Who Opened the Door? Who Shut the Door?
Good Morning Friends,
Each day brings something unexpected and in this uncertainty we are to expect Christ. Today we are to be ready to meet God. Today we are to see that Jesus is the way to the Father. Today we see how God’s call to Noah is like a father kindly calling his children home in preparation for a storm he sees coming. So too Noah reminds us of the call of the Gospel to sinners, the call to come home, come home, come as you are to the safety and security of a life in Jesus. It is our very own invitation even today, an echo of one of the great invitations in the Bible… the story of Noah and the Ark. The Ark was built on the faith of a man. So too our faith is the foundation of our salvation in Christ and the comfort of the Body of Believers. We come to the door of decision hearing the call of the Spirit, listening for God’s instructions, knowing our faith in His power keeps us waiting, keeps us growing in His creation. Here Jesus ushers us into His salvation, the salvation of eternity… the future. For here in the face of death, in this mortal body we learn of God’s attitude, here we learn to wait through the trials, uncertainty, difficulties and heartaches of life to prepare us for the promise that He will meet our needs into eternity. Here God helps us to walk through the door where we stand ready to call all who would hear into the comfort of the Savior, the power of God. Here people make the decision to shut the door on God, force the door shut so others cannot enter or learn to wait and allow God in the fullness of His time to determine when He will open and shut the door. Indeed it is a test of our life, the test of our obedience and faith how we experience the door and ultimately in the time of our birth, in the hour of our death, in the moment of our learning to live anew in Christ, we discover and rediscover the answer to the questions…. Who Opened the Door? Who Shut the Door?
Scripture: 7Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. 2Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; 3and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. 4For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.’ 5And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. 6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. 7And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, 9two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. 10And after seven days the waters of the flood came on the earth. 11 In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. 13On the very same day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons, entered the ark, 14they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind—every bird, every winged creature. 15They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. 16And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in. 17The flood continued for forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. 18The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. 19The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; 20the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. 21And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; 22everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. 24And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
Genesis 7 (NRSV)
3and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 18:3 (NRSV)
14’Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me.
John 14:1 (NRSV)
Message: Our natural inclination is to be so precise– trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next. We look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty. We need to learn to wait for the Lord, knowing that He opens and shuts the doors of creation for His purpose. There is a time for having an open door and a time for having a closed door, but it is God that controls the timing and the flow. The story of the Ark speaks to the judgment of God with the door being shut whereas Jesus’ open door speaks to God’s grace in preparation for a time the door will again be shut to protect His creation. Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life– gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in– but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.
Pray that in the uncertainty of the future and perhaps because it is uncertain we can show our faith and in that faith be thankful. Pray we are empowered to sow faith where there is doubt, trust where there is envy, peace where there is quarreling, love in places of hatred, assurance where there is fear, resolution in the place of conflict, contentment in the place of jealousy, progress in place of stagnation, healing for sickness, maturity for immaturity, unity for divisiveness, knowledge in place of confusion, trust in place of suspicion, power in place of weakness, grace where there is strife, direction to replace confusion, patience for our impatience, authority to guide anarchy, wisdom to fill up the hole of uncertainty in our lives and purpose…. purpose for the lives that are ultimately otherwise meaningless without Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 