OPEN DOORS

An open door in your life is when we sin or do things that are displeasing to God knowingly or not knowingly that allows the enemy to come into our lives and cause havoc. In the Bible we see this happening in Genesis 4:7, when God speaks to Cain and says to him, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

This means that the enemy wants us to open one door in our life so he can come in. I always use an example when I am trying to explain this to people by sharing that when you allow someone to come and stay at your house as a house guest for a few days, sometimes that person has other people, perhaps their family member or friends, coming to check on them or spend time with them. Many times, before you know it, more people are in your house than you bargained for. Sometimes your house guest is not able to leave within the time limit you had allocated for them and, before you know it, things are out of control and you don't know how it happened.

This is how Satan works, when he is allowed into our lives because of an open door; one thing leads to the next.

Cain opened the door to jealousy and instead of repentance; he allowed jealousy to lead to murder. This is how the enemy works. We must be careful of the doors that we open in our lives.

Therefore, you may be religious, but if you are not truly saved and living a life of obedience to God, you have an open door. The Bible says in Leviticus 11:44, "I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground."

Someone might say, "I cannot be holy like God; I am not God; therefore, I cannot be perfect as God who is perfect." Understand this, when we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, He comes inside of us and, as we learn the Word of God and submit to His will, He begins to perfect us. It's not our will anymore, but we must allow His will to reign in our lives. God is perfect, which means Jesus in us is working through the Holy Spirit, for His Spirit is perfect; therefore, as we let go of our desires, our wants, our needs or our will, then we must submit to His will in us. Through this process we begin to experience what John speaks about in John 3:30 (NIV), where it says "He must become greater; I must become less." The holiness of Jesus will be established in our lives, so really, while we in ourselves cannot be holy, through His Word, through intimacy with Him, and through the power of the Holy Spirit in us, convicting us as He directs us, and as we allow our will to break, we become more and more like Him. Bad habits fall away, sinful habits fall away, and God through Jesus perfects us daily as we become more like Him.

You may ask me, "Are you saying we will never make mistakes?" No, of course not! Am I saying we will never have temptations? No, not at all; Jesus was tempted. What I am saying is that Jesus inside of us wants us to submit to Him our bodies which are His temple. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NIV): "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own." In fact, verse 20 goes on to say, "You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

We are told then that the Spirit of God lives in us when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior; therefore, as we let go and daily submit to Him, He cleans our temple which is our bodies. The reason that we fall is when we allow our carnal nature to take over. We must not stay in that place but repent. To repent means to turn. This means that when we repent of our sins we must turn from what we were doing and allow the Holy Spirit, as we submit to Him, to enable us with His power to turn and lead us in the right direction.

Back to my testimony, as I was saying, before I had an open door in my life, I was religious; I thought I had a relationship with God, do not get me wrong, I had a few spiritual encounters through seeking God, like many of us had, but still not one of complete submission to His will. My husband was a church-goer, but at the time he had still not accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit had begun to draw me more and more close to Him, but I had still not totally surrendered. Furthermore, I felt that I was not stealing, killing, or doing anything that was really seriously bad; I felt I was kind to people, was trying to help those in need, and was in "my book" a good person. How many of us think we are pretty good people? A little white lie, no big deal; a little broken promise, small things; listening to a little gossip at work was normal. My friend, that's an open-door; all sin is equal.

In my upbringing there were different types of sin: the heavy sins were the mortal sins and the light sins were called venial sins. My dear friend, sin is sin, and the continuous practice of any sin without repentance is an open door to the enemy.

My husband was a good person but he had not accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. I had kept telling him as the Holy Spirit convicted me that he should accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and he kept putting it off. The reason for this, although I did not realize it at the time, was because I myself was religious and lukewarm. The Bible says in Revelation 3:16 (NIV), "So, because you are lukewarm-neither hot or cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

I was in a lukewarm state, and because of this, a door in my life was opened which gave the enemy access to me. It had been a little over five years that we had been married, our daughter was four years old, and our son had just been born. I was still on maternity leave from work and he was about two weeks old. My husband had gone to work and my daughter to pre-school. As I lay on the bed with my young baby boy, my life was about to be changed forever. It was at this time that I would usually enjoy my morning nap.

While lying there with my bedroom door open facing the hallway I saw three black images appearing to look bird-like, literally coming through the house wall, which means they were spiritual. As they came through the wall facing the hallway, I was unable to move. It was as if the atmosphere had changed and, for a few seconds perhaps that felt like minutes, I was held hostage. I knew in my mind something was terribly wrong, and I tried to make a sound but I was unable to do so. I tried to move and was unable to move. I tried to call on the name of Jesus and could not even move my mouth or any other part of my body.

The bird-like images headed directly toward my son and I. They stopped over our heads in the bed; I was unable to do anything physically. Therefore I began to call on the name of Jesus in my mind over and over again. After a...