Behold Christ stands at the door and knocks (Revelation 3:20) but for some strange reason we continue to refuse to open the door ("I hear you knocking but you can't come in"). Why?

SCRIPTURE: Revelation 3:20 (TM)

"Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you.”

STORY:

A story is told of a man who loved old books. He met an acquaintance who had just thrown away a Bible that had been stored in the attic of his ancestral home for generations. "I couldn't read it," the friend explained. "Somebody named Guten-something had printed it." "Not Gutenberg!" the book lover exclaimed in horror. "That Bible was one of the first books ever printed. Why, a copy just sold for over two million dollars!" His friend was unimpressed. "Mine wouldn't have brought a dollar. Some fellow named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it in German." 

OBSERVATION:

We place value on things and relationships. Sometimes the value is misplaced because we don’t have enough information. Sometimes the value is misplaced because we don’t appreciate the information that we do have. And, sometimes the value is misplaced because we simply don’t know what we have … or what is offered.

Dave Edmunds made popular a song that includes this refrain: “I hear you knocking… But you can't come in… I hear you knocking… Go back where you been.” Too often that is how we treat Jesus. Why? Is it because we don’t value his presence? Is it because the value we place on a relationship with him isn’t that important? Or, is it because we have tried this relationship only to find it wanting?

Maybe, just maybe, we hear him knocking and dismiss his knocks sending him away (“I hear you knocking but you can’t come in”) because we think it would just take too much effort to get up from where we are in our life to answer the door.  Or, we are operating under the false assumption that to allow him in would mean that we have to have our house in order, all cleaned up and ready to receive guests.

Even though we continue to refuse he continues to knock … and he will until the door to our life and our heart is opened. Why? Because that is the value that Christ places on a relationship with us. It is so important that he will continue to knock until we finally decided to open up and invite him in.

PRAYER:

Lord, we are a stubborn lot aren’t we. We hear you knocking. We’ve heard you knocking for a long time now. We keep trying to ignore you and yet you continue to knock. Someday … hopefully today … we are going to understand the value that you place on a relationship with the likes of us and open the door to our heart saying, Please come in. Amen.