LifeLink Devotional

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Most doors are designed to allow entrance and exit to a room or building. There are knobs on both sides, and traffic flows in both directions.

In the summer before my junior year of High School I went to work at Merrick’s Grocery Store on the east side of St. Paul. One of my first jobs I was trained to do was to stock the dairy case. That required me to go down the stairs to the basement where the cheese cooler was located. I was instructed multiple times to not shut the cooler door when I was inside.

Several weeks into my job, near the end of the day, I went into the cooler to carry up boxes of cheese to stock the dairy case in preparation for the next day’s business. Without thinking, as I entered the cooler, I pulled the door shut. I immediately recognized my mistake. I may have literally gasped out loud. Exit from the cooler was impossible. The long push handle on the inside of the door was gone. There was no way to release the lock. I was imprisoned in a thirty-five degree cell wearing only my work pants and a short-sleeved white shirt.

I looked around the cooler to see if there was anything I could use to push open the handle. All I saw was boxes of cheese. I was already chilled, and couldn’t imagine spending the night in the cooler. I started yelling and banging on the door. I was in an insulated cooler in the basement of the store at closing time. What hope did I have? I wanted out.

This is the context of the teaching of Jesus in John chapter ten. He had just released a man from the imprisonment of blindness. But more importantly He had released the man from the chilling cell of religious bondage. Jesus announces to everyone that He is the Door through which anyone could be released from the captivity of spiritual bondage. It was the mission He proclaimed in  Luke 4:18-19.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus tells the people that He is the Door through which anyone can be set free. You can be set free from sin. You can be set free from the bondage of religious traditions. Jesus is the door through which you can move to fullness of life.

The very interesting and powerful truth about the Door is that there is no handle on the inside. Jesus allows only one way traffic – IN. When we walk through the Door into eternal life, there is no out. Why should there be. Everything we have ever wanted is in Christ. His love is perfect so we need not seek love anywhere outside of Him. His knowledge is infinite so there is no need to seek understanding outside of Him. His power is limitless so there is no need to seek solutions outside of Him. When we walk through the Door into the eternal land of forgiveness,  we never need to search for satisfaction in any other land.

After about thirty-five minutes of yelling and banging, someone heard me. They opened the door. I walked through the open door into the warmth and freedom which I craved.

What are you craving from life? There is a Door. His name is Jesus. Walk through Him and find abundance.

Pastor John