Go Completely Through the Gate

Jesus tells us, “I am the Gate” some translations say He is the Door. John 10:9 (TPT) I am the Gateway. To enter through me is to experience life, freedom and satisfaction.

For far too long the church has represented a life of mundane. No excitement, without vibrancy. A standard set on restrictions and rules. I believe that is why we went into the extreme of the “Friendly Seeker.” Do you know how much freedom I have experienced in Jesus? So much joy, and I did not need a church program to experience it. It was revealed to me through me seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus.

Jeremiah 29:13 (AMP) Then (with a deep longing) you will seek Me and require Me (as a vital necessity) and (you will) find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

There are things in our lives that fight for our attention, that want to be our vital necessity. I made a decision when I accepted Christ, that I was going to be all in. It was not going to be an “I love Jesus” , but I still do these things because Jesus paid the price for my sins mentality. I actually talked to a guy a few years ago and asked him, “Why did Jesus die for us?” His answer, “He died so that I can sin.” This was so very sad to me, because he was an attender of a mega church in our area. How has the message of Jesus not caused a desire for us to change, to want to be holy as He called us to be?

I was reading a book called Adamant by Lisa Bevere this week and ran across this passage: 2 Peter 1:3-4 (ESV) His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promise, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

He came so that we can overcome sin in our lives. His grace is there because He knows what it is like to be human and to have those desires.

Ephesians 4:17-19 (ESV) Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the family of their minds. They are darkened in the understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy practice of every kind of impurity.

In that day there were “sins” that were culturally acceptable. Going into sex shrines was culturally acceptable, but does that mean it would be okay after they came to know Jesus. That was the question I asked myself when I accepted Jesus into my life. I was eighteen, engaged to be married and was having a sexual relationship with my fiance. Culturally this is acceptable. It is encouraged now to live together before considering marriage. Deep down within me I felt a desire to make Jesus my everything. If I was going to say Jesus is my Lord, I had to make a change or that relationship with my new love (Jesus) would only be shallow. I did not want to just dip my toe in the water, I wanted to get a good swim in! I went to my fiance (now my husband) and told him, “If we are going to do this relationship with Jesus thing, we are going to do it right, we cannot have sex again until we get married.” He was on board, however, if he was not I was prepared to walk away from him.

Deep down within me I felt a desire to make Jesus my everything.

When I met John I was so very lonely. I prayed, without having a relationship, that God would send me my husband and I would serve Him the rest of my life. I did not know what I was praying, but God did. Neither John nor myself were in places to be serving God with our lives. I wanted to be loved so much that I was the one who pursued the intimate physical relationship. That was why when God spoke to my heart that Sunday night I was going to be all in. He told me that the pedestal that I had put John on, the one that I sought my love from, was where He belonged.

I am here to tell you that I made many more mistakes. God had to work on things in my life like anger, resentment, unforgiveness, wanting to get my way and wanting to pitch fits. I did not look perfect and still do not. Lisa Bevere put it so eloquently in her book, “As we read the Word, we pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal any areas of conformity and compromise that we may be tolerating out of habit or ignorance.”

When I look at Jesus as my Gate, I do not look at a door that wants to hold me in. It is like a new garment to me. In that garment it is full of grace. Grace that tells me that I can make it, that I do not have to be ashamed of my past, that in Him is where I find true love and fullness of joy.

2 Corinthians 6:11-13 (MSG) Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!

It is time that we submerge head first into the life that He wants us to live. One of my favorite verses: 2 Corinthians 3:18 (TPT) We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another. And this glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

It is a process that we allow Him to transform us. I am not where I want to be, but I am not where I use to be. Through this Gate, my view, my world, has become so much larger! I am no longer fenced in to that sin desire. He has set me free from the captivity!