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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: August 4th

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THE CHRIST AT THE DOOR

Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me, - Revelation 3:20.

We have here the exalted Christ asking to be let in to a man’s heart. The latter words of the verse suggest the image of a banqueting-hall. The chamber to which Christ desires entrance is full of feaster’s. There is room for everybody else there but Him. Music and dancing and lights and good cheer and laughter fill the house, and He stands without. There is no room for Him, as there was not at His birth.

Now the plain, sad truth which that sets forth is this, that we are more willing to let anybody and anything come into our thoughts, and find lodgement in our affections, than we are to let Jesus Christ come in. Is it so, or is it not? The doors that swing wide for vanities and selfishness, lust and passions, whims and fancies, and favourite pursuits, are barred and bolted in His face. We welcome to the chief seats in our hearts His and our worst enemies. They flock in; He stands without, like some exiled and dethroned monarch, who, coming back to his own land and his own palace, stands amongst the ragged losels on the pavement, and sees the upstarts and the rebels passing into the lighted halls; all His own, where He may not enter. Is it so, or is it not?

The reality of Christ’s knocking is represented not only as being the touch of an importunate hand, but is accompanied also with the beseeching of a voice. That is not a pretty metaphor only. Jesus Christ is living and working to-day; He is at your side, present though unseen, working upon you though you know it not; trying to draw you to Himself; pleading with you year by year and moment by moment. It is one of the deepest facts of human existence, a barred heart, and a present Saviour suing for entrance.

And how does He sue? Does He not knock at your heart by that Book of which the very spirit in all its parts is the testimony to Him? Is He not knocking at your heart loud blows, by sorrows and gentle touches, waxen touches, soft and warm and sweet as a baby’s hand; by the mercies that come to you day by day? When Absalom would not go to Joab, Joab burned his corn, and then Absalom came to him. When a man will not come to Christ, sometimes He burns his corn, and then, sometimes, the man comes. And the further we go from Him, the louder the beseeching impressiveness of the knocks of His hand. Have you never found rising up in your soul a sudden conviction, with which you had nothing to do but to listen to it; telling you what you ought to do and to be? Have you not sometimes had flashing in upon you, like a sudden glare in the dark, the conviction, "I ought to be a Christian and to follow Jesus Christ"? Such voices -

"Our inward ear

Catches sometimes from afar.

Listen, ponder, hold them dear,

For of God- of God, they are."

Every conviction, every impression, every half inclination towards Him that has risen in your hearts, though you fought against it and smothered it, and did anything with it but obeyed it, has been His knocking there.

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