Have You Got a Jesus Gate?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

Gates are everywhere in the world. They're on roads, they're in buildings, they're even in your walls. The electric switch that turns on your light is a gate that regulates the flow of electricity to your appliances. There are even gates in the millions of nerve endings that spiderweb throughout the deepest parts of your body. The gates in those nerve endings let some chemicals freely flow a certain way, and block others from flowing at all.

All these gates exist for the same reason – to keep some things in, or to keep other things out.

Think about the door of your house. That 80 inch by 36 inch portal is the gateway to your home. In fact, you probably keep it locked so that only people who will submit to your authority can enter your house. If someone who is not already a member of your household enters your house through any other “gate” besides the front door, then you have a significant security problem. Imagine, for a moment, that some young man wants to become a part of my family through his relationship with my beautiful daughter, Emily. But instead of coming through my front door, he comes through my daughter's bed room window. It would be safe to assume that such a young man has nefarious intentions – intentions other than a peaceful melding with my family. His entry method is evidence that he plans to steal something that does not belong to him.

Jesus spoke of this in John 10:1-9. Jesus explains that any one who wishes to enter the sheepfold, which in this case is a metaphor for the family of God, must enter through him. And he adds that anyone who enters through some other way is a thief or a robber! What this means on a collective level, is that anyone who tries to meld themselves to the church who has not made Jesus the center of their lives, is someone who is not a shepherd. In fact, this person is someone who is a wolf who wishes to devour the sheep.

But this is also true at an individual level. If anything tries to get into your life that doesn't come through Jesus first, or that is not submitted to Jesus, that thing, or that person, or that whatever, is NOT something that will serve you well. So be sure to check and see if you've got a Jesus gate.