Behold The Rebel

"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

For whatever reason, the contractor removed this old door knocker from my mother's home when he remodeled it in 2006. He was using the same door and filled in the hole, sanded it smooth and painted the whole thing. I salvaged the old piece of hardware. It was full of memories of the friends that came to visit. As you can see, I did not polish it. To do so would erase their fingerprints so to speak. It would be to forget that my parents invited them in to relax in the living room and enjoy each other's company.

When I see that old door knocker sitting on my shelf, I think of the verse in the book of Revelation and usually I think of Jesus knocking. But not today. Today I am thinking about that hole in the door that was left when the contractor decided to take the knocker/peep hole out and maybe the only reason he took it out was because it was tarnished and didn't match the new look of my remodeled childhood home.

Jesus didn't come to the world polished, and by polished I mean following the rules of the time. No, Christ was a rebel with a cause---a Kingdom cause. He broke the rules of the Sabbath by healing, He touched the untouchable, He told the leaders things they didn't want to hear.

If the door referred to in Revelation 3:20 is the heart of man then what is to be said of the removal of the hardware? Think of it this way. That little piece of brass is Jesus' private knocker which no one else can use. Sometimes mankind gets tired of hearing his knocking so they think removing the knocker will silence Him. And for a while they are fine with the hole.

His knocking was unbearable to them. It echoed off the walls of a scarred heart. A heart scarred by pain. What they didn't realize is that He came to heal that pain. And now they're left with pain and a hole where others can look in and see it. So they try to fill it. They keep busy at work, they self-medicate, they indulge in self-destructiove behavior, anything to fill the hole and hide the pain. 

But Jesus doesn't walk away. He doesn't need a fancy knocker to knock on the door of a heart. He's still knocking, but now it is muffled by the noise of those fillers. Man sits there on the other side of that door with a choice: keep ignoring, or surrender and invite Him into the mess. Oh, I know the mess is embarrassing. We'd never dream of inviting someone into our real home if the living room was such a mess. 

But Jesus comes to comfort as He makes Himself comfortable. He won't condemn you for the mess. Nor will He ignore it, but He will help you deal with it. It may take a while and won't always be easy but it will be worth it.

The Rebel is knocking on that old tarnished piece of brass that matches your heart. Won't you let Him in?