Posted on 07/18/2017 10:13:00 AM PDT by Gamecock
We have all heard evangelists quote from Revelation: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20). Usually the evangelist applies this text as an appeal to the unconverted, saying: “Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart. If you open the door, then He will come in.” In the original saying, however, Jesus directed His remarks to the church. It was not an evangelistic appeal.
So what? The point is that seeking is something that unbelievers do not do on their own. The unbeliever will not seek. The unbeliever will not knock. Seeking is the business of believers. Jonathan Edwards said, “The seeking of the Kingdom of God is the chief business of the Christian life.” Seeking is the result of faith, not the cause of it.
When we are converted to Christ, we use language of discovery to express our conversion. We speak of finding Christ. We may have bumper sticker that read, “I Found It.” These statements are indeed true. The irony is this: Once we have found Christ it is not the end of our seeking but the beginning. Usually, when we find what we are looking for, it signals the end of our searching. But when we “find” Christ, it is the beginning of our search.
The Christian life begins at conversion; it does not end where it begins. It grows; it moves from faith to faith, from grace to grace, from life to life. This movement of growth is prodded by continual seeking after God.
Coram Deo
In your spiritual walk, are you moving from faith to faith, from grace to grace, from life to life? Are you continually seeking after God?
Passages for Further Study
John 14:23 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. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
John 15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
Ping
Revelation 3:19-20 (ESV) “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”
It’s a warning to the luke warm church to repent or He will remove its light!
Hey Harley,
How have you been?
In looking back at my conversion I can still see to this day that it was God ‘drawing me to seek Him’....in fact I can look back to my childhood and see where the Lord God was laying the foundation for the day when I would be faced with the greatest decision of my life.
With this I can also see those times when HE prodded me growing up and I pushed away from that.....
It does reveal to me that it is indeed He who draws us to himself and that moment of decision. And it was by His written word and the clarity of understanding what is written that brought me to him.
Hi B-D. Things have been very busy since retiring. We’ve built a house and moved, I’m in four bible studies (need all the help I can get), doing a lot of traveling, etc. They never told me that retirees never get a day off. :O)
I miss some of the crowd. Delighted to see you’re still around. Hope everything is well.
Haven’t retired yet but have cut down to 4 days. We have been spending time in Virginia Beach with my son and grandchildren.
I have been teaching at a Bible School along with my law practice. I also miss our interaction.
Yes....it’s quite special to look back and see His hand working early on.....I think I was about 8 or 9 when my sister first took me to church with just her. Mom was working so I felt all grown up.
Funny too ....they passed this ‘wooden dish’ around and everybody was putting money in it. So the next time I wen I took the ‘play money’ in my register and put it on the plate. ...all of it!
I think very possible God loved that even if not real money...and could have very well ‘multiplied’ that which was real to make up for it.
After all he looks at the heart.
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