Opening the Heart to Christ

In the Name of the Father, and The Son, and The Holy Spirit. One God, Amen.

My beloved today we are going to by the grace of God speak on ways we can open our hearts to our Lord Jesus Christ. To do this we are going to focus on verses from the book of Revelations and also the Gospel of Saint Luke. 

Let us look to Revelations Chapter 3: 14-12:

“And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” 

Before we focus on the memory verse let us consider what the provided passage is explaining to us and how it pertains to the topic at hand: opening the heart to Christ.

  • The passage is speaking about being lukewarm in our love of God. To be lukewarm is to be neither hot nor cold but to be somewhere in the middle. To be lukewarm is like trying to balance a lightswitch between on and off: it is impossible. You can either be Hot or Cold in your love of God and as evidenced by the Holy Scriptures even He would prefer this over our hypocrisy.
  • To be “Hot” for Christ is to live a sacramental life of patience and repentance building a relationship with your savior and getting back up after you fall. It is not only going to consist of continual good times but hard times. In these hard times though, you will run to Christ and not abandon Him. To be “Cold” for Christ is the exact opposite. It is to turn your back on Him and the life giving sacraments and to reject the love that He has for you. It is to not repent, to have a hardened heart, and to despair. This we should never seek to be.
  • Now let us focus on the memory verse found at verse 20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” 
    • Our heart is like a door my beloved. This door is special though and not like any ordinary door we see from day to day. This door only has a knob on the inside. It can only be opened by whomever is on the inside. If the Lord is the landlord and we are the tenant, He comes to speak to us as the owner but still must knock in order to be let in.
    • This is significant because this shows just how much He loves you. To not force Himself into our lives but to allow us to choose to let Him in or not. It is also significant because we now have a decision to make. To either leave Him outside or to let Him in to dine with us and us with Him.
    • How do we do this and how are we to dine with Him?
      • First, we must be baptized and confirmed in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church of God accepting Christ as our Lord, God, and Savior. Secondly, we have to have a willingness to bend. That is we have to have a softened heart.
      • Have you ever heard or seen a door with old rusted hinges? You have to oil them right?! We have to let the oil of God’s love into our lives so that the door of our heart can open to Him. This oil is given to us in the form of the Holy Myron as well as the life giving words found in the Gospel of Lord Jesus Christ. This oil can turn even the worst of sinners into the greatest of saints. Such as Saint Augustine and Saint Moses my beloved
      • We can now open to Him because we have accepted Him and want Him and desire His goodness. But now that He is here we must dine with Him! We must build a relationship with Him! This is through fasting and prayer! 
      • When a guest comes to our homes we fast! We fast by watching what we say, what we present to eat, and by our actions. The same is so when Christ is in our hearts. We fast and present ourselves worthy by His grace. We also must pray because this is how we are to talk to Him. You do not dine with someone without speaking; that would be rude. We pray and create a dialogue with the Master and King of us all
        • This dialogue is how we learn what we are to do in our secret life with Christ with the guidance of our Father of Confession in order to have a greater Koinonia or communion (unity) with our Lord. 
        • This dialogue indeed includes silence because we need to listen.
        • This dialogue included reading the Bible and hearing what the Lord is telling you through the mouths of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, and confessors.
  • Being that we are in the season of Nativity let us look now to the Gospel of our teacher Saint Luke the pure disciple and see what edifies us. Let us read together Chapter 1 from verse 5 to 56.
    • In reading this we can see the closed heart contrasted with the open heart. Now of course we know that Zacharias the father of Saint John the Baptist is a Saint but we can see how he questioned God and thankfully repented afterwards
    • When our heart is closed to Christ we stand on the inside asking questions through the door asking who it is and why they are here not trusting in the words of He who is on the other side saying, “I am HE” 
    • When our heart is open to Christ we accept God’s blessings and marvel at his goodness as Saint Mary the Queen and Virgin.  We do not doubt the power and might of God as did Zacharias but we glory in it!

My beloved let us open our hearts to Christ so that we might be transformed by the mystery of His great love for us and Glory be to God forever and ever, AMEN.