In this powerful episode, we explore what it means to invite Jesus into the hidden places of our hearts — the rooms marked “Do Not Enter.” Many of us long for spiritual growth and transformation, yet we quietly struggle with shame, guilt, regret, and feelings of unworthiness that keep certain parts of our lives locked away.

If you’ve ever wrestled with feeling unworthy of God’s love, struggled with your past, or longed for spiritual transformation, this episode will remind you that Christ is our living hope — and no room is beyond His reach.

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Welcome to Born to be a Butterfly, where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so that we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajonis, and I pray that today's message ministers to you.

Today I'm going to start with scripture,

specifically Revelation 3. 20 and Ivy,

where Jesus says,

here I am.

I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.

When I think about that verse,

I think about a house,

and I think of us as the house.

And the question isn't whether Jesus is willing to come in.

The question is whether we're willing to let him in fully.

Now, I want you to imagine a house with a really pretty wraparound porch.

There are flowers everywhere. There are little pots with plants in it.

Everything looks beautiful.

Maybe there's even a little couch with some cushions,

a place for you to sit and read and watch the people walk by in the neighborhood.

And anyone on the sidewalk or driving by down the street can see your beautiful house.

The curb appeal looks amazing.

And in real estate, curb appeal is very important.

From the outside,

the house must look well kept,

well maintained,

because that makes it look valuable.

But all of that is surface level.

That's what people see.

But now imagine Jesus standing at the front door and he's knocking.

Are you going to let him in?

Not just onto the porch,

not just into what looks good,

but are you going to let him in the house?

Because Revelation doesn't say he's going to inspect the house and decide if he wants to come in to eat with us.

Jesus says,

if you open the door,

I will come in and eat with you.

There are no conditions.

There are no inspections first.

And when Jesus comes in,

he's going to bring the manna,

he is going to bring the living water,

and we are going to sit with him and we will eat well.

Our thirst will be quenched,

our souls will be satisfied.

But in order to have the meal that we are supposed to have with Jesus,

we have to put everything on the table.

Scripture confirms the posture of God's heart.

anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.

My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

He doesn't say they're coming to visit.

He does not say that they're coming to inspect.

Jesus says that they are coming to make their home with us.

And here's the thing that we must understand.

Letting Jesus in does not stop at opening the door.

It continues with what we're willing to show him once he is inside.

If we are the house,

we can't invite Jesus in and let him get comfortable and in the living room and expect that that's all that he's going to want to see.

We can't let him in, but only so far.

We can't do that.

That would be like when somebody comes over to your house and if they say,

can I see the house?

And you respond,

oh, no, no, no, you don't need to go upstairs. I'll show you the kitchen.

Let me show you the guest bathroom.

Because those are the rooms that you allow people to see.

Those are the rooms that are well kept.

But upstairs,

that could be a whole different story.

You could have closets overflowing.

There could be rooms where you can't even see the floor.

Right.

There could be things here shoved away because you don't want to deal with them.

Remember, I'm not talking about your actual house.

I'm not saying you keep a messy house.

What I'm saying is we are the house of God.

And there are rooms sometimes that we have hidden that are messy.

And the truth is,

the places that we know that people are going to see,

those are the places that we tend to treat best.

The hidden places are usually the most neglected.

In the 12 step program,

we say we are only as sick as our secrets.

And that's true.

The secrets are usually in the rooms that we hide from everyone.

And those are often the same rooms that we try to hide from Jesus.

You may have padlocked the door.

There may be dust on the lock because you haven't opened it in years.

You haven't wanted to look at that room.

You didn't want to deal with what happened,

what you did,

or what was done to you.

Shame lives in there.

Regret lives in there.

Fear lives in there.

And Scripture speaks directly to this.

In Psalm chapter 2, verses 3 through 5,

David says,

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long,

for day and night.

Your hand was heavy on me.

My strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said,

I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,

and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

What we keep locked away does not stay neutral.

It affects us and it infects us.

It makes us sick.

It weighs on us.

Sometimes it's not a matter of whether or not God loves the child or wants them to come to him.

Sometimes it's whether they feel worthy to come.

They stop themselves.

We're told to come as we are. We all know that.

But some of us think that's for other people.

You don't know me.

You don't know my story.

But the truth is,

God does know.

He knows everything.

He knew it before you were even born.

And he still said you were going to be his.

And he still said that I was going to be his.

Trust me when I tell you there are things in my story that I look back on and I cringe. I do.

I do.

I look back and I think to myself, what was I thinking?

How could I do that? How could I say that?

I'm not proud of those moments.

But I'm not those moments.

And neither are you.

If you feel the Lord is tugging on your heart as I'm speaking these words,

please heed what the Holy Spirit is trying to do.

The Holy Spirit is trying to convict you, if that is what you're feeling.

The Holy Spirit is trying to tell you there are still things that are unresolved within you.

There are still things that are haunting you. If that's the case,

and the Holy Spirit might be nudging you lovingly to let him look in those rooms that you're too scared to go into.

To let the Holy Spirit go into those places that you haven't wanted to go because you weren't sure.

You didn't know if you could emotionally survive the excruciating pain of revisiting some of these traumas, some of these places.

I know it's not easy. I know it's not. I've had to do is exceedingly difficult.

But it is necessary.

It is necessary.

The vision that the Lord gave me about this was that people had internal spaces that they would not let him into.

I saw it clearly in my mind.

He was showing me parts of their souls that they were closing off because they didn't think that he would like what he saw once he went in there,

that there were things that his children had done that they were so ashamed of that they didn't want anyone to see those parts.

And they didn't want their Savior to see those parts either,

because they believed those things disqualified them from his love.

And the Lord showed it to me clearly that his children are shutting off those parts of themselves because they don't love those parts of themselves.

And they assume that he won't either.

And I'm telling you right now that when we do that,

it's like inviting Jesus in.

And the Holy Spirit and Father God, our Abba and saying.

Okay, listen. Yeah, you live here now.

You can sit down.

Get comfortable. Yeah, get comfortable. Here's the kitchen. Here's the living room.

Oh, the den looks pretty good. You could go there, too.

There's some stuff here that looks good.

So, yeah, hang around here.

And some of these things still work,

kind of.

Some things still have a shine to them,

so. Great. Yeah, just hang out in those areas,

but I don't want you to look at anything else.

Okay.

All right, God.

All right, Lord.

All right. Thanks.

Yeah, I'm way too uncomfortable for you to go into the other places,

because in this house,

we don't look at the other areas. Yeah.

We don't go to those places. We don't like them.

So, yeah, just stay in the clean areas. Okay,

thanks.

Can you imagine saying that to God?

It sounds silly, doesn't it? It sounds almost disrespectful as well as ridiculous,

because we're basically telling our creator that he can't go into places we don't authorize him to go to when he literally is the One who created us.

And he knows everything about us.

In fact,

he knows us better than we know ourselves.

So he knows why we don't want to go in there.

He knows what's in those rooms.

He knows the memories. He knows the moments.

He knows the bad decisions if it was something done to us. He knows the traumas. He knows the pain. He knows. He knows the tears.

He knows it all.

And all of it needs healing,

not hiding.

When we try to close off parts of ourselves from God,

it's basically like we're saying,

you can come in,

but only so far.

You can come in,

but you can't rearrange the furniture.

You can come in. I want you to live here, but don't touch what I don't want you to touch.

Leave it the way it is.

You're my savior. You're my Lord,

but don't change anything.

And meanwhile,

most of the furniture needs to be thrown out.

Not just because it's old, but because it doesn't even function anymore.

It's broken.

And we have to take out the old to bring in the new.

We have to open the windows of our souls. We have to air the place out.

We have to get the cobwebs out.

The parts of you that felt like they died will come back to life when they are being fed by the Lord and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is not going to look at the pretty parts of us and say,

oh, yes,

that's my child.

And then look at the rest and say,

no,

that's not of me.

I don't want anything to do with that.

He doesn't partially claim his children.

Every nail, every that went into his body on the cross was for the things that were hiding in those rooms.

Every single nail,

every single one were for the things that have been oppressing and suppressing your spirit.

He died for that.

He didn't die for the pretty parts.

He died so you would let him into those rooms,

so he could clean them out in the name of Christ Jesus,

to sanctify you through the power of the Holy Spirit and fill every part of you with his love and his light.

And if you let him,

one day you will walk into those rooms and you will love what you see.

You won't see your regretful,

hurtful past anymore.

You won't see the things that you were ashamed of.

You won't see the things that broke you.

What you'll see is a bright,

beautiful room with the windows open and the light flooding in.

You won't be afraid of anyone looking in,

because you'll love that room now.

You'll love it. Because when you walk into it,

you won't be traveling into the past anymore.

You will be hopeful about your future.

The chaos from your past won't be shoved into into some dark,

hidden place anymore.

Once you turn that room over to God,

once you let him in,

love will live there.

Hope will live there.

Hope will live throughout your whole house now because you're not closing off parts of yourself anymore,

Parts you once thought were unredeemable or unworthy or unattractive.

When you let the Holy Spirit transform you fully,

you'll let him touch the places and spaces you thought nobody would ever want to touch,

let alone see the places you thought,

if someone saw this,

they would leave me.

If they saw this,

they would judge me.

If they saw this,

they wouldn't love me.

And we think that way because we are so accustomed to human love.

The Lord knew what we would struggle with long before we ever struggled with it.

He knew the sins.

He knew the behaviors. He knew the brokenness. He knew the pain we would endure.

But he also knew the joy,

the laughter.

He knew it all before we ever took our first breath.

If we do not fully surrender those rooms,

we are quenching the Spirit.

And Scripture speaks very clearly about that.

We are told that we are not supposed to do that because when we quench the spirit, we get stuck.

We get stuck, and then we Wonder why transformation stalls,

why we don't move forward.

The Lord can only change what we surrender to Him.

We must bring him our worst moments,

our most horrible,

hurtful moments.

And not just the things that were done to you,

not just the things that were done to me,

but what we have done to others collectively.

Because we have all had moments where we surprised ourselves,

and not in a good way.

But none of it,

none of it was a surprise to Jesus.

He knew it was going to happen.

He knew that we were going to need his help,

his healing and his forgiveness and even his help in forgiving ourselves.

So we have to let him into those rooms.

And when he walks in with you,

he's not going to look around and say,

how could you?

He's going to say,

my child,

I love you.

Thank you for showing me this.

Now let me help you.

Let me heal you.

You are not these things.

You are not what you have done,

and you are not what you have had done to you.

You are mine.

And before you know it,

he'll be loving you back to life in the places where you felt the most dead.

Once Jesus is done doing his work in you,

those rooms will never look the same,

and neither will you.

God knows our past,

he knows our present,

and he knows our future.

He sees all three.

And this is an incredible truth that the Holy Spirit has been revealing to me.

If he sees the beginning,

the middle, and the end,

then he's not just looking at who we were,

and he's not just looking at who we are now.

He is looking at who we will become,

who we are called to be,

who we were created to be,

and who he is transforming us to be.

We are a work in progress.

He sees everything and he loves it all.

We cannot dwell on who we were.

We have to focus on who we are becoming in Christ.

Every day.

He is renewing our minds, our hearts, and our souls through the power of the Holy Spirit and the sanctification process.

That is the work that he is doing,

and that is is how God sees us.

That's why Scripture reminds us in Philippians 1:6,

being confident of this,

that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

God doesn't abandon unfinished rooms.

Shame and accusation are meant to keep us stuck not only in yesterday and today,

but also to rob us of hope for tomorrow.

The enemy wants us to be hopeless,

because if he can convince us there's no redemption ahead,

no transformation possible in certain parts of our lives or certain parts of our souls,

then he has succeeded.

Because then he has shut us down.

So if shame starts circling around like a cyclone in your mind or your soul,

recognize it.

That is the narrative of the enemy.

Reject it. In the name of Jesus.

Remember whose you are.

Because whose you are determines who you will become.

We are image bearers of the most High God.

And in his hands,

all things are made new.

Where does our help come from?

Our help comes from the Lord and so does our hope.

And now I'm going to ask you some questions.

Number one,

what room in your life have you kept locked because shame told you it was beyond redemption?

Number two,

how might your healing begin if you believed that God wants to make his home in every part of you?

Number three.

What would change if you trusted that God will finish what he started in you?

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus,

thank you for knocking on our closed doors with patience and love.

Thank you for not inspecting us before you invite us into relationship.

Please give us the courage to unlock every door and surrender every room.

Heal what we've been hiding.

Please restore what feels unfinished and help us live in the hope that because you live,

hope never dies.

In the beautiful and magnificent name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray.

Amen.

If today's message ministered to you,

and if you think it might minister to someone else,

please share this episode and don't forget to follow Born to be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode.

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I love hearing from you.

Until next time,

Remember,

transformation is possible.

Healing is holy.

The Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.