The Master Key

This next series of posts will conclude "The Keys to the Kingdom As Revealed In The Lord's Prayer." This series is entitled "The Master Key." I pray that the Lord truly bless and edify you!

Let us now proceed to “The Master Key” that opens the very heart of the Father and is (a) the Key to maintaining the integrity of the Body of Christ, and also (b) the Secret Key to opening the hearts of the unsaved and is, therefore, the Key to expanding the Kingdom of God. We will deal with this Key, accordingly, in these two dimensions.

As we return to the couplet in The Lord’s Prayer that we momentarily skipped over, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Matt. 6:12 NKJV),” we must first recognize why this is “The Master Key to the Kingdom.” We do so, because it is the very corner stone of the foundation of the Father’s Master Plan of Redemption. All of us know the most famous verse in the New Testament, “For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

I say that this is “The Master Key” to the Kingdom, because immediately following the “Amen” of the prayer (Matt. 6:13), Jesus declares, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will you Father forgive your trespasses.” In two other instructional situations with His disciples, Jesus makes very clear that the willful act of forgiving others their sins (debts, trespasses) against us, and He does so with powerful impact.

Before we turn to those passages, let us handle a common objection that many verbalize: “Well how do I know when I have to forgive someone? Who determines what is a ‘trespass’ against me?” You do! As it is with so many areas of life in the spirit, there is no “wiggle room” here. When someone sins against me, I know it in the very core of my being. I feel the offense, the slight, the slap or the betrayal in every area of my being – emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and relationally, and my first fleshly impulse is for revenge – to lash out and to strike back – to hurt as I have been hurt.

That is when I know that I have the choice to forgive, in obedience to my Lord’s command, and allow the spiritual man, the new man in Christ, to rise to the ascendency and to overcome the enemy, who is always the ultimate source of such pains of wounding, or to not forgive and give place to Satan to partner up with my flesh, and, in doing so to “stew in my own juices,” as it were!

(To be continued . . . . don’t miss our next installment!)