Advent Season
(Anticipating the Birth of Jesus)
28 Names of Jesus | December 19, 2020
Name #18: “The Gate”
In the book Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis makes this statement:
“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
The way God designed life to work best is when our lives are fueled by His presence and principles. The battle we face throughout our lives is the difficulty of believing that the solution to whatever desire we have is found in Christ and not in the things of this world that were never intended to satisfy. In John 10:7 – 10, John says, “So Jesus again said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 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.”
The imagery here is that when we walk through the door and enter into the arena where Christ’s presence and principles reign, it is there that we will find life. But beware, because the thief will try to steal us away through deception, promising us that we can find happiness and peace in the things of this world, apart from the living God.
In our yard, we have a fence. Why do we have a fence? It’s not to make my children’s lives miserable by keeping them from things. It’s so we can say to our children, “Go play in the yard,” and know that they will be safe from dangers that could harm them. They are free to have fun within those boundaries. By staying within those boundaries, there is freedom. Entering through the gate that is Christ is like living in a fenced-in yard. The boundaries that God has set up for us to abide by are not to keep us from anything good but to help us find life. It’s by operating within those boundaries that we will find life and find it abundantly.
I come back to the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 2:9 – 11:
“So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”
Solomon tried to find the answers for the things his soul craved apart from God. He didn’t keep himself from any desire in this world and in the end, he found it all meaningless. We need to be aware that Satan is prowling around like a roaring lion looking to devour us (1 Peter 5:8). One of the ways he does that is by trying to deceive us into thinking satisfaction, peace, and happiness can be found in the things of this world. We only truly find life when it’s a life lived in the presence and by the principles of God, because it is only in Him that we will find the answer to the things our soul craves.
Adam Deering