DOORS

I recently made paintings of the front and back doors of the Bedford, Massachusetts house I grew up in.

When I was done, I made an analysis of how these doors were used and who used them.  The front door was only for formal occasions and was rarely used.  The side door was for general family use and for the reception of visitors and businesspeople.  There was a cellar door too but only used for family activities.

I thought of other doors of houses in which I have lived and their uses.  Our house in Gotha, Florida had three doors and we used all of them.  The front for Family but also for receiving people.  The side was for in-and-out access to the car and for play.  The back door was for in-and-out and play but also to dispose of trash.  Our current house in Windermere, Florida has two doors.  The front is for reception and general in-and-out.  The back is for family arrival and departure and access to garage.

You can think of our souls having doors too.  There is a front door, which might be only for formal users.  There might be a back door which may be hidden from most people.  It might be only for family, or it might be closed but for a very few special people.  It might be heavily guarded and never used by anyone but yourself.  Or there might be many doors for other specialized users.

There is another door that is always present, the one God uses.  You might not think of it as a door because what and who we are always open to God.  God has this right to his door because he is the owner of the house.  Most of the time he allows us to live thinking no one sees us, no one knows.  But God always sees, and always knows. 

God will never break  your doors down; He gives you a choice of how you will live.  There will be a time, however, when God repossesses your house and you will meet him face-to-face.  We do not have the capacity to be fully ready for that day, there will always be some embarrassing mess we should have cleaned up.  That is why we need to accept Jesus as our redeemer and trust He will keep his word:  that if we believe he died in our place for our sins and rose again and He will receive us into everlasting live with Him.  That is a door we can jointly own with God and will never be shut to us.

MANAGEMENT GIFTS

1 Corinthians 12, a lesson in management

This speaks of diversity of gifts but same spirit, differences of administrations but same Lord, diversity of operations but the same God.  We can say that the Father represents operation, the Son represents administration and the Holy Ghost represents gifts.

Manifestation of the spirit can be in every (Christian) man or woman:
1.   word of wisdom
2.   word of knowledge
3.   faith
4.   healing
5.   working of miracles
6.   prophecy
7.   discerning of spirits
8.   tongues
9.   interpretation of tongues

This is how a whole company or organization could be organized:
   Operations - what we should do, where we should go
   Administration - how we shall accomplish what the operator directs
   Gifts - providing the things and services needed for getting the job done. 

God is the manager and the supplier of all we need, and the equipment with which to do it.  But he does it in a more meaningful and life-giving way than merely producing automobiles or frozen dinners.  He supplies the reasons for being and the abilities to “do life”, to turn our existence into value.