Open the Door to Jesus

Experiencing fellowship with God today should be a Christian's prime focus.  Living in obedience to God is evidence that I am His, and He is mine.  Eternity weighed against the temporal is more important in a sense, but if I do not fear God and love Him today my sense of eternal security could be a product of self-deception.  If I genuinely love God, I will obey Him and desire to spend time with Him now and gratefully join with others in the Body of Christ in worship.  I will desire to have a deeper understanding of God and take practical steps to draw near to Him.

1 John 1:6-7 reads, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."  My theology does not assure me entrance to heaven, but the blood of Jesus Christ applied to my soul by grace through faith.  I can be sound in doctrine, but it is only theoretical unless I am born again and filled with the Holy Spirit.  Because Jesus Christ is the Light of the World and become my life, I have fellowship with God and other Christians.  Since the Holy Spirit fills each born-again believer, I experience fellowship with God through communion with others who are in Christ because we are one in Him.

Are you experiencing fellowship with God?  Do you speak to Him and heed His voice through the prompting of the Spirit and the reading of His Word?  What prophetic words have you taken to heart God has spoken through fellow Christians?  If you do not care to spend time with God today, do you really want to abide in His presence forever?  And if a person is not delighted at the thought to spend today in God's presence, why should that person fool himself to think God wants such an ungrateful one with Him forever?  God is interested to have a close relationship with me today.  He is not interested to offer me a heavenly flophouse where I can be eternally content and secure without me caring to know Him.  Eternal security is found in knowing, trusting, and obeying God now.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen."  Jesus came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10) and destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:7-8).  As I read this portion recently, it struck me that Jesus did not ask His disciples to obtain decisions for Christ so people could go to heaven.  He told them to go and make disciples of all nations who obey all Christ commanded.  People are willing to pledge themselves, but God is not interested in man's promises.  He seeks to save sinners!  Make no mistake:  only true followers of Christ will go to heaven, for faith without works is dead.  Only those who have fellowship with God and walk in the light will live eternally with Him.

Christianity is not a religion but a decision to enter into a relationship with the living God.  God has reached out to us, not to impose rules upon us to restrict, but having freed believers from sin He instructs us in how to live in the way that pleases Him.  He has demonstrated His love for us through Christ dying on the cross, and He has proved His victory and power through His resurrection from the dead.  He has also sent the Holy Spirit to fill all who trust in Christ, providing the desire and ability to do His will (Phil. 2:13).  If you do not have fellowship with God today, do not be deceived to think you will suddenly obtain this privilege when you body dies on the basis of your theology.  Jesus spoke to the lukewarm church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:20, "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."  Will you open the door today?