In Touch Ministries

Charles Stanley: Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." To an unbeliever, to get in. To a believer, what's he doing? He's trying to get our attention. We're trying to mix darkness and light, and he knows that's not going to work. And he's saying it's not going to work. I want what's best for you.

It's not going to work, not going to work, not going to work. He will never change his mind and say, "Oh, well, maybe so." That's not who he is.

Announcer: Throughout history, God has pursued humanity. It was God who sought Adam and Eve after they'd sinned. It was Jesus who called his disciples, and it was the risen Christ who met Saul on the Damascus Road. And today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, you'll see how Jesus still pursues us today.

Be encouraged as you listen and respond to Jesus: The Seeking Savior. Let's listen in to Dr. Stanley's message.

Charles Stanley: I want you to listen to this message. It's a very, very important message. All of them are, but I want you to listen carefully, because there's a picture of Jesus here that's not found anywhere else in the scripture. And it's so comprehensive because it's about our relationship to him.

And here's the verse. Look at this: "Behold," this is Jesus, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me."

Here is a beautiful, masterful picture of Jesus. And so what I want us to do, I want us to see him in the five different perspectives that he's mentioned here. And the first one is this: Here's what he says. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." So we see Jesus, first of all, standing.

What does that symbolize? His readiness. That is, he's ready to enter a life that's willing and ready for him to do it. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Now, I want you to notice something here: Who's taking the initiative? It is Jesus who takes the initiative in our salvation experience.

Many people say, "I just decided when I was at a certain age or when I was going through a certain situation, I just decided I was going to be saved." No, you didn't. You responded. You responded to Christ, who was knocking on the heart of your life. So you are a responder.

For example, the word reconciliation means that he took the reconciliation upon himself, and he brought us to himself. That is, all the works that bring us to Christ are the works that he instituted. It isn't something we do. Notice he says I'm standing, not sitting, not wandering around. "Behold, I stand at the door and I knock."

Let me ask you a question. When is the last time in your life that you have ever heard God speaking to you? Remember when that was? You say, "God doesn't speak to me." Oh, listen, if he's knocking on your door, he has something to say. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." And so you ask yourself the question, "How does he knock?"

Sometimes he knocks through circumstances to get your attention: difficulty, hardship, pain, disappointment, all kinds of things that go on in our life. Oftentimes, that is God knocking on the door of our heart to get our attention. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear my voice..." Listen, what is he saying? "I'm pleading to get in. Let me in."

I go back to what we said in the very beginning. We're not out there looking for Jesus. Here's what he said: "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost." Jesus could put the most awesome truths in a simple short sentence. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save. Not just to seek, to seek and to save that which is lost.

Which means every single person is the goal and object of Almighty God through his son Jesus Christ. His death at the cross paid our sin debt in full, opened the door to the entire world. So he's made it possible for us to receive him. And therefore he's there.

And he says, "If anyone hear my voice and open the door." So I ask you this question: Has there ever been a time in your life when you said in response to the Lord God, "I do open my heart to you, Jesus. I'm asking you to forgive me of my sins, and I'm asking you to come into my life, and I'm asking you to guide me. Save me from my sins and guide me all the days of my life"?

Have you ever done that? If not, let me tell you what's happening. Hello. Hello. Hello. And he's still standing there, and he's still knocking, and the voice is still there, and you've ignored it. That's a dangerous thing to ignore the love of God, the penetrating power of God, the awesome work of the Holy Spirit to draw you to himself.

The Bible says do not resist the Spirit and do not grieve the Spirit of God. Think about Jesus who went to the cross and you hear the message, and you hear that he wants to come into your life, that he loves you, that everything good that's happened in your life to this point has been him. And now he wants to come into a deeper relationship with you. You won't even answer the door.

That's the way it is with some believers, because some believers are like what he said about being lukewarm. Don't expect too much. I just want to float through life, and I don't want anybody to bother me. That's not the way life is. Every single one of us is confronted with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And not only that, we're confronted with something else. He said, "Come unto me, all you that labor and heavy laden and I'll give you rest." But he also said, "Follow me." To follow him is to obey him. He said, "Come to me, follow me, and abide in me." I'm to come to him in salvation. I'm to follow him in obedience and to abide in him, I'm to rest in him, I'm to live in this wonderful intimate relationship with him.

Those three things make up the Christian life: Come to me, and follow me, and abide in me. Look at that: Come to me, follow me, and abide in me. Suppose he or she didn't let you in. You'd be deeply hurt. When he says in this passage, "I'm standing at the door and I'm knocking," it's not enough to knock.

He says, "I want to get in. I want to change your life." He's a penetrating Christ. That is, he says, for example, when he's talking to Nicodemus, he said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." That is, it's a new life that I want to enter and give you. When Christ comes into a person's heart, it's a new life.

Paul said to the Colossians in that first chapter, he said, speaking of this relationship, he said, "Christ in you is your hope of glory." Listen, watch this, not being a member of a church. You can be a member of 20 churches and die and be lost. He says, "Christ in you is your hope of heaven. Christ in you."

When he says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hear my voice and open the door." Why does Jesus want to get in? Many people like to think about the Christian life as God's up yonder, I'm down here, and when I have need of him, I call on him. I meet his protection or whatever I need in life. No. We're talking about an intimate relationship.

You know how intimate a husband and a wife are? What you know, I know. What you feel, I feel. What's good for you is what I want. In other words, two people who love each other and who are looking out for each other's best. That's, listen, Jesus wants a relationship with you that is more intimate, more powerful, and more all-encompassing than the relationship of two people who genuinely love each other in the best way possible.

He says, "I want to come into you." Look at this: He says, for example, in 2 Corinthians chapter five, he says, "Therefore if any person be in Christ, he is a new creation." Now, that means that life changes. And when I think about that, I think about one of the most powerful passages in 2 Peter. A powerful passage of scripture that when you first think about it, you think, "How can it be possible?" But it can.

So I want you to turn to 2 Peter for a moment, and I want us to just look at two or three verses in this first chapter because this is what happens. When you open your door to Christ, he comes into your life and forgives you of your sins, saves you. Here's what he says. Chapter one of 2 Peter, he says, verse three:

"Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of this world by lust."

Now what does he say? Something very important. He says when you let him in, Jesus at the door of your life, when you let him in, watch this carefully because most believers don't live with this concept. When you let him into your life, do you realize that you are allowing into your life the divine nature? That is, the nature of God, because the Holy Spirit comes into your life.

And he seals you as a child of God. And he's there to enable you, help you, strengthen you, everything that God wants to do in your life. That's where it all begins. When you allow Christ in, he says, "I will send the Holy Spirit. He will seal you into the day of redemption as a child of God.

He will strengthen you and help you and enable you. He interprets the scripture for us." He's grieved. It grieves Jesus when we turn him away. It grieves Jesus when we disobey him. It grieves Jesus when we refuse to listen to his knock and his voice in our life.

He says we become partakers of his divine nature. Now watch this, why this is so important. A divine nature is a holy nature. It's the nature of God. And here's what the Bible says. The Bible says that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. So think about this. You have the nature of God within you. That's what happened.

You say, "I don't feel like that." That's nothing to do with it. You have the nature of God within you, the holiness of God within you. Therefore, do you not understand then that you cannot tolerate sin in your life? When it comes, you confess it, you repent of it, you move on. Because here's what happens: You're acting out of who you are.

You trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Now he's on the inside of you, living out his life in you. So this holy divine nature that is within you, that's what the passage says. If it isn't true, we just forget the whole thing. It is true. He says when the Holy Spirit comes, he will be in you, with you, and upon you forever.

So who is the Holy Spirit? A person of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit that makes up the Godhead, which is one. This is how awesome he is. When he comes into your life and my life, it's as if he brings, and he does, the very nature of deity within us. Why? Because he loves us.

"Open the door," he says, "because what I'm going to do is I'm going to change your life. Your life will never be the same again once Jesus comes in and takes his place." It doesn't mean that you're not going to ever sin, but when it comes, you deal with it. Why? Because indwelling us is the person of light himself.

Jesus is indwelling us through the Holy Spirit. So when we allow sin into our life, then we have this conflict. That's why any and every single solitary believer who really and truly wants to live a godly life, when sin comes into your life, you're restless. It divides your mind. You don't have any real peace in your heart. Why? Because you're dealing with something that doesn't fit.

Sin doesn't fit in our life. And so therefore, it's not that it'll never come, but when it comes, we deal with it immediately. Otherwise, if we accept it, begin to compromise, as we saw a compromising church, as we compromise, here's what we're trying to do. Are you listening, say "Amen." This is so very important.

What we are trying to do is to mix light and darkness. And every single person on the face of this earth who's in their mind at all knows you cannot mix light and darkness. So we want the light of Jesus on the inside, bring a little sin along, and just mess around with life and doing things that are a disobedience to him, and we think we're doing fine. No, we are not.

Jesus, think about this: He loves you enough to be willing to place within you part of his divine nature so that we could live a godly life, a righteous life, a holy life. Not sinless, but holy. And so when we are tolerating sin, what we're trying to do is we're mixing holiness with sin, which they don't mix.

You can't mix those two any more than you can mix light and darkness. Did you get that, say "Amen." You cannot. Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." To an unbeliever, to get in. To a believer, what's he doing? He's trying to get our attention.

We're trying to mix darkness and light, and he knows that's not going to work. And he's saying it's not going to work. I want what's best for you. It's not going to work, not going to work, not going to work. He will never change his mind and say, "Oh, well, maybe so." That's not who he is.

And why won't he? For the simple reason that I wouldn't give my child, my son at the age of three years of age, he wanted my pocket knife. And it was a pretty nice pocket knife and it could cut. I said, "No way. You cannot have a pocket knife no matter what." He could have jumped up and down and screamed and hollered.

You think I'd give it to him because he finally just wore me out? No. And neither will God allow you to be at peace with sin in your life, because he loves you too much. And when I hear people say, "I can't be a Christian. Life you folks don't have any fun." We're the only people who have any real fun.

In other words, listen, if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, you have never discovered what life's really all about. I know you look at some Christians and you say, "I wouldn't be like that." Well, I wouldn't be like some either. I might say that I wouldn't be like some church members. But that's not the issue.

The issue is, what about you and Jesus? You can always blame something on somebody else. Listen to what he said: "I'm standing at the door and knocking, and if you'll just hear my voice, and if you'll just open the door, I'm willing to come into your life, change your life, give you my spirit." He says, "Come in and dine with you."

Now think about this. What's more enjoyable than sitting down with your friend and you go out to eat and you're relaxed? What I've discovered is this: You can go in any good restaurant, and when people are eating, they're laughing and talking. And I say Americans are the most happy publicly, at least when they're eating, because they're sharing their free and so forth.

And I've got a couple of staff members that if I really want to get some planning ahead, I got to eat lunch. Now, let me tell you what happens. Watch this carefully: When two people who are of the same mind and the same goals and the same objectives and who have a oneness of mind about things, sit down and relax and open their minds and hearts to one another, it is absolutely amazing.

So many plans develop across the table. Now, it's the prayer that sifts them and decides whether that's the right thing or not the right thing. But the idea is they develop. What I'm simply saying is there's something very, very wonderful and relaxing and reassuring and something very enjoyable about fellowshipping with somebody across the table.

Guess what he said? He said, "If you'll let me in," I love this, he says, "if you'll open the door and let me in, here's what I'll do: I'll come in and we'll eat lunch together. I'll dine with you." You know what he's saying? "I want to have fellowship with you." Think about this: That God desires the fellowship with us.

Are we deserving of it? No, we're not deserving of it. That's not the issue. The issue is he created us. Why did he create us? To fellowship with us. He created us to reveal himself. Listen to what he said: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." This is God. "Stand at the door and knock.

If you'll just listen to me, if you'll just hear my voice and be wise enough to open the door, here's what I'll do: I will come into your life and I will transform it. I will forgive all your sin. I will clean up your life. I will change the things that need to be changed.

I will provide for what needs to be provided. I will love you in a way that you've never been loved before nor could ever be loved any way to match it. I will build a relationship with you that is matchless. I will do for you what no one else could possibly do. I will be to you what no one else could possibly be.

You will never regret the day that you allowed me into your life where I will show you life like it's never been seen before. And remember this: What I begin with you will never end, for our relationship is eternal. How could you resist that kind of love?"

Announcer: Thanks for joining us on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. If you're struggling to live the Christian life, surrender your will to God's plans and acknowledge that your ideas can never compare to his. You can continue learning about walking in holiness by accessing the many helpful resources that you'll find at intouch.org.

And if you want to listen to this message again, just click Today on Radio. To order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, "Jesus: The Seeking Savior," visit the bookstore page. Again, log on to intouch.org or call or text us. The number is simply 1-800-INTOUCH.

To write to us, address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357. Or remember our toll-free number is 1-800-INTOUCH. What is it that energizes you and brings you deep satisfaction? Encouragement is on the way in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

Charles Stanley: The cross was not something that God gave us as a piece of decoration. The cross is the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Announcer: But what is it about the message of the cross that can transform you every day of your life? In his book, "The Gift of the Cross," Dr. Charles Stanley walks us through scripture to show us how to see the cross in a new light. "The Gift of the Cross," order yours today at intouch.org/store.

Have you ever forgotten something God taught you when you were reading the Bible? When we take note of what God reveals to us, it helps us to apply it to our lives. With the Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Journal, you can keep track of your spiritual journey and be transformed by God's truths.

This journal features artwork of Dr. Stanley's 30 life principles, lined pages for writing, a prayer journaling section, and more. To order, call 1-800-INTOUCH or go to intouch.org/journal. You're listening to In Touch. What do you enjoy? What motivates you? With insight for believers, here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Charles Stanley: I can tell you the most exciting thing in my life, and that's simply this: That having an intimate relationship with Jesus, an intimacy that is personal, that is warm, that is reassuring, that's overwhelming and overpowering, in the fact that every single day, so many times and in so many ways, in different times in different days, that I see his hand at work in my life.

I see him being ahead of me, working this out. I see him providing ahead of time something that is needed. When I open the Word to ask him to give me his message, this isn't something I figure out. This isn't something I come up with. I just have to say, "Lord, you know the needs of people. I need you to speak to my heart. I need you to make it crystal clear. I need you to work in my life."

But the most important thing is I see Jesus working in my own life in the most intimate, personal ways that have to be nothing other than God. And when I hear people say, "Well, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God," I think, "Poor blind soul, you're missing what life's all about." The truth is that only Jesus can fully satisfy you.

Announcer: Learn more about finding satisfaction in Jesus at intouch.org. And if you have a story about what you've learned today through this program, please share it with us. Next time on In Touch: Because of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, believers have every reason to be confident.

Learn to develop the confidence that conquers when you join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on the station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.