"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me"
- Revelations 3:20
"Here, then, is the crucial question which we have been leading up to. Have we ever opened our door to Christ? Have we ever invited him in? This was exactly the question which I needed to have put to me. For, intellectually speaking, I had believed in Jesus all my life, on the other side of the door. I had regularly struggled to say my prayers through the key-hole. I had even pushed pennies under the door in a vain attempt to pacify him. I had been baptized, yes and confirmed as well. I went to church, read my Bible, had high ideals, and tried to be good and do good. But all the time, often without realising it, I was holding Christ at arm's length, and keeping him outside. I knew that to open the door might have momentous consequences. I am profoundly grateful to him for enabling me to open the door. Looking back now over more than fifty years, I realise that that simple step has changed the entire direction, course and quality of my life"John Stott
Reading this excerpt was moving indeed, as it made me remember the day I opened the door. And now I wonder how many of you reading this used to be like me, or used to be like Mr Stott.
This scripture mitigates against the belief in the kind of Predestination that assumes that God has assigned some men and women to Hell before they were born. Surely, an unloving doctrine and one that may well keep some from coming to faith. Let's look at the life of Calvin, who believed in this kind of predestination and the life of Wesley who would not have believed in such a doctrine. Calvin acquiesced to having a man burned alive. Wesley when encountering a robber led him to Christ. This belief in this type of predestination comes from thinking without praying and listening. Never a good idea and the practice that led some of the Pharisees to their beliefs that precluded a suffering Savior.
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