretend you aren’t home. Don’t bother looking through the peep-hole. You know who’s there.
Don’t worry about letting the cold out, or letting the cold in. Don’t bring the dog with you.
Open the door and let Jesus in.
He’s not a bad guest. He won’t eat all your food. He won’t put up his feet on the coffee table. He always uses coasters.
What he will do, though, is bust through the walls and tear down the curtains. He’ll throw the furniture out to the curb and rip up the carpets. He’ll remake everything and rebuild from the ground up. For about two seconds, the whirlwind of change will be the scariest thing you have ever seen and then for the rest of eternity, it will be the most wonderful thing.
Come on … open the door already.
