A few years ago, I had a dream. In the dream, I realized I couldn’t find my car. I began to worry that I had possibly left my keys in the car and someone had driven off with it. As we began to search for my vehicle, I felt something inside my mouth. It became bigger and kind of awkward, so I pulled it out and it was my keys!

I knew the Lord was speaking to me about the power of words and what I release out of my mouth. In Matthew 16:19 Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” As I’ve stepped more into intercession in this season, this dream has come back to me. Keys don’t do you much good if you never use them. We’ve been given incredible authority to bind and loose (lock and unlock) with the keys of our mouth.

Right before this in verses 16-18, Peter received revelation that was not his own and spoke a statement of incredible faith about the son of God. Jesus’ response was basically, “Peter, there’s no way you could know that. It was revealed by the Father.” As new covenant believers, we have been given the Holy Spirit who takes all that belongs to the Father and makes it known to us (John 16:12-15). So we can consistently live in a place of access to the spirit of revelation that Peter happened upon in that moment. As we allow ourselves to partner with the Spirit, we can bind and loose based out of the knowledge we have of the nature of God and what is already written in his word regarding his heart and will. But the Spirit also releases prophetic revelation that we could not know on our own and shows us what is yet to come (John 16:13). In fact, we should expect to live in a place where we consistently know that which we cannot know because we are in relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes as we begin to worship and acknowledge his nature and what we already have revelation on, the Spirit begins to reveal what we don’t yet know as well. In either instance, we are using the keys! As in my dream, often we are unaware of the keys in our mouth so we aren’t utilizing what we’ve already been given. There are words He’s clearly spoken that have not yet happened in our lives and there are desires of God’s heart for this earth that He has clearly expressed in His word. At times, I think we are waiting for God to show up, open a door and do what He said, but He is waiting for us to open our mouth and use our keys to release His will in the earth.

By Crystal Stiles