“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
Everyone at one time or another has misplaced their keys. On Friday morning I was enroute to Camp Clark, Missouri for military training when I received a frantic phone call from my wife. She stated that she was unable to locate the keys to the van. She had turned the house
upside down looking for the keys. She looked in every drawer, closet, pocket, and even the trash cans in a valiant, yet vain effort to find them. Without the keys to the van, she was unable to transport the kids to school. The longer she went without the keys, the more frantic she got.
Eventually, the kids made it to school via an alternate method.
After an exhaustive search and numerous prayers, she resigned herself to the fact that the keys were gone, and that we would have to purchase new keys. Unfortunately, these keys are “special” keys that must be purchased through the dealer. We can’t just go to the local hardware store and have duplicates made. A copy of the original simply will not work. Only factory original keys have the ability to start the vehicle.
The physical keys to the vehicle may have been misplaced, but the Spiritual keys to the gates of Heaven can never be lost. But similarly to the van keys, only the original may be used. Jesus said that He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by (Him).” (John 14:6) And Luke tells us in Acts 4:12 that “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
You see, Jesus is the original. He has given the keys to Heaven to the church, and Peter is the rock upon which it was built. Too often we try to use the “keys” the world tells us are the way to God. Fame, fortune, family, and even spirituality are only cheap copies of the true original.
Which keys are you using to obtain eternal life?
Eventually, the keys were located. She had laid them down at church and someone turned them in to the office. Only through a chance conversation with the church secretary was she able to find them. Like the prodigal son, what was once lost is now found, and secure in the owner’s possession. But that is another story for another time.
God bless you and thanks for visiting.
Ironic. Ken lost his keys today. He called a locksmith, paying him for unlocking the vehicle, thinking he had possibly locked them in his truck, after looking everywhere for them. They were not there. Then he thought about his coat. He had taken it off while he was working on a plumbing line and someone found the coat and put it under a stairwell. He could not find the coat and started asking around. No one knew where it was, then the person who placed it under the stairs suddenly said, “Oh yeah. I remember. I put a coat under the stairs not knowing who it belonged to.” The keys were in the coat. It was the actual person who put the coat under the stairs who told him. I guess it is kind of like God. It is He who sometimes puts things in places for safety so that He is the only one we can turn to when we need to find them.
By: Tammy Brown on March 7, 2011
at 11:17 pm
Great post Shannon
By: Tommy on March 8, 2011
at 9:14 pm