Futuristic Cars and Old Clunkers: Perks and Privileges of the Kingdom

Matthew 16:18-19
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Revelation 3:7-8
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
“‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut…

A long time ago I told my Dad I didn’t want to grow up because all the cars of the future looked so ugly. I was quite fine with his 1960s Catalina and our ’69 LTD, thank you very much.

So now I’ve grown up and – for the most part – every vehicle I’ve owned is not only of the used variety but usually not even in the same decade. To illustrate, the other day it was a bit rainy so I pulled on the light switch to engage my headlights. When I parked at a Barnes & Noble an hour later, I forgot to disengage them, so I went inside the two-story bookstore and meandered and browsed for awhile. Some time later a guy, who obviously had been searching for me for a time, found me and reported to me my lights were on.

“I saw you park and get out,” he said, breathing heavily, “but I assumed your lights would shut off automatically.” He said it like: ‘it’s 2012, why wouldn’t your headlights turn off like everyone else’s in the universe?’

Sorry, it’s just a cross I choose to bear.

So then yesterday I took my eldest sister to lunch for her birthday and she beat me to the restaurant. When I drove up she was standing beside her new-model Prius, so I asked for a peek. The inside looked like the cockpit of the space shuttle! It had everything, even temperature control, radio and Bluetooth – built right into in the steering wheel!

My jalopy looked sad and embarrassed even sharing the same lot with her Toyota. But, oh well. C’est la vie.

After lunch I wanted to walk her to her car and she gratefully accepted her little brother’s old-world chivalry. When she reached out and pulled her door handle, the door made a sweet unfastening sound and glided open, the aroma of new car fumes spilling out.

“What, you left your door unlocked?”

She looked at me, puzzled.

“I never saw you pull out a key…” I injected, but then it hit me: “Oh! Is it your handprint or something on the handle? It recognizes your print?”

I was grasping.

“No, no,” she explained, “I have the key with me but I don’t have to use it. There’s a sensor or something inside the key, so whenever I am close to the car, the door unlocks itself for me.”

I about fainted with disbelief. I recalled what I told my Dad all those years ago and summarily changed my mind. I wanted one of these newfangled futuristic cars!

So all this got me thinking: remember when Jesus blessed Peter for divulging his supernaturally downloaded Truth to the question of “Who am I?” and told the brash fisherman that submitting to His Kingship would give him (and by extension all followers of Messiah) unequivocal authority before all kinds of doors in the kingdom?

That we would carry KEYS inside us?

How cool to think, like my Sis’s perk with her car door, that when we come upon any closed door in the spirit realm the Lord means to be opened, that our submitted walk to His timing and will – just by our walking up to it – would release locks, disengage doors and open passages into other rooms and deeper realms!

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Back to my old clunker (forgive me Jesus, You blessed me with it and it is special!): it does give me an incredible perk in its own right. It happens to sport a very coveted plate on its rear end that unlocks great possibilities that afford me the luxury of parking in extremely convenient slots right beside the mall and restaurants that are marked with painted blue signs with stick figure wheelchair persons on them.

Jealous?