"Here I Am, I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me." Revelation 3 :20
I was interested by a new thought when I read this verse, well an old thought really, I've studied this verse before. I'm sure we all have at sometime, it is a popular verse. But I think that the point of it is often lost or forgotten, maybe just taken for granted. Somehow, we generally think that we are the one that is 'doing' , you know, going to the door listening and then there is God, calling out 'Here I Am'. In fact, it is God who comes to the door first. He is the one who is 'doing'. It is not by what we do that He comes to the door. He comes to the door and then we do something.
This week in our study, we were asked the question "Who loved first, we or God?" Then, Blackaby goes on to add "God always takes the initiative to establish a love relationship with me."
God's initiative... not mine.
John 15:16 says "You did not choose me but I chose you" and Phillipians 2:13 says "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose" and Deuteronomy 30:6 "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul and live."
He loved first. What a relief really, that it is not by what I do that God comes, how amazing that He has chosen me, that He has loved me so much that He sent His own son to the cross. Yes, it is God who is the one 'doing'.
It is He who lets us know that He is there..."Here I Am".
Dietrich Bonhoeffer...yes I'm still reading that book...calls it 'being grasped by God'. He expresses the idea " (about philosophy) ...in which man himself tried to reach heaven or truth or God but theology begins and ends with faith in Christ who reveals himself to man, apart from such revelation there could be no such thing as truth. Thus the philosopher as well as the theologian who operates on the philosophers assumptions - chases his own tail and gazes at his own navel. He cannot break out of that cycle but God can break in."
Have you been grasped by God or are you chasing your own tail? Stop 'doing' for "Here I Am"...He is knocking at the door.
