the church

Insights on church life

by Pastor Pete Beck III

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the keys of the kingdom 

 

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.” Matthew 16:15-19 (NET1)

 

Years ago I was the assistant coach on my youngest son's soccer team. We had a great group of boys who were very talented. Several times they were able to win the city title in their division. The secret to our success was the offense. At the recreational team level of competition, we did not have enough strong players to put one at every position. We did two things to maximize our strength. First, we made sure that we positioned strong players in the middle from center forward to goalie. Secondly, we placed our strongest players on offense, because if we could keep pressure on their defense, our weakness at defense would not easily be exposed. In almost every case it worked. The best defense is a good offense.

 

One game we established a sizable lead and decided to give our defensive guys some fun time playing offense. We reasoned that if we dropped our best players back to defense, they could easily handle the other team's offense. WRONG! We came close to losing that game because the momentum completely changed. We were "on our heels" playing a defensive game. We had to switch our playing positions back to usual to head off their comeback bid. We learned a valuable lesson: always be aggressive on offense, no matter how good is your defense.

 

Last night at prayer, the Lord spoke the word "keys" to us. As I have meditated on this and the associated verse quoted above, I have come to realize that we have allowed ourselves to think defensively because of some recent setbacks. If we are going to be successful, we must regain our offensive momentum. The church is not meant to be a defensive fortress; rather, it is an offensive weapon in God's hands. God has promised us that the gates of hell will not be able to stop or overpower our offense. That being the case, how can we regain and maintain offensive momentum? What are the keys that God has placed in our hands? What gates of hell can we unlock with them to set free those who have been held captive by the devil?

 

Here is a short list that comes to mind. I plan to look at each in more detail in succeeding meditations.

 

The Gospel - the power of God to reach and save the lost

Binding and Losing Authority - the enemy has no right to keep us in a defensive mindset and restrict our kingdom work. Instead we must be aggressive in binding him and releasing God's provisions for the work and releasing those who have been held captive.

The Anointing of the Holy Spirit - He has been given to us to give us boldness and to release the power of God.

 

Three signs of the advancing kingdom of God are the preaching of the gospel, the healing of the sick and the releasing of those oppressed by demons. I believe the Lord is going to give us greater faith and boldness to do this kingdom work. He has given us the authority and keys to demolish those forces which have done their best to intimidate and discourage us. He has put the provisions of heaven at our disposal, and we are going to be able to receive and use them in a brand new way. So, let's think about these things and ask God to increase our faith and boldness. It's time to play offense and put the devil on his heels.

 

 

 

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