Walk through the door---go ahead, RISE UP!

Walk through the door—Go ahead, RISE UP!

Good Day . . . 'There is a wide-open door for a great work here...' How apropos!

Today was a multi-faceted day of ministry, but with those words resonating in my brain, I made the drive to Long Beach. I
went to support Pastor Fred, on his first day back after a long
hospital stay. When I got there, I greeted my people, and
looking around thought, ‘Yes, Lord, this is a wide-open door for a
great work!’ (that line being one of Paul’s closing remarks to the
Corinthians)

Doors are highly symbolic, whether they are open or closed. They invite one to walk through, or they say ‘go away!’ “When one door closes, another opens,
but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we
do not see the one that has opened for us.”* (Have you continued to look at a
closed door, and perhaps missed the God-opened door in your life???) As we have studied the life of
Paul in Acts and several of his letters, we see at once that he was all
about finding the door God was opening, and then walking through it. ‘Love
that man.

Paul reveals his heart for the Christian converts—how he loved them! He wrote, “I am coming to visit you after I have been to Macedonia, for I am planning to travel through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay awhile with you,
possibly all winter, and then you can send me on my way to my next
destination. This time I don’t want to make just a short
visit and then go right on. I want to come and stay awhile, if the Lord
will let me. In the meantime, I will be staying here at Ephesus until the
Festival of Pentecost. There
is a wide-open door for a great work here, although many oppose me.” 1 Corinthians
16.5-9

Paul walked through the doors that God opened, even when it was extremely risky. He would rather be in the will
of God than any other place, which makes him quite a compelling
figure to me. I ask myself, ‘Am I more like Paul, or am I
more like Jonah?’

You remember Jonah, don’t you? God told him to go to Nineveh, which was on the Tigris River, and is near modern-day Mosul, Iraq, to preach repentance. God wanted
Jonah to tell them they were sinful, and that there would be
consequences for their sin. Jonah was a coward and so he
declined the all-expenses paid vacation to the lovely city of Nineveh. Instead,
he boarded a ship bound for another port, which was assailed with a
wicked storm.

Note to self: disobedience will lead to a storm.

My disobedience will lead me into a storm over which I have no control.

Enter the great fish, and you know that story—Jonah pleads with God, who gives him another chance, but God did not change his mind: “Jonah,
go to Nineveh.” God gets his man, he gets his way, though
Jonah paid a price for his disobedience.

I’m wondering—has God opened a door for you, given you a pat on the behind, to encourage you to walk through—and you chose to turn around and go the other way? Friend,
it is not just cowardice or a deaf ear, it is disobedience. Wherever
God has opened the door, whatever he has led you to do, he has already
gifted you to carry it out!

“Well, not really—“ you say. “See I sensed that God had something to do with that encounter, but you know, I can’t really say for sure….” Really, when you
stand before him one day, will you actually tell him that you didn’t
know it was him that stepped into your path? ‘You know
what I mean… you had a close call, and you prayed, ‘O God, help me; if
you just answer this prayer, I’ll serve you forever.’ Then
he did, and you reduced it to coincidence. To which I
say, ‘Ree-a-lllllly?’ Come on, now, it is just you and me
here. God has done different things to show himself to you
in your life—and what did you do? Each time, it was a
fork in the road, but he did leave you to make your own choice….he is a
gentleman that way. What did you choose—his way or your
way?

So back to Long Beach, back to my dear Pastor Fred . . . Today, he had a story to tell of a God who hears the prayers of the
faithful, and comes to do the miraculous--in this case, heal his
servant Fred, from a dreadful abdominal infection and diverticulitis! Oh,
God is good. Fred was weak, but his message was
powerful-- and included a renewed vision—God’s people need to rise up! Yes,
he said, we need a “new rising”.

Only you are in your specific place, with your circle of friends, family and associates to influence--only you can say, 'There is a wide-open door
for a great work here...' So, RISE UP, Christian, and do so!

Christine

podcast:

* Alexander Graham Bell