Securing the Gate

"A Peaceful Morning"

I took this photo of Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York

on October 20, 2013 

...the people who know their God shall be strong,
and carry out great exploits.

- Daniel 11:32

This is the first day of the year, and from my bedroom window the first sunrise of 2014 is already high in the sky.

This first day of the new year is very significant. Here's a brief background.

In the passage of Scripture found in Matthew 16:16, Jesus asks His apostles, "Who do you say that I am?" 

Simon Peter quickly replies, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Jesus is pleased with this response because it shows that this fisherman is finally receiving direct revelation from God. "Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven."

Jesus then speaks these powerful words:

And I also say to you that you are Peter, 

and on this rock I will build My church,

and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven,

and whatever you bind on earth,

I will bind in heaven,

and whatever you loose on earth

will be loosed in heaven.

- Matthew 16:18, 19

What Peter had just declared was a result of his deep abiding faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That powerful declaration is the bedrock of our Christian faith, on which the church, the Body of Christ here on earth, is built.

From a ragtag group of twelve men, which later expands to seventy, and then to one hundred twenty Christ-followers at the time that Jesus is crucified, resurrected, and taken up to heaven, the church today is built of men and women around the world who are the true believers awaiting their Lord's glorious return.

Keys of the kingdom... this is the portion of Scripture I am chewing on and getting nourishment from, even as I share a bit of what is on my heart this morning.

The keys of the kingdom refer to authority.

Jesus gives Peter and His followers tremendous kingdom authority, that whatever they bind or loose on earth is also bound and loosed in heaven.

Kingdom authority, rightly understood, and rightly used, is indeed a powerful key.

However there is a basic requirement: the bedrock of faith on which it all rests, the kind of faith displayed by Peter. You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

This is solid rock, fundamental faith.

I am reminded of the parable Jesus gives about two kinds of builders: a foolish one who built his house on sand; when the storms came, that house was easily destroyed. The other was a wise man who built his house on rock and withstood the winds and the floods that came.

The foundation on which we stand is the starting point of it all.

To men and women who stand on a sure foundation, Jesus entrusted the authority to continue what He came to earth to do, and that is to destroy the works of the evil one.   

As believers we do battle with the enemy on many levels, and as such, we need to make sure that the gates to our life are secure.

There is much to be said about gates. For example, each of our physical senses corresponds to a spiritual sense, and these senses are actually entry points into our soul. There are other kinds of gates, as in financial gates through which financial provision comes in or exits. Our mouths, the words we speak, are also gates into many areas of our lives.

Gates are access points... for good or for evil.

How secure these gates are will depend on what we have given permission to enter.

Oftentimes, the thief will break in and enter illegally - to steal, kill, and destroy, but the enemy also comes and occupies a territory if it has been given legal ground to come in.

Therefore it is crucial that we know how to possess, or how to man, these gates.  The Bible clearly tells us that a people perish for lack of knowledge. 

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

- Hosea 4:6

Many Christians are not aware of the principles of kingdom authority when it is within their reach to defeat the enemy's schemes and tactics. As a result, many in the Body of Christ are losing the battle by default.

The battle has to be fought at the gate. We have to be relentless: possessing the gate of our enemies is one sure way of winning the battle we are in.  

This is no ordinary battle, it is the battle for our souls. 

Will we rise up as strong warriors in the kingdom of God, or as weak hirelings who do not really care if we win or lose?

I don't know where you are in your Christian walk, but as for me, I do take seriously what God says with these words:

He who endures to the end will be saved.

- Matthew 24:13

Yes there is great need for endurance in this life. Because only the one who overcomes, and endures to the end, will be saved.

The enemy may be wily and crafty, but He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.


An important principle in operating effectively in kingdom authority is to know how to use the key to secure the gates into our lives. One such key is the understanding of time as a gate.

Each day, week, month, and year, has a gate.

The gate for the day is the first hour; the gate for the week is the first day.

In the Hebrew calendar, which is the calendar of the Bible, the starting point of the day is at sundown of the previous day.

A twenty-four hour day in the Biblical calendar is from sundown to sundown, not from midnight to midnight as we know it.

We read this account in the story of creation:

God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. - Genesis 1:5

The evening and the morning... from the first day to the sixth day of creation, the sequence is the same.

As this new year begins I am taking a strong stand in my Christian faith. If I start the year right, then the gate to my year is secure. The enemy will be denied access to my life because he will find the gate is secure and protected.

I am not being fatalistic about the days, weeks, months and years. Our Father in heaven is unlimited in the options available to Him. His hand is not cut short by the wrong decisions we make. Father God is Redeemer, He is mighty to save.

I am talking about positioning myself for the breakthroughs and victories that God wants to bring into my life. We need to be aware of the spiritual strategies and divine resources that God has made available to us, and use them to work out our salvation and make it become a living reality as we go through life, not a mere theoretical or intellectual concept.

Since our words are also gates into our lives, it is helpful to understand the power of the words we speak.

Our words have creative powers... and with our words, we can create the reality in which we walk.

Words are powerful weapons against the enemy, and can be used to keep the gates of time operating in accordance with God's purposes.

So, as 2014 begins today, I am making sure that the gate for this year is secure. 

A faith declaration on the first day of this year is powerful because it is binding and takes effect not only here on earth, but even in heaven, where it really matters.

My heavenly Father takes my words seriously. He sees the faith on which I stand, and He honors that faith. He sees my position, He sees that I mean business. I use the key of my kingdom authority with the understanding that the faith words I speak are powerless unless they are accompanied by a corresponding faith walk.

Last night was New Year's eve, December 31, the last day of the year. At sundown yesterday, January 1, 2014 already began. It is true that January 1, 2014 began at 12 midnight, but when it did, the first day of the year was actually already 6 hours old.

In my journal yesterday evening, the starting point of this first day of the year, I wrote these words addressed to Abba Father:

Father, I am here in the world in a physical sense, but I am, in my spirit, coming into Your presence, entering the throne room where You are looking over the affairs of the whole world.

Your heart is not giving up just because this world has made a mess of itself -- rather, Your heart is filled with hope. You know that there is a remnant that will remain loyal to You and will fight to the finish, to carry Your kingdom purposes to completion.

I declare that I am one of Your faithful servants, Father... and I will be loyal to You till the end!!


With those words, I secured the gate of 2014, on the very first day of the year. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the 24 elders, and the cloud of witnesses in heaven, together with the host of angels heard those words. Those words are binding not only on earth but also in heaven.

I'm aware that there are things I am saying here that will probably not make sense to skeptics or so-called Christ followers who understand Biblical truths only in their intellects.

But I know that there are true believes who understand truths with their hearts and spirits, the kind to whom Jesus says,

"Blessed are you...for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, 

but My Father who is in heaven."

Spiritual truths are spiritually discerned.

Spiritual truths cannot be fully grasped by mere human understanding.

I do not even remember exactly when or how I have come to gradually understand truths like these and began taking them seriously and applying them in my life.

But one thing I know, when Jesus became Lord of my life in December 1973, when I was just in my early 20s as a young university student, it was serious business for me, because I knew that my eternal destiny was at stake.

And today forty years later, here I am, still holding on to that faith that began as a spark of light... by God's grace, and with His power, the light continues to burn bright in the darkness.

Abba Father says, "If You seek Me, you will find me, if your search with all your heart."

Abba Father also says, "Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

This business of seeking the kingdom is an ongoing process of working out my initial faith, building on the bedrock foundation of Jesus Christ and His finished work on Calvary.

I have been saved by grace, through faith... not by my own works, but created in Christ Jesus for good works, prepared beforehand by Abba Father that I should walk in them.

Walking in these good works involves intellectual integrity, a commitment to growing in knowledge.

It is a journey of understanding spiritual concepts and doctrines, just like a child who starts learning theories at pre-school and goes on getting more understanding until he reaches graduate level.

But what good would the concepts be if we never learned to apply them where they are functioning and operating in our lives?

Within our reach lie untapped spiritual potential or unrealized kingdom benefits due to ignorance, laziness, arrogance, indifference, religious bigotry, or spiritual pride. The enemy loves to keep us trapped in our own areas of blindness that we may never mature and reach our full potential as heirs of the kingdom.

One life-changing promise of God my Father King came alive for me about twenty years ago when I "heard" these words spoken in my spirit: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32)

What tender words they were! And so gently, carefully placed on my heart... I soaked in the warmth of those words as they were poured like a healing balm on the aching and wounded parts of my soul, parched and dried up patches of land, many untended areas that had not been reached by the sunlight for many years.

We can be Christians for many years and still be lost in our own ignorance, unaware of our true spiritual potential.

Kingdom potential, I prefer to call it.

Again I ask, what good would it do me if all I knew of Christianity was to go to church every Sunday, attend a few meetings here and there, and read our Bibles, pray a little, and then live the rest of our time pursuing our own personal interests, building our own little I-me-mine kingdoms?

Doing things "for" the Lord only when it is convenient, or practical, or doesn't encroach on my boundaries, and doesn't eat up too much of my bank account...

Forgive me for stepping on other people's toes, but no offense is intended here.

I am simply telling my own story of how I got to where I am in my spiritual journey.

Early in my Christian life I had said to God I do not want to be a status quo "believer" of Christ. I want all that Abba Father wants for me, so that my ongoing prayer had always been:

My Father, I want EVERYTHING of what You want for me ... and NOTHING of  what You do not want for me.

This is a prayer that God has honored in my life. It is a prayer that I have prayed with my whole heart, and a prayer that has protected me from deceptive teaching, serious doctrinal error and spiritual counterfeits crowding the religious marketplaces of today.

Because searching for Truth also meant the willingness to unlearn and let go of lifeless doctrines that serve no real purpose but to take up space and clutter up my mind. Again, these words of Paul have meant so much to me:

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. - 2 Corinthians 3:4-6

Jesus Himself says that whoever believes in Him, the works that He does I will do also... and greater than what He has done will I do, because He goes back to His Father! (John 14:12)

That is what I want... to live in the realm of the greater works that Jesus promised.

It is understood that one never gets to that point unless he (or she) is willing to move out of the familiar and the comfortable, even doctrinally.

I do believe that sound doctrine is needed and essential, but faith without applied works is dead and useless. Right belief equals right doing.

Let the thief no longer steal... let the liar begin to speak the truth... put away unwholesome talk... these are elementary applied truths.

Abba Father is looking for the mature, fully ripened grain in the head. For those who are moving on to the meatier, more substantial matters in our faith, those for whom walking in the miraculous is commonplace... the greater things that Jesus speaks of.

The Spirit is restoring the Body of Christ to its true foundations of the apostolic and the prophetic, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20).

And for this my heart is hopeful that Father God is about to pour out more of His revelation to hearts that are constantly being emptied of self to make room for the fresh truths from heaven.

So on this first day of the year 2014... which is the gate, the door, the entry point, to this year, I declare:

I know Whom I have believed,

And am persuaded that He is able

To keep that which I've committed

Unto Him against that day.

The gate is open to Abba Father's plans and purposes, but sealed shut against the enemy's devious schemes.

In just a few days I will be returning to my homeland.

It has been a wonderful four months in this part of the world. God has gifted me with an extended time of being refreshed, and renewed, and receiving fresh instructions from Him for the the next part of the journey.

There is a long road ahead of me, and I know not what lies ahead.

That I have experienced autumn and winter here where I find myself speaks powerfully to me.

Fall spoke to me of a pruning process.

But there is an even more powerful message of vulnerability and humility that the trees give as they stand bare and helpless against the cold and harsh climate of this winter season.

It speaks to me of waiting... and enduring.

Waiting to receive orders.

Enduring in the midst of adverse circumstances.

When I return to my country, I will go back through the twelve time zones that I passed on my way here.

But I return to a different season.

And when I return, I am not the same person that left four months ago.

When soldiers go through a time of rest, it is only in preparation for a higher calling. I have received a fresh commissioning from Him to be a part of His end-time army.

It is a privilege, and an honor.

Father, here I am waiting on You for the next step. You honor the faith that believes, without having seen the actual outcome. This is what faith is all about. To trust in You, that You will give direction, and provision for the next step of the journey. 

I entrust the gate of this year to You - the gate to my life, and that of my whole family. In You alone do we depend - therefore we are strong, and we stand secure. Your favor goes with us, You will never leave us nor forsake us. 

As the gatekeeper of my family, I stand before You empty handed, holding on to nothing but my faith and the firm resolve to remain loyal and faithful to You till the end. I receive instructions from You... as well as what is needed to carry out the assignment. I entrust my family to You. You will lead us every step of the way.

I entrust the ministries I am involved in, my local church, and my nation to You as well. I pray for the nation of Israel. Keep these all safe in Your heart. 

On this first day of the year 2014, I declare You are the Door... You are the door that leads me to my vineyards and my pasture. I leave the tent of confinement, and I go out into the wide open spaces of my kingdom destiny.