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The Keys To Heaven Are In Your Pocket

The Keys To Heaven Are In Your Pocket

Jesus didn’t hand the keys of heaven to a special class of super-apostles and then lock the rest of us outside the house. When Peter opened his mouth and said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” Jesus didn’t reply, “Nice try, now step aside while the professionals handle this.” He said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. 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.”

The rock is the confession. The keys belong to everyone who makes the same confession with the same faith that Jesus is the Son of the living God. Romans 10 says you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, and that is where the kingdom sits—inside people who agree with God out loud. Ephesians 1 says He adopted us into His family. Grown adopted sons get keys to the house. Heaven is the house. He did not give the Father keys to hand to the Son and then wait. Put your hand in your pocket. He gave you the keys, because you are a son in the house. The house is heaven.

Stop and think about what He actually handed you. Not keys to the garage. Not keys to the family cabin. Not keys to some distant relative’s condo. Keys to heaven itself. The place where the throne sits. The place where the Father dwells. The place the angels call home and the saints call the final destination. He looked at the ones who confess His Son and said, “Here. These are yours now.” That is not a metaphor for “feel encouraged.” That is the Owner of the universe putting the master set in your pocket and telling you to start using them. Adopted children eventually get house keys. He treated you like a son who has come of age. The kingdom is His house, and He just gave you access…and receiving in faith, you just banked reward in heaven. Unlocking her healing unlocked more of that for her too.

Think about how ridiculous the scale is. Imagine if God had walked up and dropped the keys to the Andromeda Galaxy in your hand. Two and a half million light-years of stars, wonder, and systems. “Here, rearrange this if you want. Call me if you get lost.” Or the Sombrero Galaxy—edge-on, dust lane and all, a hundred thousand light-years across—and He just slides the key across the table and says, “Go play.” You would lose your mind. You would tell everyone. You would not spend the next forty years asking Him to unlock the front door of your own house while those galactic keys sat in your pocket. Yet that is exactly what most believers do. He gave you something a hundred million times greater than Andromeda or the Sombrero. Heaven is not a galaxy. It’s something much, much greater. And God gave you the keys to it. Heaven is the throne room. The place where the decrees are issued. The place where what is bound stays bound and what is loosed stays loosed. He put those keys in your hand.

Think about what that means the next time you see a sick Christian. Jesus looked at the woman bent over for eighteen years and called her a daughter of Abraham—something He did not casually throw at the crowd whose father was the devil. She was already in the covenant and still bound by Satan. Ignorant believers can still get chained. The one who knows he holds the keys does not stand there begging God to unlock something God already handed over. He speaks. “Be healed.” That is not asking the Owner of the house to use His own keys. That is the son using the keys the Father placed in his pocket. What you unlock on earth is unlocked in heaven. Free that woman from the chains and she now has energy, time, and clarity to pursue the promises, store up treasure, and expand the kingdom. Every time you receive a blessing by faith—health, provision, open doors—you are not merely collecting stuff on earth. Because you did it the spiritual way, by asking and receiving in faith, you just banked reward in heaven. Unlocking her healing unlocked more of that for her too.

Some people still pray like they are standing outside the house knocking. “God, would You open this door for me?” He already gave you the keys. He is not going to open it while you hold them. Moses stood at the Red Sea with the Staff of God in his hand and started a monologue about how the Lord would fight for them. God interrupted and told him to stop crying out and use what he already held. The same thing happens when you treat the keys of heaven like a souvenir. Next time you catch yourself asking God to unlock something, picture Him looking back at you and saying, “I gave you the keys. You unlock it.” He gave you keys to heaven itself. That is a hundred million times bigger than if He had handed you the keys to the Andromeda Galaxy and told you to go rearrange stars. And He expects you to use them.

The kingdom is not expanding because God is hunting for volunteers willing to beg. It expands because sons who confess the Son of God pick up the keys He already put in their pockets and start unlocking things. Stop asking the Owner to do the job He assigned to you. Take the keys. Unlock the healing. Unlock the provision. Unlock the door. If a weapon is formed against you, lock it up on earth, and God will lock it up in heaven. Think about it. God did not say to Himself, “What I lock on earth, I will lock in heaven.” He said it to you. It’s your responsibility to lock and unlock, and God will back you up.

What you unlock on earth is unlocked in heaven. That is not a suggestion; it is your responsibility as a child of the house. That is the house rules for the adopted. You hold the keys to the place where the throne sits.

Next time you pray, see heaven’s keys in your hand. Pull them out of your pocket and see yourself unlocking or locking something. Don’t worry. God gave you the keys to use them. He likes to see a son using the family keys.

A king and his son on a castle balcony overlooking a valley

You Have Not, Because You Ask Not

If you have them, you can’t be tempted to get them.

James drops it plain in chapter 4: “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” The context is not some ethereal spiritual hunger for more invisible holiness or a better prayer life. He’s talking about people who want stuff—good sex and marriage, a solid house, property, money, success, relationships that actually work. They want the good material things that make life livable, and because they don’t have them, their lack of self-control sends them into murder, adultery, envy, and coveting, whether they do it with their hands or just in the secret chambers of their hearts. That’s the setup. The problem is lack, and the lack is driving the sin.

Self-control is good. It is a fruit of the Spirit, and we reach for it hard because God said it is. We want the Spirit’s fruit, not a limp version of it. But the same God who lists self-control right there in Galatians is the same God who looks at the man murdering in his heart over a wife he does not have and says, “Ask Me for the wife. I’ll hand her over. Then the temptation dies because you already have her.” One is Spirit fruit. The other is God removing the lack that makes the fruit fight an uphill battle every single day. The monastic crowd wants you fasting in a stone box until desire flatlines like a dead car battery. God wants you with a full fridge, a solid marriage, and a bank account that doesn’t make your neighbor’s house look like a target.

What’s wild is that James doesn’t pivot to the usual religious script. He doesn’t say, “Stop wanting the bigger house. Stop wanting good sex in marriage. Stop wanting more success. Get more self-control and lock yourself in a cold monastery tower until the desire dies.” No. He says ask. Get those material things from God, and the temptation evaporates because you actually have them now. You can’t be tempted to steal a car when the keys are already in your pocket and the title is in your name. You can’t be tempted to murder your neighbor for his wife when God has already given you a good marriage that satisfies. The logic is brutal and simple: if you have them, you can’t be tempted to get them through unlawful means. That’s the argument. God is not calling you to become a monk who freezes in some stone tower while muttering about contentment. He’s saying, “I know you need those things. I know you want those things. Ask, and I’ll give them to you.”

God’s only real warnings are the ones He actually wrote down. Directly in the James passage, don’t ask for sinful things that break a commandment—murder, adultery, the actual violation. And then the basic excess: ask for all the good foods you want, just don’t be a glutton. Asking for steak isn’t the sin. Being the guy who eats the whole buffet then hides in the bathroom like a raccoon in a dumpster—that’s the excess. Same thing with money. The only rule is don’t love it as your true god and provider. Look to God to provide it. Job had it. David had it. Solomon had more gold than a dragon’s hoard, and God never once wrote “loved money too much” on his problem list. Turns out you can swim in abundance without drowning in idolatry. Who am I to add more rules than God already gave? Ask for the good things. Just don’t turn them into the commandment-breaking version or the glutton version.

This is the opposite of how the faithless and the religious operate. They treat material desire as the enemy and self-control as the only weapon, so they end up producing a generation of people who are constantly fighting their own legitimate wants instead of receiving the supply that kills the fight. God’s response is to remove the lack. Nathan told David the same thing after the adultery with Bathsheba. God had already given him his master’s house, his master’s wives, the kingdom of Israel and Judah—multiple wives, which meant multiple sex, multiple good relationships, multiple children, military victories, fame, and success in everything. Then God said, “And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.” If David had wanted more wives, more kingdom, more gold, more everything, God would have given it. After having the more, the temptation would have been gone because he would have had it. That’s how God thinks. The faithless reverse it and act like wanting more is the sin, when the real sin was taking it by murder and adultery instead of asking the One who already proved He was willing to hand it over.

Jesus seals it in the Sermon on the Mount. “Your Father knows you need these things. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.” The “these things” are exactly what the pagans seek after—wealth, health, food, clothing, material prosperity at the level that makes unbelievers chase them like gods. Jesus doesn’t say those desires are wrong. He says seek the kingdom and the things the pagans are running after will be added to you. The point is not that you stop wanting them. The point is that God is so concerned about them that He guarantees they will be supplied when you put Him first. It’s not based on some bare-minimum need calculation. It’s based on your wants, and He wants to give them to you so you are not sitting around being tempted by the absence.

The atonement already purchased this package. Jesus became poor so that through His poverty you might become rich—not spiritual poetry, but the same substitution that took your sickness and your sin also took your material lack. The blessing of Abraham, which was mainly material favor, land, increase, and success, has come on the Gentiles through faith. You are predestined to ask and receive. So ask. Ask for the good sex and marriage you want. Ask for the house, the land, the money, the success. Ask bigger than the monastery version of Christianity ever allowed you to imagine. When you have them, the temptation is gone. That’s how God designed it. That’s how His love works. Stop treating lack like a spiritual badge and start treating the promises like the finished reality they already are. You have not, because you ask not. Ask, and watch the temptation die because the thing you wanted is now in your hands.

To Reject Healing Is To Reject The Kingdom

To Reject Healing Is To Reject The Kingdom

Jesus did not hand the seventy-two a clipboard titled “Repent of Your Sins or Burn” and send them out as traveling guilt machines. He told them to walk into the house and drop an authoritative pronouncement: “Peace to this house.” If a son of peace is there, the blessing stands. If not, it returns to you undiminished. Stay. Eat their food. Heal the sick who are there. Then announce, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” Matthew stacks the power works right after the announcement—heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received; freely give. The direct words Jesus gave them do not open with “tell them to repent of their sins.” Mark later summarizes what the disciples actually did, but the commission itself packages the spoken blessing, the healing, and the Kingdom announcement as the entry point. That is the picture.

The rejection that gets the dust wiped off the feet and Sodom-level judgment is rejection of that package. The messengers brought an authoritative peace that touches material life, demonstrated the Kingdom by healing the sick and breaking Satan’s oppression, and announced that the Kingdom had drawn near in connection with those works. People get offended at God wanting to bless them with physical wholeness and material goodness. Think about that for two seconds. The faithless preach the opposite. They act like the core charge is “repent of your sins or you’re toast,” and treat healing and material blessing like optional extras or even spiritual dangers. But in the text, the Kingdom comes near by healing the sick and casting out demons. The authoritative peace is loosed over the house. What you bind on earth is bound in heaven; what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven. You go in and loose the blessing of God for healing, goodness, and prosperity in that life. If they reject that, they reject the King who brings those things.

Jesus answered John’s disciples the same way. They asked how they would know it was Him. He did not send back a hellfire pamphlet. He said, go tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Then He added, blessed is the one who is not offended because of Me. He was not warning people against being offended at a sermon about sins and hell. He was warning them against being offended at the good things—the physical and material blessings God was doing. The faithless get particularly unbelieving right there. They can talk about spiritual goods all day, but when God shows up to heal the body, cast out the demon, and speak material peace and wholeness into a life, they flinch. That is the offense. And the judgment still stands.

The gospel is a whole package. Good things, both spiritual and material. Forgiveness is in it. Righteousness is in it. The blessing of Abraham is in it. Healing is in it. By His stripes you were healed. The same blood that purchased the removal of the record also purchased the removal of the curse, including sickness and poverty. God wants to give these things more than you want to receive them. The initial breaking-in is the healing and the blessing. You demonstrate that the Kingdom has come near by the power works. Then you tell them, you see all these good things—the healings, the peace, the demons fleeing—you cannot have the fullness of this unless you repent and believe, and then all those good things are yours. Enter in. But the proof that the Kingdom has drawn near is the healing. The way the Kingdom proves it has come near a person is the sick rising and the demons leaving.

Our responsibility is still to do it. Go pronounce “your peace” in authority. Heal the sick. Cast out the demons. Announce that the Kingdom of God has come near. If a ministry refuses to do this, boycott it. Reject it. They are a ministry of the faithless doing faithless things. They are not advancing the Kingdom; they are stalling it while Satan uses the body as a middle finger at the finished stripes and the enthroned Christ. The dust is for those who reject the package. For those who receive it, the peace sticks, the sick rise, and the Kingdom expands in power, not just words.

Speak the peace. Command the healing. Receive the good things God already purchased. The Kingdom has come near. Do not be offended at it.

Jesus: “You Have Heard it Said…”

Jesus: You have heard it said,

“if you ask, you might or might not get it, depending on God’s will.”
However, I say to you, “If you ask you will receive, if seek you will find, and if you knock the door will be open.”

Jesus: You have heard it said,

“If you pray God will answer with a ‘yes,’ ‘maybe’ or a ‘no.’”
However, I say to you, “for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Jesus: You heard it said,

“If you keep asking, and God has not given it to you,  God has answered your prayer with a no.”
However, I say to you, “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, 6 ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ 7 And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ 8 But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.” [1]

Jesus: you have heard it said,

“Even if God answers your prayer, because God is looking out for you, He will often give you something different, but better.”
However, I say to you, “what man is there among you, if his son will ask him for bread, will give him a stone? Or also if he will ask for a fish, will give him a snake? Therefore if you, although you* are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?”

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives,

and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you, if his son will ask him for bread, will give him a stone?

Or also if he will ask for a fish, will give him a snake? Therefore if you, although you* are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7–11 (LEB)

Since it is God’s, and not man’s definition that a “good” God gives you the very thing you ask for, anyone who teaches otherwise is spouting a doctrine of demons. Some bark up like mad dogs that, “what if you ask for something bad?” So what? What does this logically have to do with what I am saying? This is not a relevant point, because James says if you ask God for evil things (“God help me murder this person”), then you are God’s “enemy,” and so prayer is the least of your concerns. Since I am addressing Christians or those who at least claim to be so, and not sworn enemies of God, I will ignore logically non-relevant points.

Jesus says, if you ask in faith you will get what you ask for. Jesus even says this in more than one way, in case we missed it. What Jesus is doing here with prayer, is the same He is doing throughout the “Sermon on the Mount.” You have heard it said “do not murder your brother, but I say to you, do not do it, even in your heart.” When Jesus teaches on judging people, His point presupposes that you are able to judge your brother, and to do it without hypocrisy. You do this by removing the wood from your own eye first. Some morons say, “you cannot judge without hypocrisy or bias”; yet, Jesus contradicts this in His sermon. He teaches the true ethical standard God demands for judging, and He expects His disciples to do it. It is good news to see in the new covenant, God promising to give us ethical power, “I will write my laws in your hearts.”

In this context of Jesus repeatedly correcting the low opinion of people’s thinking on God’s commands and standards, Jesus talks about “prayer and faith.” Thus, when we see Jesus saying, “if you ask God in faith, you get the very thing you ask for,” then we can infer the presupposition behind it, at least in the broad sense; and so, Jesus’ teaching is in opposition to the people’s low opinion of what they think prayer and faith should accomplish. The Jews had a perverted and low view of prayer. From the Mount, Jesus corrects their error and describes the true ethical standard that God commands about faith. Whatever the low valuation of prayer the Jews had, it was not to the standard of, “if you ask in faith, you will get what you ask for.”  Jesus is expecting and demanding, (just like He demands us to not even lust in our hearts after another woman), to pray and get what we pray for.  Jesus in essence says, “You have heard it said, if its God’s will, then you might get what you pray for. But I say to you, if you ask in faith, you will get the very thing you ask for, because God is the good Father.” This is the type of Being we are dealing with. You must deal with Him and not someone else.

Do you know this Jesus?

[1] Luke 7:5-8