A gatekeeper’s manifesto.

I am the gatekeeper.  I was given the scriptures as a younger man and I cherish them more than you could know.  I read them constantly.  I know them cover to cover.  I respect them and care for them.  They are without blemish.  Not a single note.  Not a single folded page.  Not a speck of dust.  They are well out of reach of my mischevious children.  They’ve never set a finger on them.  These pages receive the respect they deserve.

And here you are, steeped in your sin, seeking to see them.  Seeking to see my precious scriptures.  Don’t you realize these are the words of the man who died for those sins of yours?  Those disgusting acts of yours.  Parading around the way you do.  I shouldn’t even be talking to you.  What if someone saw us together?  All my years of hard work washed away.  And here you stand with your hand out.  Wanting to read these pages.  Wanting to touch them.  You’d probably just fold the pages and write all over them with your filthy hands.

Thank God for me.  Thank God I am here to stop you.  You come to me without even confessing your sins.  Without even repenting of them!  You are not qualified sir.  You are rejected.  Come back to me when you’ve turned yourself toward the Lord and then, perhaps, I will let you see these cherished words.  These letters in red.

Until then, this gate is closed.  Closed to you, that is.

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Are you acting as a gatekeeper for God?  “No one comes to the father except through me.”  Christ is the gate.  We are directed to bring people to the gate.  We are required to trust God to determine who passes through it.  Do not deny God the opportunity to bring someone to through the gate because you decided yourself that they were not worthy to approach it.  I would rather meet my maker having brought too many to the gate than too few.

We can act as gatekeepers by rejecting others.  We can act as gatekeepers by cowering in fear of being rejected.  And we can act as gatekeepers by simply sitting and doing nothing.  Whether passive or active, any act of gatekeeping has us usurping God’s role to sort out the saved from the unsaved.  That is not our place.  That is not our role.  We bring people to the gate.  We do not decide who passes through it.

We were built to be heroes.  Not gatekeepers.

Photo credit: calstatela.edu