Dining with Jesus!

Revelation 3: 20 - 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.This verse has three parts to it. The first part says, Behold I stand at the door and knock,The second part says, If any man hears my voice, and open the door, I will come in to himThe third part says, And I will sup with him and he with meThe first part is mostly used at altar calls to call forth those who have not yet believed in the Lord to accept Him and be saved. The Bible puts a strong emphasis on a man’s heart. Jesus said, “It is not what goes into the man that defiles him but what comes out of a man that defiles him” (Matthew 15:11&18). Hence Jesus is interested in your heart because His task of making you clean, pure and holy can be accomplished only if He has your heart. Therefore, we must give every area of our heart to Jesus. Don’t limit the areas of His influence in your life. Because when He does something He likes to do a perfect job which He will not be able to accomplish if your commitment to Him is partial and limited. Jesus comes and waits knocking at the door of your heart. He knocks in different ways – sometimes it is when you are reading some Christian literature or the Bible, sometimes it is through a Christian leader or friend, sometimes it is through an event or circumstance in your life and sometimes it could be a dream or an audible voice. Whatever it may be, it will be heard and recognized by you. This is why the word knocking is used here. The “knocking” will be loud enough for you to hear and take note.Your response to the “knock” is the second part. It is here that people get separated into two groups. One group hears the “knock”, recognizes it and chooses to ignore while the other hears the “knock”, recognizes it and choose to open the door. The second part highlights the CHOICE we make in our heart and the corresponding ACTION. Every choice has an action. If you heard and chose to ignore that is an action. If you heard and opened the door, that again is an action in response. Therefore in the first phase, you heard the “knock” in your heart, in the second phase, you make a choice in your heart which determines your response.The moment you make the choice to respond by opening the door, you begin to whole heartedly surrender. This is the moment of salvation. The Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the One who knows the end from the beginning enters the house to begin his work of restoration, fruitfulness and multiplication in your life. He restores life to your spirit thereby bringing fruitfulness in your spiritual walk as a christian and multiplication for your physical existence as a human being.By the second phase, you have been saved and have become a Christian and now you are the church. And it is at this point that the Spirit writes to the church and introduces the third phase of dining with the Lord. The third phase is applicable only once you become a believer. One who has not undergone the salvation experience of hearing and opening cannot experience the dining!The dining experience talks about a deeper relationship with God. It is not just the Friday service, it is not just the Monday intercessory prayer but it is a constant hunger for the presence and the Word of God that the Spirit is revealing to the Church. A feast or a ready table in the Word of God shows the blessing and reward of God. Psalms 23 says, He shall prepare a TABLE before my enemies; Psalms 128 says, your children will be like olive shoots around your TABLE, behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord; The man who heard the “knock”, while on the cross next to Jesus, responded and Jesus said to him “Today you will be with me in paradise”. So it is not enough that we allow Jesus into our life and leave Him at the door, but we need to get into a deeper relationship with Him where we dine with Him daily. So many times christians are too busy in our schedules to feast with Him. We are happy with the snacks and the appetizers but never take the main course of the feast that Jesus has prepared for us. If we are existing only on the Word we received on Fridays, my friends we are heading toward spiritual anorexia. Size Zero is definitely not fashionable in the spiritual realm. So what are we to eat with Christ? We have to eat the Word of God. Jesus says, “For man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. So as we fellowship with God in the Spirit (Romans 8:16), He will speak into our life and the Word He speaks will become life in us (Hebrews 4:12) and strengthen us to fulfill our calling (2 Timothy 3:16 – 17).God desires us to also eat fresh food. This is a principle of God. He does not like us eating stale food. It will cause indigestion. The journey of the Israelites to Canaan is an example that reflects this desire of God. He provides the Israelites with manna from heaven and commands them to consume it daily and not store up for later. He wanted them to make the effort daily to pick up the manna (Exodus 16:19-21). He wants us to make an effort to dine with him daily and not rely on yesterday’s revelation to survive today. What was given yesterday was good for yesterday, for today we need to get out of our tent (busy schedules) and make the effort to sit down for a full meal to keep us going in this journey to our promised land.

SHALOM!