Jesus- The Door, not the doormat

    We are not doormats, we are world changers here to influence all realms of society with His presence, power, and love. Turning the other cheek is not weakness, it is the revealing of a depth of character that is too powerful to ignore. Returning evil with good is the revealing of the substance (Christ is the substance) that has no limit to its power and love. We are not looking like a doormat when we refuse to engage in hell's characteristics, we are revealing the door that they are all looking for in the first place.
    I have heard fellow followers of Jesus talk about how responding to evil with good can make us seem like they are just being stepped on like a doormat. We are called to repay evil with good, 1 Peter 3:9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. (ESV) And of course how could this topic come up without highlighting the extreme statement from Jesus, Matthew 5:39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also (ESV).
    Extending love to someone that has thrown evil at you is simply extending the invitation to them that is the Life of abundance. Living unoffended is the representation of the Door that they are looking for, Jesus Christ. This is the life that they are truly yearning for in the first place, Jesus is the Desire of the Nations (Haggai 2:7).
    So this ‘I’m being looked at as a doormat’ mindset needs a shift in order to understand heavens perspective on this. The truth is that we are showing them the Door when we lay down our life with Love and kindness for the sake of the Love Himself. It’s the returning evil with good that reveals to them a God that is not holding their trespasses against them, 2 Corinthians 5:19.
    It’s an invitation for them to enter through the same Door that is small, but at the same time it just so happens to be big enough to fit all humanity through. The Door to the abundant life is always open, but Love Himself gives us the choice whether or not we enter into to Him. Matthew 7: 13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (NASB)
    It’s the anger that bursts out of a person that is their soul’s cry for help. The root of anger is fear, and living in fear is a revealing of the void of love. When we respond with heaven when hell is thrown at us, the Door to life and life more abundantly is presented in front of them, not the doormat that people wipe dirt off on. We are spotless before the Father, the world can't wipe dirt on us if they wanted to.
    When people live in the false identity of worry, anxiety, anger and the like it should not provoke judgment and annoyance from us, it doesn’t provoke annoyance from God. We shouldn't let someone's sin against us produce sin in us. God is in Christ, who lives in us, not counting their trespasses against them. People’s worry and anxiety should only present us with an opportunity to show them love, displaying to them what is available once they walk through the Door that they are standing in front of.
    When the world spews all its junk at you, simply look at them as standing right in front of the Door to true life, because they are. Jesus is the door and He lives in you. So the world’s childish, not childlike, activity is them wiping their feet off on the doormat in front of you, not on you. One cannot receive a Savior until they realize they are in need of one. This is why we are a living bible. The world thinks it is normal to gossip, be angry and fearful, judge, worry, be anxious, and so on. So when they see someone that is unaffected by all this and will not participate in it, what they are seeing is the abundant life that is available once someone has walked through the Door that is open to any and all.
    Stephen was not being a doormat in Acts 7 when they stoned him to death and His response just before death was, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" Stephen was showing them the Door. As a man named Saul oversaw this, and agreed with the brutal death, would later became Paul the Apostle. The Paul that preached the Gospel to everyone and everywhere and was used by God to birth our New Covenant theology.
    Jesus was not being a doormat when they laid stripes on Him, or when they pounded the nails through Him. When Christ said, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do," He was extending the invitation to walk through the Door and into Him.

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