Day Three: Keys of the Kingdom
Many, many years later Jesus came to earth as a baby, and what God had promised happened. When Jesus was all grown up, the first thing that He said when He started His ministry was;
“REPENT for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17)
Jesus was SO EXCITED and wanted to share right off the top that this is what He had come for - to bring man back to God and to what God had planned from the beginning. The Kingdom of heaven was at hand, not later when you die, but here! Now! Jesus taught and preached the gospel (good news) of the kingdom of God and demonstrated the authority of God’s kingdom over the kingdom of darkness.
So what was Jesus saying when He said “repent”?
‘Repent’ actually means to change the way you think. Your eyes are opened to see the world in a new way or through KINGDOM GOGGLES - God’s point of view - about sin and also about how we can push back the kingdom of darkness.
You look at how you have been living and doing things and decide you are going to change. You obey and follow GOD’S way of doing things. Being sorry you got caught for doing something wrong is not repentance and will not result in a change of attitude or behavior or way of seeing things. It will only make you try not to get caught next time. With true repentance you change your attitude and your behavior. It doesn’t happen all at once but more and more each day as you listen and obey the nudges God puts in your heart .
Bear tries to see things from another point of view
Now that is great but it still wouldn’t work to get into the Kingdom of heaven. You see for God’s kingdom to be able to rule, sin’s rule needed to be broken. God is Holy and He cannot allow any kind of sin into His kingdom, otherwise it would be the seed that would lead to everything that is bad in the world now. When sin came into the world one of the consequences was that only the death of a totally innocent person would break its power over us. Jesus was the only one ever that was both God and man and completely innocent. Jesus broke the power of sin over us when he gave Himself to us, and died in our place. This is called atonement. To go from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light we need to go through the Lord Jesus, and to believe and accept what he did for us.
(Col 1:13 LB) says, “For He rescued us out of the darkness and gloom of Satan’s kingdom, and brought us into the kingdom of His dear Son, who bought our freedom with His blood and forgave us all our sins.”
Have you thanked Jesus for taking your place and breaking the power of sin over your life?
Is there something in your life that you need to repent of? Remember, repentance means you are to change your way of thinking about something. Why not do that right now? As you do, know that repentance brings you back into a right relationship with God.
Do you need to ask God to break the power of a particular sin off your life? For example, you have a really hard time to tell the truth. It is so much easier to lie especially if you did something else wrong and would get into trouble if you told the truth. But when Jesus died not only did He forgive you but he gives you the power to overcome sin, if you trust and obey Him.
Prayer:
I want to thank you for sending Jesus to break the power of sin over my life and drawing me back to God. I want to ask you to forgive me and help me change my way of thinking about__________ I want to be a new creation that walks in the kingdom of light.
So what are the first two Keys of the Kingdom? They are the keys that open the door.
Repentance and Atonement
To watch
The Movie 
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. It is a good analogy of what we talked about today.
