“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hears My Voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with Me.”
Revelation 3:20
Like a Perfect Gentleman, He speaks softly and knocks quietly.
Some folks are loud and boisterous. You never have to wonder when they enter a room because their voice more resembles a fog horn than it does a cooing dove. While it’s true that Jesus had to have known how to properly project His Voice while speaking on a hillside without a speaker system to the crowds that followed Him, the fact remains that so many of His words of instruction were one-on-one or at least in a small room.
Regardless, today’s Manna is one of those sweet ones on which you want to spiritually nibble . . .taking your time to slowly savor each bite. . .as you try to picture it in your mind. Try to do so even now:
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”
What picture comes to mind as you envision this, dear Pilgrim? Possibly one like Holman Hunt’s painting, where Jesus quietly stands outside a massive, wooden door with no doorknob, gently rapping? Or, for those who live in a culture where knocking on doors is inappropriate—and they choose to stand outside the gate/door instead, quietly calling out to the residents within—the picture is the same:
That of a gentle Savior, Whose whisper is more powerful than the loudest thunder and sweeter than the most delicious honey and honeycomb (Ps. 19:1-10).
And, so often His knocking comes when we’re the busiest or when things around/within us are falling apart.
“If any man hears My Voice.”
The world is full of “voices,” Pilgrim. Are you able to recognize His above all the rest? If a mother recognizes her child’s cry in a room full of crying babies, shall not our loving Savior recognize ours in a world of almost two billion people? And if we’re able to recognize the voice of our soul-mate over the phone in rush-hour traffic or a crowded mall, should we not also be able to recognize His Voice when so many others are clamoring for our attention?
“And opens the door.”
It’s one thing to hear His Voice; it’s another thing to open the door. He will not force Himself on us. We must willingly grant Him entrance from within. “Today, if you would hear His Voice, harden not your heart” (Heb. 3:7).
“I will come in and sup with him and he with Me.”
Mmmm. . .what sweet communion this is. Spiritual “table-talk,” if you will, with the God of the universe as He communes with you by His Word and the Spirit. No sweeter fellowship on this earth can be found than this. But, we must “hunger and thirst” for it. He does.
By Tom Smith Morning Manna Dated July 30, 2009
