Philadelphia was the best church (no condemnation). Laodicia, the worst (no commendation).

Yet Christ still seeks a relationship with them (the proud, carnal, sinning, born-again believers!).

Christ is outside knocking on the door of their heart, cz He is not in their heart, nor their church

 God is not desirous of anyone perishing 2Pt 3:9 (since He made each for a purpose and prepared works for each to do Eph 2:10), but is long-suffering/patient, wanting all to come to repentance.

He warns of judgment in 3:16, reproves them in v17, offers a promise of a solution to their problems in v18,calls for zealous repentance in v19, and then knocks to get their attention away from themselves an on to Him in v20.

Just like unfaithful Israel (God's bride), Jesus calls His unfaithful bride to return to Him.

Jesus wants a restored relationship with us (even when we have spurned and disrespected Him).

However, our sins (commission & omission) have caused a separation. Isa 59:2

We have to turn away from what draws and distracts us, and return to focusing on Him.

We can't serve Him and sin (or ourselves).

God first appeals to our minds/conscience (cognitive commands)

Js 4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses!

Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Whoever therefore {logic!} wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

 Commonality5 Or do you think that the Scripture speaks in vain/to no effect?

 {lit= toward/pros jealousy (v1 fights) greatly desires the spirit which dwells in us}

 The spirit which dwells in us yearns/lusts toward envy/jealousy kjv

 The Spirit who dwells in us is a jealous lover? nkjv

 He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? niv

 mind/will/emotions

6 BUT/de He gives more grace. {lit= but great He gives grace, therefore He speaks:

 the above-appearing God resists/arranges-in-battle against

 but the humble He gives grace

Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Pr 3:34

7 Therefore submit to God.

Rm 12:1 our first move of grace is humility {true view of God and us} after conviction in vv3-6

 Resist the devil (vs yielding to him and resisting HS – our second move with grace/power) and he will flee from you.

8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. [our initiative to seek God]

 Cleanse your hands, you sinner

 {Rm 12:2 we must stop the physical that overrides the mental/spiritual}

and purify your hearts, you double-minded. [purity/holiness on the inside/values is crucial]

9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. [total value change]

Christ gets our attention by the HS of Truth, His Word and His Body reproving, along with the reproofs of life: letting us reap consequences/conflicts/judgment for our disobedience (+,-),

not answering prayers as we would like, and/or answering prayers – but sending leanness to our souls (not satisfied nor content, being unable to enjoy the fruits of our labor...

 ...since they/we are not pleasing to Him/good in His sight:

Ecc 2:22 For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? 23 For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome;

 even in the night his heart takes no rest cx Ps 23 This also is vanity.

24 Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand/gift 3:13 of God.

26 For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight/ pleasing NIV;

 but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting,

that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

Pride (an incorrect view of ourselves and God) makes us insensitive to our needs and to God, thus independence is the essence of sin (commission and omission) .

Self-sufficiency leads to self-deception (demonic influence to keep us from doing God's will).

We delusionally think we're serving God, but really serving ourselves/satan.

3:20 If anyone - (unlimited atonement – not limited to a special/select group).

These are the most disobedient, ungodly, carnal, “people-rights”, worldly believers.

Some will and some won't respond. {essence of worship=Response to Revelation} {grace is resistable}*

 *see Calvinism for Dummies Truthbase.net

...hears My voice – note that responding to God

 is dependent upon some Revelation of Himself or His will.

Such a response/repentance/mind-change is rooted in belief/faith in something God has communicated (faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Rm 10)

God speaks in such a way that we can understand and respond (for He made us with that capacity).

 A God Who would have the power to create, would also have the power to communicate with His creatures, and would do so if He had a purpose/plan for a relationship with them.

...and opens the door- free will, not irresistible grace; you can resist the HS.

 (Acts 7:51 you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears!

 You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.)

Responding implies a repentance from v19 of our independence/pride, and from being so concerned about our world, pleasures, creature comforts, that we care little for God's world (kgdm & Word).

Christ never forces His will upon us but we will always reap the consequences He has attached to our free will choices [we can't avoid the consequences (+,-) of His sovereign rules/covenant.]

Adam Clarke Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost 1. Because they were uncircumcised in heart,

they always resisted the influences of Holy Spirit, bringing light and conviction to their minds;

 in consequence of which they became hardened thru the deceitfulness of sin,

 and neither repented at the preaching of John,

 nor credited the glad tidings told them by Christ and the apostles.

2. Because they were uncircumcised in ears,

 they would neither hear nor obey Moses, the prophets, Christ, nor the apostles.

As your fathers did, so do ye. They were disobedient children, of disobedient parents:

 in all their generations they had been disobedient and perverse.

This whole people, as well as this text, are fearful proofs that the Holy Spirit,

 the Almighty Energy of the Living God, may be resisted and rendered of none effect.

This Spirit is...sent...to human beings endued with rational souls...

 works upon understanding, will, judgment, conscience.  

If, after all, the understanding, the eye of the mind, refuses to behold the light; (cf Jn 3 deeds are evil)

 the will determines to remain obstinate;

 the judgment purposes to draw false inferences!!!

 and the conscience hardens itself against every check and remonstrance,

 reasonable reproof

 (and all this is possible to a rational soul, which must be dealt with in a rational way,)

then the Spirit of God, being thus resisted, is grieved,

 and the sinner is left to reap the fruit of his doings.

cf Proverbs 1:23-33 ignore me when I call, I'll ignore you when you call

To force the man to see, feel, repent, believe, and be saved, would be to alter the essential principles of his creation and the nature of mind, and reduce him into state of a machine...

nor can the Holy Ghost work on that as a machine which Himself has made a free agent.

Man therefore may, and generally does, resist the Holy Ghost; and the whole revelation of God bears unequivocal testimony to this most dreadful possibility, and most awful truth...

 These were not only uncircumcised in ear, but uncircumcised also in heart; and

 therefore they resisted the Holy Ghost, not only in his declarations and institutions,

 but also in his actual energetic operations upon their minds.

[Erasmus' “Freedom of the Will” (from Bible & logic) vs Luther's “Bondage of the Will” (from his experience)]

Pr 1:23 (re-)Turn-back at my rebuke1 08433; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. 24 Cz I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and

no one regarded, 25 Cz you disdained all my counsel, and would have none of my rebuke,

 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes,

Pr 6:23 commandment is a lamp, and the law a light; reproofs of correction2 are the way of life

Pr 12:1 Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates correction1 is stupid.

Ps 39:11 When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, 1=turn as in 1:23 2=discipline

 You make his beauty melt away like a moth; Surely every man is vapor. Selah

Ezk 5:15 When I finish my angry punishment-searing rebukes, you’ll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story among the nations. I, GOD, have spoken.

APP: How focused are you on your world rather than God's world?

What distracts and consumes you so you do not hear His voice nor knock?

What does God say will be the consequence of ignoring Him or not putting Him first? Cf Mt 6:33

Loving Correction

2Tim 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season.

 Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,

 but acc to their own desires,

 cz they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers

 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

5 But be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Jn 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

Col 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, salutes you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. 13 For I bear him record, that he has a great zeal for you, and them in Laodicea, and in Hierapolis.  

...I will come into him

Eph 3:16 that He would grant you, acc to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might thru His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, cx grieve/quench

Jn 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.

21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.

And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.

23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word;

and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

Abide in the Vine and His Words abide in us

Jn 15:2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without/apart from Me you can do nothing.

10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love,

 just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain/abide in you,

 and that your joy may be full.

Jn 17:19 they also may be sanctified by by the Truth 21 that they all may be one,

 AS You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us,

 that the world may believe...

22 and the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just AS We are one

Col 1:27...Christ in you hope of the glory cf Eph 3:17 Christ dwells in heart by faith

Rm 8:8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

 Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ (indwelling), he is not His.

10 if Christ is in you, the body is dead cz of sin, but the spirit is life cz of righteousness.

Gal 4:19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,

2Cor 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.

Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless indeed you are disqualified.

God sups with u –what do we serve Him? When invited to wedding feast, He blesses with wine Jn 2

ANE a meal with a god enabled you to partake of his power.

McClaren Ps 64 He and they shall sit together for ever,

 and for ever ‘rejoice in the fatness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple'.

Sup with him, and he with Me—Delightful reciprocity! Compare "dwelleth in me, and I in Him"

Jn 6:56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

 6:63 eats flesh=words are spirit and life)

APP: are you a hospitable host to your Lord? How to you make Him feel at home?

 q.v. My Heart Christ's Home

...and dine with him & he with Me

Lk 22:28 But you are those who have continued with Me in My trials. 29 And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, 30 that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom,

 and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Lk 13:27 I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me,

 all you workers of iniquity. cf Mt 7:23 practice lawlessness/disobey

28 There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,

 when you see Abraham Isaac Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out.

 29 They will come from the east west, north and south, and sit down/recline in the kingdom of God.

Mt 8:11 many...east and west, and sit down/recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

12 But sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Mt 26:29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on

 until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.

Rev 19:9 Write: “Blessed are those who are called/summoned/invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”