September 15, 2022

 

Jesus Christ says: “I am the gate. All who come in through me will be saved. (John 10.9)

 

Dear Readers,

 

some forty years ago, I was a volunteer probation officer. After training and with the coaching of a mentor, I was allowed to visit offenders in prison. My job was to teach them language lessons in German or English. For the prisoners, this was probably only a small change in their daily prison routine. The learning effect was probably not very substantial.

 

However, during that time, I experienced what freedom means. During my visits I had to pass through many closed doors. I could only enter the next section when the guards unlocked the door for me. When my visiting time was over, I had to be brought back to the outside through many locked doors by the guards again. I can still see in my mind the many barred doors with the big locks.

 

Jesus was not thinking of a prison door when he compared himself to a door. He was thinking of a door to the sheepfold. But all doors in this world have something in common: they lock something off. There is always an inside and an outside. Whether it's a prison door, a door to the sheepfold, a front door, a garden door, a car door: doors separate spaces. A door can be open and inviting. But a door can also be closed and forbidding.

 

On August 30, the former Russian President Michael Gorbachev died. During his visit to the Berlin Wall in 1987, then former U.S. President Ronald Reagan called out to him: "Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Then, two years later, the Berlin Wall opened. For millions of my fellow Germans, that was the door to freedom.

 

Jesus Christ says that he is the door to freedom. The freedom to become a child of the Father in heaven.  Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Only then, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

 

Sin blocks the way to this wonderful freedom of being able to live with the holy God and experience his love. We find real peace with God and with our fellow human beings only when we go through this “Jesus-door”. Only Jesus Christ is the door for a life in freedom.

 

The apostle Paul writes: God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. (Letter to the Ephesians, ch. 2, 5).  Whoever does not go through the "Jesus-door" remains a prisoner of his sins.

 

But whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ can leave his "prison of sin" as a free man. He becomes a new person: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

Whether Ronald Reagan's appeal touched Michael Gorbachev`s heart  I do not know. But I do know that if you ask Jesus Christ to free you from your sins, he will show you the way to freedom. He will open the door for you to a new life as a child of God. He will give you the freedom to become a child of the loving Father in heaven. Jesus Christ is the key to a new life. Your prayer touches the heart of Jesus.

I invite you to a short prayer:

 

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I want to become a new person. I want to know the freedom that you give. I want to know the peace you give. You know my heart and you know what separates me from you. I speak it out before you .........

I thank you for loving me. I thank you for being with me every day and staying with me always. Nothing can separate me from your love. Thank you for blessing me. Amen.

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