“I am the door, and the person who enters through me will be saved and will be able to come in and go out and find pasture.”
John 10:9
This is powerful–its implications can rattle the windows! I sometimes struggle with depression, and sometimes with an assurance of my salvation. Even after 40+ years of walking with God, my mind boggles at my salvation. But I read this and it tells me that Jesus is the door.
I need to understand that Jesus has to be the entrance for every real seeker. We must cross over God’s own threshold to find eternal life.
Philosophy and religion are some of the crowbars that many are using to force open this locked door.
People are doing their best, but the door remains solidly shut. There isn’t any other way in. If the door is closed, no one can open it. Access is restricted to those who will come through the door that is the Lord Jesus.
There is total forgiveness waiting for anyone who enters through this door.
A transformation of the heart is now given to all who come in properly. Once we enter through Jesus, our life opens up and we can live lives of real love and goodness. This is the Gospel, and at last, we understand what life is really all about.
We now know what is real, and what is not.
We have been outrageously blessed! Jesus Christ has the keys, and He has opened the door for us. It was once securely locked, but now we can step right in, it is now unlocked for everyone who will put their trust in Him. We can enter in, and we will find everything we were looking for. Our pasture is waiting. We can step into a place that has been prepared just for us.
“God saw in the cross of His Son the only door by which he could enter to give a blessing to sinners.”
In 1987 I was working full-time with S.O.S. Ministries in San Francisco, California.
I was living in a community with other team members in the Mission District on Sycamore St. Everything was rather gritty. (Some would say it was ‘loathsome or gross,’ but that seems unkind.)
Wine bottles were mixed with the decor of fresh graffiti and were then blended with the acrid smell of urine, puke, and feces. When it got hot, it got really bad. It could make your eyes water.
“Amelia’s”, the biggest lesbian “rock-n-roll” bar west of the Mississippi was just a few doors down.
A gay thrift store was next to it. Living next to us were heroin addicts; when they overdosed they would start retching in the common “light-well” that we shared with them. The “puking” could get pretty violent, and you had to turn up the radio just to block it out. And we prayed for them.
I had the misfortune (?) of having the front room on the first floor overlooking the street. Nights would bring out all the crazies, the junkies, the girls fighting and throwing bottles at each other. I heard everything. Cursing and yelling and screaming.
God had given me a front-row seat to all the nastiness and pain.
The house we lived in was smack in the middle of what the San Francisco Chronicle called “San Francisco’s Meanest Street.” I think there were some close runners-up to us though. But living on Sycamore had its share of memorable moments.
I was driving the ministry truck back from outreach at Powell and Market (the “cable car turn around.”) We had had a great outreach, almost four hours. It’s a perfect locale, with the subway and the tourists and the street performers. The truck was loaded with sound equipment, and I was taking it back to the S.O.S. house, where we stored it (under lock and key, of course.)
There was that alley directly behind our house. Our garage was located there.
Clarion Alley was the classic inner-city alley. It was very rough and nasty, and if you did venture out you needed to be “prayed up.” It is also the city’s largest bathroom. It seemed the urine smell tried very hard to cancel out the stench of the feces. It was very ripe. (I had also gotten stabbed with a used heroin needle while I was cleaning– but that is another story.)
I was driving along, very happy to be headed home.
It had been a very long day, and I was tired. I turned from Mission St. into Clarion Alley. It was cold and dark. I was thinking about a cup of hot tea. Now Clarion is only a block long. The street was filled with garbage, and as I tooled along there was a big roll of carpeting laying pretty much crossways on the pavement.
I was tired. My first thought was just to drive over it.
I think I might even accelerated the truck. All of a sudden I had the strong urge to stop. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the cab. Cautiously, I knelt down for a closer look. Rolled up inside was a wino trying to sleep. I’m sure in his mind, the carpeting was a cozy “godsend,” a safe place that was a warm and dry place hidden from “bad people.”
And I came just inches from killing him.
God intervenes to protect our lives probably much more than we realize. Each person has been created in His image. He loves everyone– as if we were the only one.
“We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield.”
Psalm 33:20, NLT
SOS Ministries has reorganized but still is true to the vision it had when I served with them. Website: SOS Ministries. It is the premier place to develop a gift of evangelism and worship.
SOS Ministries is an inter-denominational, evangelical, street ministry in San Francisco. Its special mission is to reach the people of the San Francisco Bay Area and to train Christians and churches in evangelism helping them reach their own communities for Jesus. Come help share the love of Jesus Christ with the people of San Francisco.
SOS organizes three “Church on the Street” outreaches each month in San Francisco or Berkeley on Saturday afternoon. Local churches bring their worship group and conduct a church service in a downtown park. They also witness three times a month in San Francisco on Friday night.
Outreaches are subject to change. Call (510) 282-5629 to confirm outreaches or for more information. E-Mail: mail@sosmin.com.
Mailing Address: SOS Ministries P.O. Box 27358 Oakland, CA, 94602
This poem is written in the “villanelle* form. I wrote it as a reminder to myself of how hard the darkness of depression can be so that I don’t lose my compassion for those in my world who are struggling to find the Light. But it is also a reminder that the Light of Christ does shine in that darkness, however faintly, and will never be extinguished. If you feel oppressed by the darkness, seek His Light.
Confession
The light shines in the darkness Faintly I see His light My need I will confess
Toward the light I press Keeping hope in my sight The light shines in the darkness
Despair my soul’s distress Entangled in the night My need I will confess
His grace I will profess Giving me the strength to fight The light shines in the darkness
I feel anguish oppress Crushing with all its might My need I will confess
Feeling His love’s caress Compassion burning bright The light shines in the darkness My need I will confess
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* vil·la·nelle, [vil-uh-nel]
noun, Prosody
a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number,
followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes.
How to Have a Personal Revival, Serious Repentance and Restitution, and Steps to Spiritual Growth.
by A.W. Tozer
1) Put yourself in the way of the blessing.
It is a mistake to look for grace to visit us as a kind of benign magic, or to expect God’s help to come as a windfall apart from conditions known and met. There are plainly marked paths that lead straight to the green pastures; let us walk in them. To desire revival, for instance, and at the same time to neglect prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.
2) Do a thorough job of repenting.
Do not hurry to get it over with. Hasty repentance means shallow spiritual experience and lack of certainty in the whole life. Let godly sorrow do her healing work. Until we allow the consciousness of sin to wound us, we will never develop a fear of evil. It is our wretched habit of tolerating sin that keeps us in our half-dead condition.
3) Make restitution whenever possible.
If you owe a debt, pay it, or at least have a frank understanding with your creditor about your intention to pay, so your honesty will be above question. If you have quarreled with anyone, go as far as you can in an effort to achieve reconciliation. As fully as possible make that crooked things straight.
*****
Thought
Repentance and restitution result when we seriously reflect on what God shows us in His Word. What is it of which we need to repent and is there restitution to be made?
Scripture
“Bring forth fruit that is consistent with repentance [let your lives prove your change of heart];”
Matthew 3:8 (Amplified Bible)
Prayer
My tendency, Lord, is not to take seriously my sin that hurts other people and to leave unrepaired the damage I have left in the lives of others. Make me sensitive, Lord!
Aiden Wilson Tozer was born on April 21, 1897, on a small farm in Western Pennsylvania, the third of six children. And although he would inspire millions with his preaching and writing, he was given very little education during his childhood.
A. W. Tozer was 66 when he died of a heart attack on May 12, 1963. Buried in a small cemetery in Akron, his tombstone simply and appropriately reads, “A Man of God.” He left behind many books that continue to give Christians encouragement and guidance. His writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. His honest and colloquial humor has been known to sweep up congregations in gales of laughter. And his wisdom has left them silent and stunned. For almost 50 years Tozer walked with God, and even though he is gone, he continues to minister to those who are eager to experience God.
Broken Believers 