Open the Door to More
There are times when saying yes to God costs far more than we expected. I learned that personally when God called my wife and me to leave a comfortable season of ministry in Hamilton and step into something completely different in Sudbury. We knew God was opening a door, but we discovered that an open door doesn’t always lead to an easy road. Sometimes obedience is hard, painful, and costly.
But the invitation of Jesus remains the same: open the door. In Revelation 3:19–21, Jesus speaks to people who had become spiritually indifferent and says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” He isn’t standing there as a heavenly parole officer waiting to condemn us. He comes as a loving Father and a coach who believes in our future more than we do. He knocks because He wants to restore, heal, strengthen, and empower us.
1. Fight to Care Again
Sometimes spiritual indifference doesn’t come because life has been easy. It comes because life has been overwhelming.
After enough disappointment, betrayal, regret, shame, or pain, shutting down can feel safer than caring. We can become numb to the things that once moved our hearts. Revelation 2 shows churches that had gradually drifted—losing their first love, tolerating sin, growing weary, or allowing bitterness to take root.
That’s why Jesus says, “Be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:19). The call isn’t condemnation; it’s an invitation to turn away from indifference. We need to let the Holy Spirit make us sensitive again—to care about what hurts the heart of God and to allow Him to heal what has caused us to shut down.
2. Ask God to Help You Hear the Knocking
Spiritual deafness can happen gradually. Just as physical hearing loss can develop so slowly that we don’t recognize it, we can gradually become less attentive to the voice of God. The voice that once interrupted our day can eventually become little more than background noise.
Yet Jesus never stopped knocking.
Revelation 3:20 reminds us that He knows exactly what has happened—what we’ve done, what has been done to us, and what we’ve carried for years—and He still chooses to knock. We don’t have to clean ourselves up before we answer. His grace is already reaching toward us.
3. Victory Is Found in His Presence
We often define victory as the problem disappearing: the addiction is gone, the marriage is completely restored, the pain is resolved, or the circumstances finally change. But what happens when the situation doesn’t immediately change?
The church in Smyrna gives us an important picture. Jesus told them to expect suffering and to remain faithful even when following Him would be costly (Revelation 2:10). Sometimes saying yes to God doesn’t make life easier. Sometimes it gives us the strength to endure what we cannot change.
The answer is not spiritual emptiness. Jesus comes to nourish us, strengthen us, restore us, and empower us from the inside out. Victory is found in relational proximity to the Holy Spirit. Whatever we are facing, we don’t have to face it alone.
4. Hang Up the “Should Have, Could Have, Would Have”
Regret can keep a door closed for a very long time. We look backward and think about what we should have done, what we could have done, or what we would have done differently.
But those three words don’t get the final say.
Joel 2:25 gives us a beautiful promise: “I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” God is able to restore what we think has been lost. He specializes in what seems impossible.
There may be years we cannot get back, but we can give those years to Jesus. We can bring Him our guilt, shame, regrets, and missed opportunities and trust Him with what comes next. There is more hope than we can comprehend—and that hope has a name. Jesus is still knocking.
Open the Door
Maybe you’ve become comfortable with a closed door. Maybe it’s protecting an old wound, a regret, a sin, bitterness from betrayal, or simply the exhaustion of carrying something for too long.
Jesus already knows what’s behind that door.
He isn’t knocking to say, “I told you so.” He’s knocking because He wants to heal what has been holding you back. He wants to restore what has been broken and redeem what you thought was lost. He believes in your future more than you do.
So tonight, the invitation is simple: open the door.
Let the Holy Spirit into the places you’ve kept closed. Let Him bring grace where there has been guilt, healing where there has been hurt, and life where there has been numbness. There is more on the other side of that open door.