I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

God is a God of order; He keeps order through borders. When He created the world and everything in it, the heavens and the earth, He established borders for His handiwork.

The sun doesn't shine when it chooses to do so. God created it with boundaries; it shines when and where He has determined. The stars that He calls by name twinkle at His bidding. The fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the animals of the land, the trees, the flowers – all of His creation, He blessed with a border.

If His creation operates within the limits of those borders, they are blessed. If they step across that borderline, they experience chaos. A fish out of water does not experience freedom, it experiences death. Consider all the natural borders in our lives of which we may not even be aware that still are blessings to us.

Outside of His borders, we will struggle. That is not just a natural truth. It is a supernatural truth. The reason that we are surrounded by so much pain and chaos on the earth is because we have crossed supernatural lines that God has drawn.

In our verse for today, Jesus proclaims Himself the Door. In John 14:6, Jesus told Thomas: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” He essentially said, “I am the border. I am your point of access.”

God is against no person. He desires that none perish but that ALL come to repentance (II Peter 3:9). Over and over, Jesus said, “Whosoever will… .” No matter your culture, what you have done, where you have been, how you have failed, Jesus is the Door. He is open to all! It is not about accessibility; it is about willingness.

Jesus makes Himself available to all. “I am the Door.” Are you willing to walk through the Door that God has provided?

Blessing: 

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

Border control is a subject on American minds, a topic that cannot be escaped. People are examining it through many different lenses – politically, economically, legally, culturally, and ethically. Spiritually, we are struggling with righteousness-versus-unrighteousness, light-versus-darkness, and truth-versus-lie kinds of issues because we have violated God’s borders.

God has gifted us with the Bible – a book of borders. As long as we live within the borders He has designated, we receive His blessings, His provision and protection. The moment that we step across and outside of those borders, we begin to struggle. All around us, the world is struggling with all kinds of issues. Those issues are symptoms of a spiritual problem that we have created. We crossed the line!

We have changed our perspective on borders. Until recently, borders were considered blessings. Borders were considered the means to abundant life. By choosing obedience, instead of our own paths, we lived in the life-giving flow of God’s Word.

Now, borders are considered burdens. Many have believed the lie that, if we can step across that border, we can find a new level of freedom on the other side. The truth is that, outside of the parameters of God’s will, only chaos exists. We stand exposed and unprotected, and all the while, Satan is on the prowl "seeking whom he may devour" (I Peter 5:8).

God is not looking for a government policy or a political candidate to bring order back to our world. God is looking for the people whom He sent His Son to redeem, those for whom He bled and died, to become the kind of people that will obey what the Bible decrees, that will act as the righteous children He created us to be.

He is a God of order; He keeps order through borders. May we find a balance on border control as we return to being a people governed by God’s borders established in His book of truth. “…if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14). Righteousness truly does exalt a nation!

Blessing: 

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’

The Church today is not so much guilty of the sin of commission or omission, but of no mission. We hang back and wait for the lost to enter our world when we need to enter their world with God’s love and His heart.

We have been rescued, saved, delivered, healed, showered with blessings, and highly favored. This good news should be so uncontainable that we are sharing it with every person we encounter. Instead, we often hoard it, hide it, and hope nobody asks.

We stall while we wait for the grand gesture – to speak to thousands, to touch the masses, to travel to a foreign land. But can we walk across the street and talk to our neighbors? Jesus’ example for us was often the opposite of the grand gesture. He held a child. He ate fish with his friends around a campfire. He touched a leper when no one else would. He discussed the Scriptures in the temple. And every one of those simple gestures had a profound impact.

Mother Teresa said, “God never asked me to be successful. God asked me to be obedient.” Let’s begin to think specifically about how we can obey the Lord. How can we be more intentional in the mission to which God has called us? Let’s stop drifting aimlessly.

Who can we invite to church?
Who can we visit in the hospital or nursing home?
Who can we ask out to share a meal?
How can we better use our finances for His purposes?
Who can we pray for tenaciously?
Can we give a cup of cold water to someone? Just start there!

A whole world around us is floundering, flailing, and fading fast. We have the hope. We have the remedy. Jesus has already sent us out on assignment (Matthew 28:19). Let’s fulfill our mission…starting now.

Blessing: 

And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Social scientists have a name for the tendency to watch from the sidelines: The Bystander Effect. It’s a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases in which individuals do not offer any means of help to a victim when other people are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any of them will help. Everyone thinks that someone else will do something or step in to rescue the victim.

It is easy, in the middle of our busy, fast-paced lives, to think that someone else will do what God is actually calling us to do. Someone else will witness to a neighbor or volunteer at our church or pray with a co-worker. We often think that throwing money at a need relieves us of the responsibility of wading in and getting our hands dirty.

If we are all honest, God is prompting us at this very point in time to do something we have not done before, to stretch beyond what is comfortable for us. So, why do we hesitate and hang back? Why are we content to watch while another believer steps in to meet that need?

For someone in your life right now, you are God’s Plan A. Jesus is counting on you to listen to His voice, to obey His prompting, and to reach out to meet the need. He created you for exactly this moment in history, to perform this good work that He ordained, and to be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

Blessing: 

Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

With great freedom comes great responsibility. And we have received the deepest and widest of freedoms through Christ. We are free indeed!

We are free from the law of sin and death to live in the righteousness of God (Romans 8:2). We are responsible to be imitators of God and to be examples “in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). That may seem like a tall order, but once again, Jesus equips us with all that we need.

When we spend time with Jesus, we become more like Him. When we spend time in His Word, we begin to see things His way. When we spend time communicating with Him, our prayers become powerful and effective. We begin to speak His heart into situations. When we follow Him and step in His footprints, we begin to look a lot like Him Who “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). We become imitators and examples.

When we spend time with Jesus, He leaves a mark on us that can be seen by those with whom we do life. He molds us, He shapes us, and He leaves His fingerprints all over us.

After Moses spent time with God on Mt. Sinai, he descended the mountain with the stone tablets in hand, his face aglow from the presence of the Lord. His countenance was kindled by the Light of God. In Acts 4, the crowds marveled at Peter and John when these uneducated and untrained men stood and boldly compelled others to accept the good news, but the people “realized that they had been with Jesus” (verse 13).

Spend time in His presence. Allow Him to leave His mark on you. Submit to His shaping. He will kindle a fire in you. He will make you bold. You will become an imitator of God and an example for others to follow.

Blessing: 

Today's Bible Reading: 

Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

We live in a world that makes less and less sense, where it becomes more and more difficult to discern fact from fiction. Charles Spurgeon said, “Discernment is not simply a matter of telling the difference between what is right and wrong; rather, it is the difference between right and almost right.”

To cut through all of the confusion, God has provided a resource to lead us to the truth. He has placed in our hands the Bible — the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, the Good News of the Gospel, the Sword of the Spirit, the Law of the Lord.

In his second letter to Timothy, Paul warned that many deceivers and imposters would come claiming to know the truth, but actually living in opposition to all that Jesus taught. He reminded Timothy to go back to the one place that he could always find truth: “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).

Not only has He placed this truth in our hands, but He encourages us to hide His Words in our hearts, so we do not sin against Him (Psalm 119:11). We need to read them, study them, memorize them, carry them inside of us so that we can expose the lies and recognize the truth (Hebrews 4:12).

The grass may wither, and the flowers may fade, but the Word of God stands forever (Isaiah 40:8). Not one period or comma will disappear from His law until all of it comes to pass (Matthew 5:18). When nothing else makes sense, His Word does. May it always be our true foundation.

Blessing: 

Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Do you ever get discouraged by the routine of life? After all, most of us haven’t slain a giant, camped out in the belly of a whale, led a million people across a desert, or healed the sick when our shadow fell across them.

Don’t be discouraged! Shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors, farmers — our heroes of the faith were just everyday people leading ordinary lives until God put His finger on them to do extraordinary things.

Too often, we search for the huge moment that will define our faith. What we overlook are the small, seemingly insignificant places where God begins to build the character and characteristics for the plans He has in mind for us.

Jesus reassures us that, if we do something as inconsequential as giving a cup of cold water in His name, there is a reward in that small act (Matthew 10:42). That is an easy starting point!

When we are filled with the Spirit of God, we are full of power to impact our worlds, our spheres of influence. When we do small things well over a long period of time with great love, they add up to a life of big impact for Jesus.

Blessing: