Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. - Acts 19:19-20 NKJV.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. - Romans 13:14 NKJV.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. - 1 Peter 5:8-9 NKJV.

In Tadley, England someone walking by the HSBC Bank branch early one morning discovered a strange situation. The bank door was open! The open door was reported to the police and the bank was quickly secured. Nothing was found to be missing, and it was not clear how long the door had been left open.

In South Carolina, a home owner left his garage door up while he took care of a couple of errands. After all, the Claussen community was a safe family place to live, and he was only going to be gone for about 30 minutes. However, when he returned, he found that someone had entered through the open garage door, and kicked in the door from the garage to the house. The burglar did take three jewelry boxes, one of which contained some family heirlooms. 

In these days, and in most places it is wise to shut the door to your house or business if you will be away for even brief periods of time. An open door is an invitation to a burglar to enter, and take whatever he can find of value.

Spiritually, we need to also shut the door, because we do have an enemy who “walks about seeking whom he may devour.” That old devil is constantly looking for an open door in your life so that he can enter in and “steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).”

The new believers in Ephesus give us an example of shutting the door. Even though the books that they had used to practice the dark arts were worth a large amount of money; instead of selling them, they burned them. They shut the door on their past permanently as they would be unable to afford to replace the books once they were destroyed. Burning the books would also keep others from being tempted to use them. You need to do the same thing in your life. If you are using illegal drugs, you need to get rid of them. Do not keep a hidden stash in your home somewhere. You need to do the same with alcohol, with pornography, with Ouija boards, with tarot cards. You need to rid your life of them permanently.

There are other ways to leave the door open to the devil and to the flesh. We leave the door open when we refuse to forgive. We leave the door open through doubt, and unbelief. We leave the door open when we knowingly live in sin. We leave the door open when we gossip about others and when we mummer against God. These doors are harder to shut, but they can be closed as we draw near to God (James 4:8a). We move closer to God as we pray, immerse ourselves in His Word, are faithful in church attendance, and live each day as closely as we can to God's will for our lives.

If you have been leaving the doors of your life open, you are asking for trouble. Shut the doors!