OPEN THE DOOR

   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. --
Rev. 3:20
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    By now most all of us have lived long enough to be well aware that life is filled with a great series of choices. Oftentimes, a single choice at a fork in life's road can have major implications on what happens to us the remainder of our days. And, when it is in regard to spiritual matters, perhaps even beyond this life.
    We've all made our share of bad choices that produced consequences that came back to hit us in the pocketbooks or elsewhere and to otherwise haunt us later. Some have likely even turned out to be so significant as to become unexpected, but definite forks in the road for us.
    At times, when we found that a choice was a mistake, we have been able to go back to that turning point and (hopefully) forge ahead from a new direction by choosing better. Other times, we found we had "made our bed, and then we had to lay in it."
    By being so fortunate, as I am, to live in these United States, we do have a considerable amount of control over our destiny. Still, there are some people, particularly those in authority, who have the ability to intervene in our lives and hinder our progress.
    Through it all, we still can be thankful we're Americans. Especially, when we compare the circumstances under which people live in many other lands around the world. So, it's usually difficult to point our finger at others and blame them for our own troubles. We're usually our own worst enemy.
    The older we get, the more we learn that it's more often than not the choices we've made in the past that make our lives better or worse in our own futures.
    While decision making may sometimes be hard for us, procrastination or refusal to make any decision at all can turn out to be just as devastating to us as a bad decision. This is true in both the natural and spiritual realms. 
    My concern, of course, is the spiritual. And, I hope you are concerned as well because the Bible tells us that human beings are the only creatures on earth God has endowed with souls. The Creator designed our soul to live forever.
    The entrance of sin--the transgression of God's law--into the lives of mankind, has brought a pronouncement of death upon both the body and soul because as Romans 6:23 declares, "The wages of sin death." Thus sin's final payday is always DEATH!
    The same verse in Romans also declares that God's gift is eternal life. The Word explains that Jesus Christ gave his life--became the sacrifice that paid sin's debt--to free us from that curse of death.