We Hold the Keys

Believers have a lot more latitude to act on the earth than most of them ever know.  Tradition has left believers with the notion that everything that happens is up to God in His sovereignty.  Then they get frustrated when they ask God to do something and He doesn’t do anything.  Their usual conclusion is that God has made a “no” decision to the matter in His sovereignty, when that is far from the truth.  Much of the time, the issue is that we don’t realize that God has already given us authority on the earth and that He will back us when we use it.  If we don’t use our authority, nothing happens, and all too often we think that God’s will is the reason that nothing happened.

We think sometimes that Jesus holds all the keys, but He doesn’t!  Jesus holds the keys to hell and death (Revelation 1:18), but He has given the keys to the kingdom of heaven to the Church (see Matthew 16:19).  I realize that many have interpreted Jesus’ remark to mean that Peter personally would have the keys, but if that were the case, what happened when Peter died?  Did the Church no longer have the keys because Jesus collected them from Peter when he came to heaven?  That wouldn’t make much sense.

What heaven binds and looses depends on what we bind and loose on the earth.  Jesus gave us that authority.

Therefore, it is not a matter of just “waiting on God” to see what God wants to do.  Jesus taught the opposite of that in many of His statements.  In particular, He has given us the privilege of asking things in His name and receiving them from the Father.  He did not put any restrictions on what we could ask for, though of course we could not ask for something contrary to the Word, such as causing your spouse to die and the neighbor’s spouse to die so that you can marry that neighbor’s hot spouse.  (There have actually been people “believing for people to die” like that to satisfy the adulterous desires of their hearts, but that would be asking amiss and God would never honor something like that.)

Here is what Jesus said as far as receiving from the Father in His name:

Whatever you ask the Father in Jesus’ name, HE will do it (John 14:13-14).

If you abide in Him and His words abide in you, you’ll ask whatever you will and it will be done to you (John 15:7).

Whatever you ask the Father in His name the Father will give you (John 15:16, John 16:23-27).

Ask in His name and you will receive, so that your joy may be full (John 16:24).

These verses teach the opposite of leaving everything up to God’s will.  Jesus said if you abide in Him and His words abide in you, you will ask what you will.  He didn’t say that you would pray to try to find out what God wills and then God would do whatever His sovereign will is anyway.

Do you see how much freedom you have to determine what you want?  God doesn’t decide what you ask for – you do.  As long as your prayer is consistent with His known will in Scripture (1 John 5:14-15), you can be confident that God will give you what you ask Him for.  Of course, you must understand that this really refers to bringing things He already granted you into physical manifestation.  You do not “ask” for healing in the sense that you make it a request for God to affirm or deny, as so many Christians do.

He gives man similar latitude in deciding whom to marry.  He will not order a New Testament believer to marry anyone or to stay single; He has left that choice up to us.  God allows people to marry whom THEY think best (1 Corinthians 7:39, Numbers 36:6, though the Old Testament limitation of staying in your tribe does not carry over into the New Testament).  Of course, the prospective spouse has to be a believer (2 Corinthians 6:14, 1 Corinthians 7:39).  But it is not God’s place to order you to marry “the ONE” for you.  There is no such person; there are probably many different people you could be happily married to if you both walk in love and follow Jesus.  God can certainly bring good people across your path and let you decide what you want to do.  If there were only ONE such person, you would have to marry whomever GOD chooses for you, not whomever YOU choose, and where would you be the rest of your life if something happened to the ONE?  You probably know of some cases (one of which may even involve you!) where Person A wanted to marry Person B, but Person B wanted Person C and married Person C instead.  That is OK (whether you think so or not); it doesn’t mean that Person B “missed God!”  And before we leave this topic, I would urge you to RUN from any “prophetically arranged” marriage situation.  Make your own decisions and never base such an important choice on what someone “prophesied” to you.  People can really mess up their lives acting on such prophecies; I know a couple that met online and only met in person three days before their marriage.  They got married due to a prophecy and almost immediately wanted a divorce when they found out what it was like to be around each other all the time.  There is more to married life than just the “spiritual” aspect!

God also gives man latitude in deciding when he wants to go to heaven.  Remember that Paul didn’t know (for a while) what he (not God) should choose, whether to stay on the earth which benefitted the believers, or do depart and be with Christ, which is far better (Philippians 1:23-24).  The amazing thing there is that God allowed Paul to choose!

God will not force His blessings on you.  You are free to “have not because you ask not” (James 4:2).  It is up to YOU to believe and receive what YOU want from God.

God also gives you latitude when it comes to your giving.  He said that each man should give as he has purposed in his heart (2 Corinthians 9:7), not the amount that God “gave” him.  That’s why I’ve never do an offering where I tell people to pray and see what amount God “gives” them.  I can just picture them whispering back and forth with their spouses, “Honey, what amount are you getting?”  Some preachers even say that if you’re “getting” two numbers, the higher one is God.  I suppose at some point some even “craftier” preacher will say, “If you’re ‘getting’ two numbers, they’re both God, so give them both!”  But the Bible truth on the matter is that God lets you make that decision.  If you sow a little, you’ll reap a little, and if you sow a lot, you’ll reap a lot (2 Corinthians 9:6).  It’s up to you how generous you want to be and how much you’re willing to extend your faith.  If you want to throw a dollar in the plate, God won’t send a heavenly henchman to demand more, but don’t complain about the people around you who are walking in all kinds of material blessings because they’ve chosen to be generous givers who reap a large harvest while you’ve chosen to be stingy with God.  God has provided the means for you to prosper, but He will never force you to prosper if that’s not what you want.

You can speak death or speak life – God has put them both in the power of YOUR tongue (Proverbs 18:21).  It isn’t up to God to make you say one thing or another; He has left that responsibility with you.  If you are wise, you will make your words line up with God’s words rather than lighting your life on fire with your tongue.

God told Joshua that if he would meditate on (mutter) and act on His words, Joshua would make his way prosperous.  God didn’t say that HE would make Joshua’s way prosperous; it was up to Joshua!  So man can also choose to hear, believe and act on God’s words and prosper in life or choose to ignore or fail to act on those words and end up with a house that has a great fall.  That’s up to us, not God.

Matthew 7:24-27:
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

Both people above heard the Word.  This is NOT a case where one person heard the Word and one didn’t.  It is a case where both HEARD the Word but only one of them ACTED ON the Word.

God told the Israelites (through Moses) that He had set before them life and death, and He commanded them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).  You get to choose life or death and deal with the result of your choice.  You even get to choose whether you go to heaven or hell based on whether or not you receive Jesus.

YOU decide the level of faith you walk in as a believer, too!  Faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17), and it is up to you how much of God’s Word you want to hear.  If you don’t spend much time in the Word, you will have anemic faith because you won’t know what God has given you as an inheritance.  You can't walk in what you don’t know.  But if you spend a lot of time in God’s Word, you will develop great faith because you’ll be familiar with your inheritance.  If you only read your Bible once a month, God will never force you to read it more.  However, you will bear the consequences of not knowing what is written when the devil tempts you, and you will not live a prosperous life.  (If you “don’t have time” for the Word, you “don’t have time” to prosper!)

So we can see that God leaves a lot more up to man than most people realize.  You can decide what you want to ask for.  If you’re content with just a cottage below, God will let you live in a cottage and He won’t condemn you for it.  If you’re happy living a life where your clothes are not new and you don’t have much money (and are even happy to sing these things to others), God will allow that.  You can live a bunch of weary days before you fly away.  But you don’t HAVE to live that way.  It’s up to you, not God, who has already provided the blessing of Abraham for you (Galatians 3:14).