Do you lock your doors at night?
Why do you lock your doors if indeed you do?
Don't you trust people?

When we fall asleep at night; we fall asleep feeling completely safe and secure behind our locked doors expecting no one to enter. What exactly got me thinking along these lines? Well just read the excerpt below.

"A couple says their 2-year-old daughter hasn’t slept a full night since a stranger entered their home, picked up the crying girl and brought her to their room. Ryan Mack said he thought he was dreaming when the man nudged him awake about 3 a.m. Friday and he saw the stranger holding his daughter, Nova, at the foot of his bed. “I even told the guy, ’Thank you,”’ Mack said, recalling the moment the man handed him his daughter. “Then I was frozen with fear.” Mack said before the man quickly left, he explained that he was walking by the couple’s home when he heard the girl crying."

Now this man allowed himself into a home that isn't his and could of done anything he wanted. He had full reign of the house while the owners slept comfortably thinking all was good in the house. As Christians do we lock our doors at all times to keep Satan out, or do we unlock our doors at certain times? It's obvious to me that this probably wasn't the first time these folks had left their door unlocked and I'm even more convinced that we unlock ourselves even more. Sometimes we think that we can protect ourselves without the help of God. We think that it's ok to have the door unlocked that alone we can handle anything and if we can't we will just ask God to rescue us. So lets look into this a little more deeply.
If you lock your doors are you completely safe? Well lets think about that, what happens if they break a window or you leave a window open? You still have the same problem. We have to close our lives off to Satan because he will find that open window to sneak in. We already know that Jesus will come like a thief in the night, just when we expect it not to happen it will (2 Peter 3:10). So what's to say that Satan won't look for the same opening. Just when you feel you are the strongest you've ever been with your faith, Satan will look for an opening to sneak into your life. So we must always keep up our guard and be ready. Do you want to see the importance of being ready, read Mark 14:32-42.
Ok so you don't lock your door, but you have an alarm system. Wow that is fantastic, that way when Satan comes knocking you can simply have a company call and tell you that you have an intruder. However in the case of temptation once Satan has made it through the door you are already in trouble. If you already have your hands in the cookie jar but you get busted do you drop the cookie and run or do you grab the cookie and run? Either way you are in trouble. On the other hand, what happens if your "intruder" cuts the power to your house? Then you are back to just allowing temptation to walk right through the front door. Either way you lose.
So you are ready for bed and you walk to the front door to check outside. You can see that the street is empty, that the neighborhood is quiet. You say to yourself, no problem I don't have to lock the door. Shortly after you find yourself asleep, you are awaken by a noise in the direction of your kids' room. You jump out of bed with ball bat in tow ready to deal with the situation. You are coming to defend your home, to only find someone had brought a gun with them. So suddenly you are facing the barrel of a gun with ball bat in hand. What do you do? Can you go back in time and change your decision to lock your door? No you can't. You can't make the situation any better for yourself, other than letting the person take what they want and leave. Hope against hope that they don't hurt you or your family. Ok so this is an extreme example, but lets apply it to keeping the door open to your soul.
When we sin against the father we can't go back and change anything, we can only improve things as we deal with the consequences of our mistakes. So as you allow Satan to interfere with your life is there hope? Of course there is. We have the promise of forgiveness. 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." All we have to do is make the change. It's that easy and at the same time it's that difficult. All we have to do is to close the door to temptation, that's a piece of cake right? Well lets assume we close and lock our door to Satan what will happen in our lives? Lets read from 1 Peter 2: 11-12, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." If we shut Satan out of our lives we have a promise from our maker to live eternally and who would truly want to give that up for a moment of selfish pleasure? I know I wouldn't want to give up that hope just for a minute of pleasure, would you?
Think about it, pray about it, read about it, and most importantly live it. Go out and set the example of a Christian, don't wait for things to happen, don’t sit on the sidelines while life passes you by. My short deployment in Iraq is almost over and who would of known it would go this fast. So don't take time for granted, it will be gone before you know it. Christ is coming there is no doubt about it, so please be prepared. I hope you've enjoyed this and it wasn't too scatter brained, took me two days to write it….

~Jonathan