John 10:

• By which way do we gather with the children of God, “the sheep”? So often it seems that I hear variations of “Build it and they will come.” The mentality is to just get people “here” (as if there is a “here”) and we’ll get the gospel into them. I’ve hear it said that you keep people by the way you bring people. In other words, if I attract people to a place or group by way of an activity or service, then when the activity or service changes, the people leave. However, if the people themselves, (the community, the Bride of Jesus, the Gospel embodied) is the sticking point, then we continue committed to staying in community. This is because it is our love for Jesus nod his Bride (the Church) that draws, not and activity or service, which changes every season.

Jesus says “I am the door.” (vs. 7, 9) Any other point of entry lacks character, commitment, and authenticity. And yes, there are point of entry. Jesus calls people who enter this way “thieves” and “robbers” and ” hired hands”, and “wolves”. (vs. 1, 5, 8, 12-13) So what is Jesus talking about? Only the “sheep” enter into the external Kingdom. This must be the experience of the gathering of “believers” prior to Jesus’ completion of redemptive history. Or as we commonly call it, this is “church”.

So this begs the question as we gather. How did you enter? Was it the potlucks? Maybe it was the services with “excellence”? Is it the music that is better than the other churches? Perhaps you’re moved by dynamic preaching? But all these can be present, experienced, and produced without entering through “the Door”! Do you love and depend on Jesus? Do you love and care for his Bride (the Church)? Everything else is a false entryway and leaves you with no confidence that you are actually a sheep.

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Holy Spirit, let me not be a builder o ladders, helping people climb the wall into the community of sheep, without ever finding Jesus, the true and only Door. Help me to know the subtle difference between drawing people to Jesus and coercing people to attend.

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VERSE 9 was key in showing the exclusive entrance into Jesus’ everlasting family. There is no other way, but Jesus himself. Not even through the many activities that are produced by those who have entered through other ways.