We Close the Door

“In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them” (2 Chronicles 29:3).

King Hezekiah began to reign at the age of twenty-five years of age as King of Judah. His predecessors failed to follow the Lord. The condition at the temple was so much like many churches today–closed. Closed doors speak of no access to God and no service for God. While God has set before us an open door (Rev. 3:8), yet we close it by the way we live.

How do we close the doors of the church? We don’t witness. We don’t pray. The altar of prayer is cold. We don’t sacrifice. We think more of our lives then following the life God intends for each of us. When God looks around He sees plenty of rubbish in the church. No wonder the church of the Living God is so powerless.

What must be done? There must be a way given–for God wants to prosper His work. God’s heart is to get us to the point of total sanctification-set apart for God. Sacrifice of one’s person to the Lord’s service and a song in the heart leads to the reopening of the doors. God must start with you and me-the preacher and the people. For if God’s servants are not clean, God cannot bless His work.

Similar Posts

  • Deep Living

    “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1).

    Discouragement is the temporary loss of perspective. So many men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. Each day is to be significant as we seek those things which are deeper and not so much as wider.

    Each day must be seized with a renewal that maintains our perspective and minimizes the distractions that afflict us. When we lack direction and are bombarded by distractions we become discouraged.

    Shallow living leads to distractions that causes decay. Without proper care of the body we become ill. A marriage can become troubled after just a few episodes of unresolved anger and misunderstanding. An automobile can break down without proper maintenance. Without daily guidance and renewal in God’s presence we live in distracted modes.

    Don’t allow the busyness to the daily demands and orders of a noisy world, cause you to forget that God has a plan for you and for me. We are to win the battle which is so daily. Allow your roots to sink deep into the soil of God’s promises and allow His truth to be absorbed into the core of our soul.

     

     

     

     

  • Real Valor

     

    “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

        The Navy Seals train on the sand of Coronado Island so that can fight on the rocks of Afghanistan. Actually, the SEALs can fight anywhere–sea, air, and land. Hence the name and acronym SEALs.

          The training to become a SEAL is pure torture. But there is a reason for the harsh surroundings of training. The tests, drills, the lack of sleep, is all purposed to make a SEAL. Who will make it to become a SEAL? One writer said, “Not the weight-lifting meatheads…the kids covered in tattoos….the preening leaders who don’t want to get dirty…and the look-at-me former athletes who have always been told they are stars but who have never been pushed beyond the envelope of their talent to the core of their character.”

        Who does not make it in the Christian warfare and walk? In short, those who fail are the ones who focus on show. When it comes to famine (lean times in life), suffering (hard times in life), the rough times (doesn’t seem to-let-up times in life), many look for the exit. Though it is rough, tough, and fisticuffs, God means for us to not look for the exit, but to stay the course. His desire is for us not to be all show and no go. In Texas they have a saying, “Big hat, no cattle.”  Build on the Rock of Jesus! STAY the course!

  • The Greatest Message to the Lowliest of Messengers

    “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 61:1).

    It is an amazing feat to see a child of God go backward and downward away from the Father’s love and care. And yet each has the potential to back up and back down from the amazing grace and capture of our Father in heaven.

    With all that is before us, the bema seat of judgment by Christ, heaven’s reward or heaven’s rebuke, with the presence of the King– it would seem, rather, that we would not turn away and spoil our soul. But it happens too often to so many. We can sit and church and backslide on God. We can sing songs of thanksgiving and songs of Christmas and yet be in a state of lukewarmness. But it shouldn’t be nor should our lives become a disgrace to God’s grace.

    God the Father has given the resources we need to live above this world and with the ability to resist its undertow. Yes it takes discipline and devotion but it is doable through faith in the indwelling Christ. God has brought us back from the depths of despair and from the loss of wasting time.

    If the Word of God is not changing us into the very image of Christ, then the Word of God is not functioning as it ought. And that is not because of the seed of the Word, for it is not bad, but it is because of the receiver of the Word. We can tell if we are beholding God or allowing the world to mold us into something we don’t want to become. Again, God has given us all we need that pertains to life and godliness. But we have to avail ourselves of its power. He is looking for those who are poor in spirit and who trembles at His Word.

  • Praying the Bible

    “When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness”  (Acts 4:31).

    On the cross the Lord Jesus only said out loud seven brief things. The Romans had flayed His back until it was ribboned and torn, and was seen by every eye that passed by. Severely dehydrated, His entire body weight hanging on three nails that held Him to the wood, the Lord of love had to push himself upward to be able to talk, and then only briefly before releasing and settling downward.

    Understandably, then, everything Jesus spoke from the cross was important. And as He lifted himself up each time I am convinced that He prayed through the verses of Psalm 22. As He weighed back downward, wrestling on those nails, He continued to pray silently through Psalms 22. Oh! How that pangs my heart. Yet, oh, how, it rejoices my soul! His first prayer from Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The last prayer was from Psalm 31:5, “Father into thy hands I commit my spirit.”

    Jesus prayed the Psalms. The final act of His earthly life was to pray the words of a psalm, the Word of the Bible. Friends, if the Lord Jesus prayed the psalms and the Bible, and the early church prayed the psalms should we not do as well? There is power in praying the Bible.

  • Sunday School and Prayer Meeting

    “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24).

    L.R. Scarborough said that if we could only have a five-minute glimpse into hell our evangelism would be changed for a lifetime. Just the other day I was trying to imagine what a look into hell would be like. I’m sure the “terror of the Lord” would take on a dreadful new meaning if I could see hell.

    We believe that Sunday School is important, as far as it goes, but that is about it. The number one reason why most attend the Sunday affair is because of their own fellowship and teaching for them, or just out of obligation.  Yet if we are content to be spiritually fed, spiritually welcomed, and we forget about participating in bringing others to hear the good news, then we do not have the heart of Christ. Sunday School is meant to bring others to hear what you hear and feel what you feel and to share what you share.

    Prayer with others on a specific night is important as well. It is at the prayer meeting where we come together as a body to beseech the God of glory for the lost and for our own strength that only grace can provide. The Kingdom of God is coming upon this earth one glorious day. And God is peopling His kingdom with people who have been prayed for, reached for, and sought for–who come to submit to His way of salvation for them–through the outreach and prayers of His people.

    When you and I have food and a future we can not be content with others who are starving and lifeless. The four starving lepers of Samara who walked into a deserted enemy camp discovered food and a future, and they could not keep this to themselves. They said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent” (2 Kings 7:9). So they did something about their passivity. Together they went and told the good news of food and a future in the camp.

    It is together that we invite others, it is together we pray, it is together we meet with God. Church is important for groups to gather and not for individuals just to meet. God works through His gathered people. The greater the unity of God’s people the greater the authority we have as God’s people.

  • Revival

    “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence” (Isaiah 64:1).

    Too many people are tired and worn out. They are so tired, with all of the new gadgets and technology, one would think life would be easier, but the gadgets only add to our tiredness.

    How did some of our great-grandparents do it? How did they do so much with so little and we do so little with so much? How did they bring up their children in the things of God and we just watch our children grow up?

    Is it because we are trusting in our own lives rather than the One who gives it? I pray that all of us would examine our prayer lives. How are we doing? Are we truly praying? When you and I climb to the Summit it is costly business. The bitter cold, raging winds, rarified atmosphere, the blinding blizzards, engulfing avalanches of snow and rock will try to beat us down from the climb. But it is worth it!

    God said that He would look down and come down if we invite Him. The things that wear us out are the things that are keeping us from Him and Him from us. Life on the highest plane is found as we pray, for it is the Upward Way as we press onward and upward. “Comfyness” is a sign of desertion from God.

    Someone has said that “the kingdom of God will be brought in by Christians who, when last seen, were heading toward the summit.” How true! Yes, and how thrilling! Have we allowed “iniquities to separate between us and our God?” True obedience is staying in the upward direction in prayer. It is the sign of a soul that is climbing the Summit with God.