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You stand before a gate. Though you cannot see beyond it, what lies there draws you.
More voices than you can identify cry, “No, don’t go there!”
- Fear whispers, “Something terrible will happen!”
- Intimidation snickers: “You? Go through? You can’t even open the gate."
- Status quo states, “You’ve always lived here.”
- Complacency adds, “And you always will.”
A crowd you want to please chants in chorus, “Stay with us. Stay with us.” Some smile and coax. Some cry and plead.
Yet one voice—one unmistakable voice—calls, “Step through the gate.”
Especially for You
Jesus Christ announced, “I am the gate” (John 10:9). He described himself as “holy and true, who holds the key of David.” If Jesus is who he claims to be, “What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (Revelation 3:7).
Maybe you’re skeptical about anything related to God—especially the Christian God—yet it seems he is drawing you.
Christian or not, maybe you feel stuck. You’re exhausted. You’re disappointed with life, with yourself, with the church, with God. Frankly, he seems demanding and distant. You have no confidence in your ability to hear his voice. You doubt he has any desire to know you intimately or to trust you with important exploits.
Maybe you’re experiencing a sense of unrest. Something is drawing you to venture where you haven’t gone before. You have no clue where this venture might take you. By nature, you don’t like risk. Frightened, yet fascinated, you wonder, “Can this be God? Do I dare follow?”
Maybe you love Jesus and want to go wherever he leads. Ah, but where he’s taking you looks quite different from what you expected—and opposition from surprising sources (within you and around you) has blindsided, confused and paralyzed you.
Maybe you need help clearing away whatever clutter is hindering you from knowing when that lone voice is God’s. Maybe you need courage to go where he is leading. Maybe you need companions walking the same path, that you and they “may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (Romans 1:12) and “serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Zephaniah 3:9).
Key Truths, Open Gates LLC
Jesus Christ is Lord. My part in honoring his name, furthering his kingdom and building up his body includes this assignment: investigate truth, instigate bold living.
Investigate truth: God’s truth opens (and shuts) what nothing else can. In particular, his truth opens the way to join him in His breath-taking, mind-boggling purposes. Investigating truth involves study. Yet knowing truth ultimately comes, not by intense study, but by intense relationship with Christ himself. He holds the keys. He gives the keys to those who seek him, who hear his voice and follow him (Matt. 16:9). What a day-by-day, moment-by-moment adventure! When we hold loosely what we think we know, recognizing that he has far more to reveal than what we have grasped, he who is Truth leads us to yet another gate—and hands us a key.
Instigate bold living: Key truths open gates. Stepping through those gates requires bold living—radical, purposeful, selfless, daring. Bold living rejects fear, intimidation and complacency. It lets go of the status quo. Bold living lays aside wrong entanglements and embraces right connections with others fully devoted to Christ, moving in rhythm with him and them. Bold living touches kings and lepers and everyone in between, taking God’s kingdom everywhere it goes.
One unmistakable voice calls:
“Walk out of the gates. Get going!
Get the road ready for the people.
Build the highway. Get at it!
Clear the debris,
hoist high a flag, a signal to all peoples!
Yes! GOD has broadcast to all the world:
'Tell daughter Zion, “Look! Your Savior comes,
Ready to do what he said he'd do,
prepared to complete what he promised.”’”
Isaiah 62:10-11 MSG
In obedience to Christ, I established Key Truths, Open Gates LLC:
- To help individuals and groups clear away the clutter that hinders hearing God clearly and following him fully.
- To affirm, encourage and connect people who “have decided to follow Jesus” through whatever gates he opens.
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