Doors in the Stairwell

Genesis 12:11 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

Abram was being told by God to go, just to go, not to know the details of the trip, but to just leave the comforts of home, and out into the unknown. He was told to leave at a time of coming worldly inheritance (his father dying), to leave for unknown inheritance. God knew Abram’s heart for the Lord, God knew the great faith and the future He had planned for his descendants, but Abram only knew to trust God. Abram walked with the Lord in great faith, a faith that has left him known as the patriarch of faith in the Bible. Abram trusted God and walked in that trust wherever, and however God directed him. He had an abiding walk with God so close that his lineage includes the very Son of God, who came to save the world.

Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. I am a nobody, I am a humble spirit broken of sinful pride by the hand of God. I have chased earthy treasures, only to realize they have no value. I have chased sin, only to find the sting of it once held. I have been learning of the trials of discipleship as I have drawn closer to God; I have learned of those things I must suffer for my faith, but in all of it, I have learned obedience. The stairs of obedience is the stairway to heaven. If you in your heart are wanting to know God, to get closer to God, you must obey as Abram to every, single thing his Holy Spirit lays on your heart. The commands will be painful, they will require changes, and they will require the faith to step out of your comfort zone, out of your boat as Peter did, to walk on the water with Jesus. Matthew 14:28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” 29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. If you are staying in the security of the boat, how will you ever walk with Jesus?

I know, each, and every one of us can account to something God has laid on our hearts to obey, and we have acted like we didn’t hear him. That has become a closed door in our heavenly stairwell. That disobedience is keeping us from drawing closer to Jesus, closer to an abiding relationship with our heavenly Savior; abiding is a state of being “in Christ.” Don’t you think that Peter was in Christ as he walked on the water? How many times in history has a mortal man defied physics as we know it? Peter’s great faith, Peter’s understanding that he could only do it if Jesus commanded him to, that act of obedience took him to a place of intimacy with the Lord. Can you imagine what Peter was feeling with Jesus in that moment? What if your lack of obedience was keeping you from getting closer to heaven? What if in your heart you knew your relationship would grow if you just simply obeyed that act you denied? Could not God build a powerful testimony through your stepping out of the boat? Only by returning to that undone deed, will you ever open that heavenly door and step out into the unknown, where Jesus is.