Monday, October 22, 2018
Revelation 3:8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
AN OPEN DOOR
What is an open door for mission work or outreach?
In Revelation 3:8 we learn that the Lord set before the church of Philadelphia an open door which no one could shut. On Paul's second missionary journey there was definitely a closed door in Asia Minor. "And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them..." (Acts 16:6-7). We today though are not privy to a direct message from God as to a specific open or closed door.
For us we should go back to the Great Commission given by our Lord to His church and repeated in all the Gospels. We are well familiar with Matthew's record in chapter 28 of how as we go we are to make disciples of all nations. In chapter 16 of Mark's Gospel the words of our Lord remind us again about going, and that in the process we are to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. Luke records the resurrected Lord's words to His church in the prophecy in chapter 24, "repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations." John records the scene that Easter evening when the Lord said to His apostles, "I send you." In John's twentieth chapter the Gospel writer reminds all how the church represented there by the apostles has the precious proclaiming power of the forgivenss of sins in Christ Jesus, repeating the Master's very words. The assumption, the injunction and the prophecy is that we will go.
Another assumption, too, is to treat the world as an open door.
Wherever each of us is, it is as a witness to Christ-- as one who declares the wonderful deeds of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. As it is with the individual, so it is with a group of Christians. We have been given the power of the Gospel of forgiveness. This is the compass and stabilizer for our group's movement, as well as the heart for the individual's life's trip.
