Enter Through The Doorway

Wow. What an interesting morning. I endeavored to study privacy this morning... the good kind of privacy that allows for a covering and the bad kind that allows for corruption and cover ups.

We live in a time of exposure. Private things are made public all the time. Perhaps we long for the days when this wasn't so. We long for a more innocent time. I know I do. At the same time I know there was great behind the scenes corruption happening in those 'good old days' also. People in power did things and there was little accountability. Abuse of power leads to a need to expose. People want to feel safe and they sacrifice privacy to get that safety but the ones who suffer are the innocent ones who need privacy to grow and should be allowed a season of wonder.

"And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the valley... And he brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, there was a hole in the wall. Then he said to me, 'Son of man, dig in the wall.' So I dug in the wall, and behold, there was an entrance. And he said to me, 'Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.' So I went in and saw. And there, engraved on the wall all around, was every form of creeping things and loathsome beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel. And before them stood seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the smoke of the cloud of incense went up. Then he said to me, 'Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of pictures? For they say, 'The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.' " - Ezekiel 8:4, 7-12 ESV

This is a great picture of the mind that lacks faith. There is a hole in the wall. Walls are meant to be sealed as support structures. Doors and gates are where we are supposed to enter buildings but the fallen mind has a hole in it's wall.

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." - Exodus 20:4-6 ESV

Israel was not to create graven images but there they are in a fallen person's heart. We all have the potential to have this 'chamber of imagery'. It is born of a faithless attitude.

We wonder why leaders can get so corrupt. They just have the power and resources to do (and justify) what the human heart is prone to do if God is not central in the focus of our minds.

"All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." - John 10:8-11 ESV

Jesus is the door. He is the one way we can understand ourselves. Without Him we will all have a secret life built on illusion. That illusion may be mostly dark or it may be mostly light but if there is no door that opens and closes we will dig through the wall and make images. Then exposure will become the next logical step.

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." - Isaiah 1:18 ESV

Jesus is who we need. He is the door. He is the visible representation of an invisible God. He Is the mystery we all crave. In Him we have privacy and purity. We find a friend when we find Him. We stop sneaking and hiding because we can walk upright before God when we walk with Him.

No matter how moral or well meaning a person is they have the potential to develop a chamber of imagery and make decisions from that chamber. A leader must be someone who walks through the door and not the wall.

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