Saturday, January 24, 2004

The Lord told me (part 3.5)...

I'm inserting a partial post before my last post on this topic due to a comment by Mac Swift. He references asking for guidance by asking God to close the door if it isn't in His will. Greg Koukl provides the following New Testament examples of open and closed doors. In 1 Corinthians 16:8-9 we see Paul go through an open door, “But I shall remain in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries” But we see in 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 that he chooses not to go through an open door, “Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went on to Macedonia.” Curious isn't it? If in fact the open door was God's direction He was telling Paul to take, why did Paul choose not to go through it? How about a literal open door? In Acts 16:26-28 Paul is presented with a golden opportunity to walk through an open door. Being chain-bound and in jail, he suddenly found the chains supernaturally unfastened and the jail doors wide open. Yet he chooses not to go through the door. “And suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened. And when the jailer had been roused out of sleep and had seen the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Do yourself no harm, for we are all here!’” Could it be that opportunities that we refer to as open or closed doors are, in fact, simply opportunities in which we have the power and responsibility to make a decision for ourselves? end of part 3.5, go to last part

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