Key to Life

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Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

The doors at our house needed to have the handles and dead bolts replaced. I went and picked them up so I could change them out. It wasn’t as easy as I had anticipated.

I guess it has been longer than I thought since I had put on doorknobs. It only took me a couple of minutes to get the front door ready, but thirty minutes later I was still trying to get things right so the door would close and lock.

I was about to lose it! Vicki had come home to find me struggling with things. She told me to step back and just wait before I went any further. But I just kept working for a few minutes until she once again told me to step back. So I did and just thought about what I was doing and what wasn’t working right.

When I went back to the task at hand, it just all fell into place and I was able to get everything in place and working properly. I went to the back door and ran into a little issue but all in all, it went really well. Before long I was finished and everything was in place and the doors locked and did exactly what they were supposed to do.

After I finished, I was relieved. What had caused me such a problem was now in place. The doors opened and closed properly and they locked perfectly. Then I tested the keys just to make sure we would be able to get in. They worked and I was able to gain access to the house with no problems.

Later that evening I began thinking about what had happened. It was one thing to have the handles and dead bolts in place, but if the keys had not been right, what good would it have been. We could have been locked out of the house.

Then I thought about how important it is to have the right key to be in a right relationship with God. We can have all the right clothes, go to the right building for worship and even have the right friends. While those are important, they are not the key to our having eternal life.

Having the proper relationship with Christ is the ‘key’ to having the life that will bring us into that which God has prepared for us. It is not knowing about Jesus, attending church or being with a certain group of people. Accepting Christ as our personal Savior and following Him as Lord is the key.

In Matthew 16:15, Jesus asked who the disciples said that He was. In v.16 Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.” Then in v.17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

But it was what Jesus said in vv. 18-19 that speaks to me at this time. He said -- 18 I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon 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; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

The keys of the kingdom of heaven will open the way for all who believe and confess Christ to enter into the glories of heaven. Knowing Christ is the key that is needed for us to have the life God has prepared for us. But if we don’t have God in our lives, we won’t have the key needed to have the life He desires for us.

While someone can break into my house and enter it, apart from knowing Christ as Savior and Lord, one cannot enter into heaven. Simply stated – Jesus is the key to the kingdom and life eternal. It is my prayer that each will have the ‘key of life’ in their heart. Do you? Remember ---

JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, there IS something about that name!!

Christ only, always,

Bro. Paul

Brother Paul Nachtigall is the preacher at Highland Baptist Church. He can be reached at bropaul@centramedia.net.