The time for listening was done. Now it was time for beholding. John had heard the words spoken by the One who walks in the midst of the churches on earth. Now, he would see Him as the One worthy to take the scroll in the midst of the throne in heaven.

And what captures my attention this morning, as I read in the Revelation to John, is an open door.

After this I looked, and there in heaven was an open door. The first voice that I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

(Revelation 4:1 ESV)

There in heaven was an open door.

We take it for granted, I think. But pause and chew on that a bit–that there is an open door to heaven–and that should register somewhat on our internal awe-o-meters.

As His creation, wouldn’t it be enough for us to dwell forever here on earth knowing Him as Creator? To know the One who made us, why He made us, and to dwell, if even at a distance, in happy coexistence with Him through the peace He has made for us by His Son’s work on the cross? I’m thinking . . .

But that there’s a door? A door into heaven? An open door into heaven? What’s that about?

There is access to the very throne of heaven. A throne from which comes “flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder.” Where the Creator is seated and is seen as having “the appearance of jasper and carnelian.” A throne, that to be near it and the One who sits on it, is to instinctively give glory and honor and thanks to Him; to fall down before Him; to worship Him; to cast whatever crowns may be ours before Him. There’s a door, an open door, to all that. What manner of boundless love and amazing grace is that?

What’s more, it’s not a door that we are left to our own devices to discover. An entrance not dependent on our best efforts to find and access. But a door we will have no problem finding because the voice we first heard–the One that beckoned us to Himself when we first believed, saying “Come to Me”–that voice we will hear again saying, “Come up here!”

There is in heaven an open door. And one day, perhaps soon, a beckoning voice inviting us to behold wonders we can only imagine.

Hard to remember that sometimes. The daily grind, the cares of this world, the struggles of this place so often consuming our attention and energies. . All we see, so often, are the trials testing us. All we behold, the walls in front of us. Easy to forget there’s a door.

But this morning, if but with the eyes of faith, and if only as in a mirror dimly, I see a glimpse of a door. An open door. There in heaven an open door.

And through the revelation of the word of God, by the illumination of the Spirit of God, I behold the throne. And the glory of the One seated on it. As I hear the voice of the One who came to give His life as a ransom–the One who was, and is, and is to come–saying, “Take a break from all that consumes you down there. Come up here.”

And by the Spirit I ascend, for now, by faith. But then, face to face.

By His grace. For His glory.