Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker
When I know loved ones are coming to my home, I will often leave the front door ajar. This lets them know I’m expecting them and they can just walk right in. It’s important to me that they feel welcome, loved, valuable, and comfortable. I want our time together to be a warm-and-fuzzy memory the next day. If anyone needs something, it pleases me when they’re comfortable enough to either ask for it or simply get it themselves. My loved ones know they have open access to the snack cabinet and refrigerator. I encourage everyone to have an unreserved approach in my home.
Scriptures prove that God feels the same way about His children. Although God is to be revered, I deeply appreciate that He lovingly welcomes us into His throne room. He wants us to be unrestricted in our worship and prayers. “Because of our faith in Him, we dare to have the boldness (courage and confidence) of free access (an unreserved approach to God with freedom and without fear)” (Ephesians 3:12 AMP). God is ready, willing, and able to act on our behalf if we will only ask Him in confidence and faith.
I was reminded of the stressful fear Queen Esther surely experienced as she approached her husband/king on his throne. Prior to her entrance, she sent this message to her Cousin Mordecai: “All the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter” (Esther 4:11 NLT). Even though Esther was the Jewish Queen of the Persian Empire, she did not have free access to her own husband. This strict law was actually frightening for king’s wives because there was absolutely no exception to this law. The wife could not enter the inner court whenever she pleased without first being invited by the king.
Esther sent another message to Mordecai: “Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die” (Esther 4:16 NLT). At the risk of dying, Esther approached the king’s throne shrouded in fear from head to toe. For this was the same King Xerxes who furiously deposed his first wife Queen Vashti when she refused the royal summons to appear before the king, rulers, and nobles at a royal feast. (In a few days, we see that united prayer and fasting brought favor, not death, for Queen Esther because the king held out his scepter.)
God made a perfect way for us to come to Him through Jesus. “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him“ (Hebrews 10:19,22 NLT). We are welcome to come right into the very presence of a Holy God without fear. “I have courage in God’s presence, because I am sure that He hears me if I ask Him for anything that is according to His will” (1 John 5:14 GNT).
God loves us and He doesn’t want us to be scared to approach Him in Jesus’ name. “I fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that I may receive mercy [for my failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when I need it]” (Hebrews 4:16 AMP).
The Key: Fearlessly, we can walk right in, sit right down, and take a load off.