Matthew 16:19
19 I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
If God can give us the key to heaven -- we can say that the door to Heaven has a lock.The keys referred here are the power and authority given to those who pray fervently.Elijah(old testament prophet) prayed and he opened the sky to shower rain.What are the power and authority which God has promised us? Well its secret - its upto us to pray and get to know about them directly from Him.Some of the following are God's gift through the Holy Spirit to multitudes:
- Gift of tongues
- Gift of driving out demons
- Performing miracles
- Healing the sick and countless others
Pastor Teju quoted three essential qualities which one should possess before one gets access to the authority or Gifts of God:
1.Spirit of Christ:
It refers to the attitude one should possess.Once John and James accompanied Jesus to a village where Samaritans lived.The people resisted Jesus by not allowing him into their town.Suddenly James and John grew angry and wanted to burn the village with the fire from heaven.But Jesus had all the authority one can imagine of.But he never wanted it.He asked John and James whether they wanted this in the right spirit ? Jesus was tortured, battered and insulted but he never cursed anyone for all their misdeeds against him.Instead he prayed to God even before his death to forgive all those who sinned against him.Such is his great Spirit.
2.Mind of Christ:
This speaks about the sufferings which he underwent.He found pleasure in doing God's(Fathers) will.Readiness to suffer for the sake of God is discussed here:
Mark 4:35-37
35 On the evening of that same day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side of the lake." ... 37 Suddenly a strong wind blew up, and the winds began to spill over into the boat, so that it was about to fill with water. 38 Jesus was in the back of the boat, sleeping with hsi head on a pillow. The disciples woke him up and said, "Teacher, don't you care that we are about to die?"
39 Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, "Be Quiet!" and he said to the waves, "Be still!" The wind died down, and there was a great calm. 40 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Why are you frightened? Have you still have no faith?"
41 But they were terribly afraid and said to one another, "Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
Then Mark 5 says that Jesus healed a man who was possessed with demons and returned to his place.
The crux of this scripture is that Jesus obeyed God's will to sail across river to heal a man off-shore.He could have stayed in his usual place preaching and building the faith of thousands of people.Instead he did what pleased his Father.God will have a different plan and his plans cannot be understood.This point is stressed in Matthew 7:21-23 (Click to see it)
and the last point is
3.Character of Christ:
These were few topics discussed by Pastor Teju in this week's worship.
It happens at The Pentecostal Mission at Tambaram.
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