Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with him, and he with me
Revelation 3:20

Some unusual things in this verse made me take a closer look at it. The Lord is asking us to give Him an invitation when normally He does the inviting or at least that is what we might expect.

But before anything else, the message sets a condition: “if anyone hears.” The passage from which this verse is taken closes with a reminder of that condition: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Verse 22).

The offer is open to “anyone” and that means you or me. The Lord is waiting for us to invite Him in; the only precondition is that we have to hear him knocking … and let Him in.

In this particular case the Lord is addressing believers; people in the church at Laodicea, not outsiders. It seems to indicate that there are two brands of Christians, those who open up to Jesus and those who don’t. We don’t like to think of a two-class Christianity, but there is a real difference between those who leave Christ out and those who welcome Him in. Those who don’t open the door when He knocks are the kind of Christians Christ calls “lukewarm.” He warns that He will spit some of them out of his mouth (Verse 16). Preachers often toss out the example of early believers for us to emulate, but Christ thought of the Laodiceans as inedible.

I began wondering why the Lord said, “I will eat with him, and he with me”. Was eating with the Lord the same as the Lord eating with us? If so, why put it like that? It seems to me that an exchange of roles is assumed; in the first instance, we are the hosts and He is the guest and in the second He is the host and we are the guests; two different sittings at two different tables.

The Lord is Our Guest

Let’s look at the first scenario: we serve Him as the host and He is our guest. A very literal example of this can be found in Genesis 18 where Abraham invites the Lord in for a meal. The account begins like this: The Lord appeared to Abraham. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. He bowed low to the ground and said, “Lord, do not pass your servant by.” (Genesis 18:1-3).

If I may digress for a moment, this appearance of God was very strange: Abraham addressed the three men as if they were a single person. Then he asked them to wait while he prepared a feast. In true eastern style, it would take hours, but that wouldn’t worry them. Abraham butchered and cooked the fattest calf and Sarah ground some corn and baked some bread while her husband went to fetch milk and curds. It took some time but the Lord is a patient God!

The meal was served, but Abraham did not eat with them. The three men were his guests and he showed them the greatest respect, calling them Lord. They showed their greatness by rewarding him with the promise of a son.

Prepare Meals for Strangers?

Another man to prepare a meal for a passing stranger was Manoah, the father of Samson (Judges 13). One day a “very awesome” being turned up at his home with information about the son that was to be born to Manoah and his wife. In a gesture of true hospitality, Manoah slaughtered a young goat to prepare a suitable meal and it became a burnt offering to God. Like Abraham and Sarah, who had given up hope of having any children, the “angel” promised Manoah and his wife a son, Samson.

Sacrifices made on the altars of Israel were described as “the food of God”: “Priests must be holy to their God … because they present the offerings made to the Lord by fire, the food of their God” (Leviticus 21:6). True, God did not eat their offerings, but He accepted them when they were worthy of Him, as we see in the story of Manoah and his wife. When these food offerings became a mere religious rite offered up by men with hardly a scrap of moral decency about them, God was nauseated. He said, “If I were hungry I would not tell you for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” (Psalm 50:12-13).

Let Us Reason Together

The Lord turns what is offered to Him into something for us. In Old Testament times the people brought their tithes of grain and cattle to the temple and then ate their tithes before the Lord. This is echoed in Isaiah 1:11-19: “”The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. … Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. … Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. I will hide my eyes from you. Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. … If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land.”

Jeremiah 14:12 also warns Israel (and us!): “Though they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Instead, I will destroy them with famine.” Unless we bring something to God that He can stomach, we shall experience emptiness; spiritual famine.

What Should We Bring Him?

Why are some Christians joyless and dry, although they are always praying and asking God for all sorts of things? The answer is that they want everything, but give nothing. They are mean with their money, very precise and exact with their praise and worship, and the use of their time and anything, but expansive with their love. However, if you want to get, give! Eat with Him and He will eat with you.

We can only eat with the Holy God when He can enjoy what we offer Him. Israel had to observe the most scrupulous regulations when offering “the food of their God”, but their sacrifices were still not valid, the reason being that they were not scrupulous about their lives and character. Jesus said (Matthew 23:24) that they strained out gnats (in their religious rites) but swallowed camels – in their hypocritical lives!

God wants what we offer. What should we bring Him? If Jesus were coming personally to your house, what would you put on the table? Fortunately, we have plenty of examples in the Gospels of Jesus visiting the homes of many people; Martha and Mary, Zaccheaus, Levi and others.

Are You Doing "What is Better?"

Take Martha, for instance. She was over-anxious about the meal she was preparing; concerned that everything should be just right. Jesus said she was “worried and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41, NKJV). An eastern table would not satisfy a host until every square inch was covered with good things to eat. It was a mammoth task and Martha felt that she was doing more than her share of the work while Mary did nothing. This was, of course, unfair and so Martha, knowing that Jesus stood for what was just and right, asked Him to tell Mary to help her. To her surprise, Jesus did not support her, saying Mary was doing “what is better,” which was listening to Him (Luke 10:42). She was feeding on the living bread.

When Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary what to do, she effectively put Him in the position of the head of the house. The same thing happened time and again. When Jesus went into the house of Peter’s mother in law, He immediately sorted things out, healing the sick lady; she got up and served them something to eat and drink (Matthew 8:14-15). When He went to a wedding feast, His mother told the servants to do what He said, making Him Lord in the home to which He had been invited. She had no idea then He would turn water into wine, but in her own home they looked to Jesus and He always knew what to do. Jesus went to the wedding at Cana as a guest, but He provided the wine, the main item of the feast, and thus became the host, for the host always provides the wine (John 2:1-10).

Invite Him In

Whenever you do something for the Lord, He does something for you; He dines with you and you dine with Him. After Abraham had served the Lord, the Lord said, “Abraham, I am your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1). Whatever you plan to do for the Lord, His plans are to multiply it in return. If we give up family or land, we shall receive a hundred times as much, Jesus said (Matthew 19:29). Invite Him in for something to eat, and He becomes the host bringing good things beyond the scale of human giving. He will come with recipes, food, and delights, “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20).

Here is the crux of the matter; an astounding truth. Almighty God stoops to ask something from us. To a Samaritan woman He said, “Give me a drink” (John 4:7). Yet He does not burst in on our private space, our home, uninvited; He stands at the door and knocks, “May I come in and eat with you?” He is always that near at the door.

To serve the Lord, Abraham killed the sleekest calf in the herd. Abraham treated his heavenly and awesome visitors to the best he had and yet did not consider himself worthy enough to eat with them. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father killed the fattened calf to celebrate his son’s return (Luke 15:11-32). The father treated this waster of a son like Abraham treated God! Imagine that! What a welcome banquet this prodigal had! If we talk about the Lord serving us, this is the style of it. When a sinner repents and turns back home to the Father, that sinner receives the greatest possible welcome, a welcome fit for a prince.

Nowhere do we read that we have to chase the Lord as if He were running away from us. The Lord is the Good Shepherd seeking us. He chases us, knocking at our very door. Virtually before we even start, the Lord, who is ready to exceed whatever we ask or think, meets any effort of ours.

God does not seek worshippers; He seeks out those who are already worshipping Him. That’s the difference. He doesn’t tout for worshippers, putting out adverts suggesting a role in life. He seeks those who are already worshipping or who have a heart to do so. He finds them, loves them and blesses them.

To be continued …