Open Doors

When God opens a door, do you know what you has to be done?
Revelation 3:7 – 8  (NKJV)“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; 8 “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.”

Elisha opened a door for Joash  (Joash did not conduct himself well when the door opened)

2 Kings 13:14-19 (NKJV)“14 Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Then Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face, and said, “O my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and their horsemen!” 15 And Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and some arrows.” So he took himself a bow and some arrows. 16 Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” So he put his hand on it, and Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands. 17 And he said, “Open the east window”; and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot”; and he shot. And he said, “The arrow of the Lord’s deliverance and the arrow of deliverance from Syria; for you must strike the Syrians at Aphek till you have destroyed them.” 18 Then he said, “Take the arrows”; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground”; so he struck three times, and stopped. 19 And the man of God was angry with him, and said, “You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it! But now you will strike Syria only three times.”

Issachar knew about times and seasons – (doors of time)

1 Chronicles 12:32 (NKJV) “of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command;”

Abraham knew what to do when the door opened (Prayed)

Genesis 18:16 – 21 (NKJV) “16 Then the men rose from there and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to send them on the way. 17 And the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.” 20 And the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

The great woman of shunem walked through the open door

2  Kings 4:8-9 (KJV) “8 And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. 9 And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually.

Isaac experienced an open door (Sowed in famine – he had to sow)

Genesis 26:2-5 (NKJV) “2 Then the Lord appeared to him and said: “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. 3 Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father. 4 And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;5 because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

Genesis 26:12-16 (NKJV) “12 Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. 13 The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous;14 for he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants. So the Philistines envied him. 15 Now the Philistines had stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of Abraham his father, and they had filled them with earth. 16 And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.”

When Joseph was born a door was opened for Jacob

Genesis 30: 22 – 25 (NIV) “Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said “God has taken away my disgrace” 24 she named him Joseph, and said, “may the Lord add to me another son” 25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “send me on my way so i can go back to my own homeland”

Genesis 30: 25 (KJV) “And it came to pass, when Rachel had born Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban, send me away, that I may God unto mine own place, and to my country”

Daniel Understood by the books when the door was opened and prayed

Daniel 9:1 – 4 (NKJV) “In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the lineage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans— 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.3 Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. 4 And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said…”

Things that should be considered

God opens doors

• God has promised to open doors and he will open doors
• God does not do something because he does not have anything else to do
• Each action is deliberate – Consider the words of the preacher : Everything Has Its Time

Ecclesiastes 3:1(NKJV) “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven”

Why we need doors opened?

• doors are not just opened for us to just say doors have been opened by God, but they present us with an opportunity
• to see the goodness of our god
• to see the greatness of our God
• to be able to and to participate in the redemptive purpose and function of the kingdom of God
• to go forth and establish dimensions of the kingdom of God where the open doors are leading us
• open doors are meant to be a blessing to believers – God always opens a door to be a blessing

what are open doors

• opportunities
• access
• permission and authorization for someone to enter through the door

Why do we need God to open doors

• there are somethings that we need access to but do not have the ability to create the opportunity or to open doors.
• It requires a divine intervention for the doors to be opened
• we do not have the resources required to open the doors
• we do not have the wisdom to open the doors
• we do not know where the doors are that we need to have opened
• there is an enemy that wants to keep u locked in, quarantined and confined so that we do not see the doors that need to be opened and we do not see the necessity for the doors to be opened

we pray for open doors

• to come out of poverty
• to come out of adversity
• to enter into places of destiny and purpose
• to experience change
• just to get a break from our current situation and status in life

There are somethings that must be considered with regards to open doors

• do we have the capacity to enter through the open door
• do we the maturity to walk through the door
• do we have the knowledge and understanding to walk through the door and to conduct ourselves when we have entered through the door
• can we contend with the adversary who can not shut the doors that God has opened but can be a formidable enemy that will resist us from walking through the door that God has opened.
• are we able to deal with the challenges that await us behind the open door
  • this pertains to  –
    • systems and
    • strategies to deal with the new situations,
    • and responsibilities

Our Prayer

• Today we ask for God to open doors for our lives
• may he prepare us for the door that he is about to open
• discernment like the sons of issachar to know when the door is opened
• to know what to do when the door has been opened
• we ask for God to empower us to walk through the doors
• God give us the grace to know what to do when the door has been openned
• give us the strategies to be able to transact and conduct affairs within the open door