Quote from Forum Archives on July 5, 2010, 10:52 am

Posted by: wrather <wrather@...>

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The Burning Bush Devotional
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07.05.10

Shut the Door

Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and
burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and
it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew
mightily and prevailed. - Acts 19:19-20.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to
fulfill its lusts. - Romans 13:14.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the
faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood
in the world. - 1 Peter 5:8-9.

In Tadley, England someone walking by the HSBC Bank branch early one morning
discovered a strange situation. The bank door was open! The open door was
reported to the police and the bank was quickly secured. Nothing was found
to be missing, and it was not clear how long the door had been left open.

In South Carolina, a home owner left his garage door up while he took care
of a couple of errands. After all, the Claussen community was a safe family
place to live, and he was only going to be gone for about 30 minutes.
However, when he returned, he found that someone had entered through the
open garage door and kicked in the door from the garage to the house. The
burglar did take three jewelry boxes one of which contained some family
heirlooms.

In these days and in most places it is wise to shut the door to your house
or business if you will be away for even brief periods of time. An open door
is an invitation to a burglar to enter and take whatever he can find of
value.

Spiritually, we need to also shut the door because we do have an enemy who
"walks about seeking whom he may devour." That old devil is constantly
looking for an open door in your life so that he can enter in and "steal,
kill, and destroy (John 10:10)."

The new believers in Ephesus give us an example of shutting the door. Even
though the books that they had used to practice the dark arts were worth a
large amount of money instead of selling them, they burned them. They shut
the door on their past permanently as they would be unable to afford to
replace the books once they were destroyed. Burning the books would also
keep others from being tempted to use them. You need to do the same thing in
your life. If you are using illegal drugs, you need to get rid of them. Do
not keep a hidden stash in your home somewhere. You need to do the same with
alcohol, with pornography, with Ouija boards, with tarot cards. You need to
rid your life of them permanently.

There are other ways to leave the door open to the devil and to the flesh.
We leave the door open when we refuse to forgive. We leave the door open
through doubt, and unbelief. We leave the door open when we knowingly live
in sin. We leave the door open when we gossip about others and when we
mummer against God. These doors are harder to shut, but they can be closed
as we draw near to God (James 4:8a). We move closer to God as we pray,
immerse ourselves in His Word, are faithful in church attendance, and live
each day as closely as we can to God's will for our lives.

If you have been leaving the doors of your life open, you are asking for
trouble. Shut the doors!

Copyright © 2010. Ed Wrather. Permission is given for use of the devotionals
on a non-profit basis with source credited. The Burning Bush website has
been online since January 31, 1998. On June 8, 1998 the email version of the
Burning Bush Devotional was first sent. Ed Wrather began writing devotionals
in the early 1990s. The distribution of these first devotionals was
primarily through the Burning Bush Newsletter sent to prison facilities
throughout the United States and Canada.

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