John 10:9
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture

Hi, Pastor Bob here. Welcome back to the Men of Valor podcast. The verse for today is from the book of John, chapter 10, verse 9. And it states, “‘I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.’”

You ever do this, or am I the only one that this happened to; and I have to admit to you, it's not happened just once in my life. I come up hurriedly to a door, and I push on it to open it, and it doesn't open. And at times, I've actually hit my head on the door! And my first thought is, ‘Man, this thing is really stuck!’ Quickly, I thought, ‘I sure hope nobody saw me hit my head like this,’ so I push hard, and I try again and I try again! And then I murmur something like, ‘Stupid door!’ (Remember, I'm a pastor.) So I step back, and I see a sign on the door that says, ‘Pull to open.’ Then I usually murmur something again, and sometimes I just laugh at myself, as I admit, ‘It's not the door that is stupid at times like this. The door cannot be opened because I'm not following the instructions.’

"...in order to enter the narrow gate that leads to life as Jesus describes it, truly we need to give our entire life to Him..."

So hopefully, you can see how important obedience to the Lord is. So is also knowing the truth! As Jesus says, ‘The truth will set you free.’ Harry Houdini, the world's greatest escape artist around 1900, became world famous - as he could escape out of handcuffs while hanging upside down, hanging upside down in the water, in prisons, anywhere! Houdini proudly proclaimed, ‘I can get out of any prison cell as long as I can wear my street clothes when I entered the cell.’ A warden and an old prison took up Houdini’s challenge, and on that much publicized day which drew a large crowd, Harry entered the cell. His secret? He had a special wire hidden in his belt, and as soon as the spectators left him, he proceeded to pull out the wire and work on the lock. After thirty minutes of working on it, he began to panic. After an hour, he started to sweat profusely because it never took him that long before. After two hours of struggling and over thinking how to get the door open, he finally gave up, leaned against the prison gate - and it slid open. He was shocked! It was never locked! He just believed it was!

"...when our eyes are open, we discover that Jesus Christ opened the gate...and it remains open to anyone who will follow Him as Lord and Savior."

Hallelujah, what an amazing God we serve! God bless you all.