I was at church at Ethnos Mission Center in San Antonio a few years ago when a word was given about the Lord knocking at the doors of our hearts (Revelation 3:20). It was not the usual “salvation” interpretation of the Scripture many have heard from time to time. Instead, it was about listening to what the Lord is saying about us…about our individual lives and how He wants to speak into the depths of us in intimate and definitive ways regarding each and every area.
These areas included: healing, deliverance, hope, direction, wisdom, dreams and visions, taking risk, coming up higher to esteem Him and value our own self as He does. The topics mentioned are by no means exclusive and are small in number when compared to the unique needs and make up of each person reading this. Each of us are fashioned in such an exceptional way which makes our communication with the Lord a distinctive one of a kind experience.
Therefore, the Lord wants personal one on one time with each of us based on the truth of whom He is and who He has made us to be in Christ. No one is the same and therefore each of us require our own personal plan and way in which to communicate with the Lord. He communicates with us in ways only we can understand and receive from. He has knows us forever and delighted in us as He watched the kitting together of our being in our mother’s womb. Even then He was speaking to us…singing over us…hovering around us…and delighting in us with anticipation of all the conversations we would have with Him in the days and eternity to come.
Knocking At The Door
When the Word was given about how the Lord was knocking on our hearts in relation to sharing His dreams and desires for us I began to see a picture…an image of the Lord standing at a door knocking continually with great patience while holding something I perceived to be precious in His hand.
While He was knocking I saw a person on the other side of the door holding a small cardboard box which seemed to represent how they saw themselves. I knew how they saw themselves determined what they allowed in their life or their box. They could not see who they were but believed somehow the box was a true representation of who there were in many ways. Some self-perceived misconceptions cloaked themselves in very subtle ways the person was unaware of.
It was not a box which represented the need to be saved. It represented the things one holds on to. Some they were aware of and some not, but all keep them from sweet, intimate communion with the Lord.
The box they held was an ugly box with full of scathing and demeaning graffiti about the person holding it. Littered with tattered, torn and smashed places, it seemed to defy any sense of having value. Yet, somehow I knew it had a yet to be discovered worth and would be used to discard many unsavory things to include: broken dreams, the hateful words and abuses of men, weaknesses of the flesh, habits, addictions, broken promises and covenants, lies and deceptions about the person holding the box, misconceptions about God and His grace, mercy and love just to mention a few.
During this vision the Lord continued to knock and knock and knock. All the while He was knocking a wooing sound was taking place and wafted under the door like music notes. The notes began dancing around the person, persuading them to put something they were holding on to in the box.
Obedient to the wooing of the Lord’s heart, they began to put objects in the box. First in the box was some dried up bones which represented the dead places…the hopeless places of their heart where faint-heartedness and lack of intimacy had robbed the very life of desire out of certain things.
One by one bone fragments were put into the box until they began to poke through the tattered and torn places. With each bone dryness disappeared and awareness came to their senses and they began to notice large chunks, of what looked to be broken clay, under their feet and strewn on their path. Each piece had the power to pierce and had become a stumbling block of offense. One by one they picked up the chunks and put them in next to the dry bones. The box became heavier but the heart became lighter as began to feel the grass between their toes and not piercing offenses of the heart.
When this was complete they dug into their pockets and pulled out torn pieces of paper representing all the broken promises and unfulfilled covenants made by others. As they laid them, piece by piece, in the box you could see their continence changing and lift coming to their shoulders. The pieces came together to like a puzzle in order to expose the schemes of the enemy in their life.
Emboldened by their apparent success they began to pick all manner of buttons (little buttons, big buttons, and even multicolored buttons) which were sewn at random all over their clothes. Each represented a button the enemy could easily push whenever they might act as if they might try and answer some faint knocking at the door to the secret hiding place of their heart.
Previous thoughts of shame and guilt had the power to keep the buttons sewn tightly to the heart, but not anymore. Letting go of the buttons represented forgiveness and the complete release of all resentment…release of all offenses and blame of others, including God. Letting go brought about a much needed freedom to answer the door with complete trust in the faithfulness, goodness, mercy, and loving-kindness of the one standing on the other side.
The wooing of the Lord’s heart, like music notes impregnated with His fragrant grace, continued to minster to the person holding the box…a box now full of discarded and unsavory things. Each heavenly note drew them to the door as the knocking became loud and clear. Peering through the keyhole they could see the Lord and great excitement flooded their being. Full of anticipatory delight, they opened to door to the one who loves the most.
The Lord was carrying silver tray stacked with gifts to meet every need. However, before He would give His gifts, He reached out and asked, “May I have the box? I would like to make an exchange.”
Immediately the old tattered box full of dead, dry, hopeless and broken things was in His hands and disappeared with a blink of an eye. With the box gone, they began one by one unwrapping the gifts stacked on the silver tray. There was soft, warm bread, fine aged wine and a small intricately ornate treasure box and a stack of jewels containing every gem imaginable.
First they ate the sweet bread of communion and drank the wine of passionate desire. After a period of time the Lord held the gems in one hand and the jewel box in the other. One by one, He began to put gemstones in the ornate treasure box. As He diligently went about His work, all the while smiling with great delight, He would name the discarded thing each gem stood for. Some discarded things warranted receiving very large stones of blessing and some smaller. He didn’t leave one thing left undone. He turned every stone. He replaced each and everything let go of. In exchange, He transformed what was once an old tattered box of wrong beliefs and self-perceptions into an ornate treasure box…a treasure box full of His glorious gifts.
Once the process was complete He handed over the ornate treasure box and said, “I have taken you from cardboard to glory. Here is your true heart. Keep it forever open to Me and guard over it diligently for out of it springs the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23)
Yes, He Is Knocking
Yes, He is knocking at the door of our hearts and wants to come in to woo, commune and transform us into what He already knows us to be. We all have areas like the old tattered box no matter how far we have come. We grow day by day in Him. The best way to keep old tattered things from building up is to stay in communion with Him by never shutting the door no matter what our circumstances look like or how we act. Running away, whether it be for a moment or extended periods of time, gives the enemy leeway to convince us we are a tattered and torn cardboard box…gives him address to say we are not an ornate treasure box full of glory gems to be distributed to a world full of graffiti embossed and death filled boxes. So, as you read the following Word from the heart of God, be encouraged and always keep the door of your heart open at all times.
Have you closed the door of your heart in any way in certain areas…in secret places? Do you have walled off areas or and attic in need of a great exchange. If so, the time is now, whether it be big or small. Know this, little things build up over time and like little foxes they can destroy the vine…or in this case…they rob the treasure chest of self-worth and value in God to leave dry bones behind.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: (Isaiah 28:10 KJV)
And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
