The Importance of the Seven Keys to the Kingdom | Rev. John Riley

Over this last several weeks — I think I started at the end of June — we had a couple of services in between there that weren’t on the topic – but I was talking about the keys to the kingdom, the seven keys to the kingdom. And it’s based on the course that I’m running, The Keys to the Kingdom by David Owen Ritz, and there are seven keys. 

And we all began with the idea, of course, that the master teacher, Jesus, taught us. He said don’t worry. Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat. Don’t worry about the clothes you’re going to wear. Don’t worry about all of these things, all of these trappings that we’re trying to attach to ourselves. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first that kingdom. 

So, the seven — we’re in week seven here — the seventh key. And what I thought I would do is just do a very quick easy, gentle run through of the other six keys because they are so important. 

So, how do we get into that idea of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God that is here and present now. How do we live from that everyday and make that a part of our life, bring our consciousness into that awareness of the allness of life, love and wisdom and allow that to be our guide? Because when we come from that space, everything else is added unto it.

Commitment

So, the first key was commitment. So here are — if you don’t remember you can go back and listen to all of my talks and then write a report and send it to me. I’m down with that. But the first key was commitment. And here are some questions for you to ask yourself about your own path on becoming immersed in this flow, of being in the flow of life, love and wisdom. Am I truly committed to realizing the presence of God in my life? Am I truly committed to realizing the presence of God in my life? Am I willing to prove my trust in God as the ultimate source by stepping out with faith and trust? Am I willing to devote the necessary time to my own spiritual growth? Am I willing? Am I willing to just step into this idea of this divine consciousness and allow it to be my guide? 

Vision

The second key was vision. Can I see myself enjoying God’s lavish abundance in every area of my life? Can I envision what that would look like? What would my highest good look like, in my relationships, in my career, in my finances? Can I envision that actually happening? Can I hold that vision on an ongoing basis? Do I feel deserving and grateful for the wonderful potential I find within myself? Am I listening for inner guidance and allowing it to lead me toward the realization of my vision? Am I willing to put myself into that and look at that every day to make that a part of my life every day? 

Awareness

The third key was awareness. Do I know in my heart that Spirit is the one and only source of my good acting through many channels? Have I fully accepted that abundance is inexhaustible and a here and now reality? And have I fully identified with my vision as the real truth of who I was meant to be? because that vision is that yearning, that spiritual yearning that shows us that we have within us that says, “This is my next potential. This is my next highest good.” But you’ll never be able to get there if you don’t have that vision because there’s nowhere to go. So, do I have that awareness? 

Circulation

The fourth key is circulation. Do I have a joyful and loving attitude when I’m called upon to give? Do I bless the money that flows through my life and share my good unselfishly? Have I made room in my life for the good that I desire by releasing that which no longer serves me? Am I willing to step into the flow of life, that circulation, to know that everything that comes through me is simply energy that’s moving by? Nothing is permanent. Everything flows through, and can I accept it with grace and ease and give it with grace and ease in every area of my life, even paying the water bill? 

Forgiveness

The fourth key, the fifth key, forgiveness. Now there’s no, there’s no confusion as to why forgiveness is the fifth key because if you’re going through this process, by now things are bubbling up within you. Unforgiveness starts bubbling up and most of the time it’s unforgiveness about ourself. In fact, Wayne Dyer said all forgiveness is self-forgiveness. 

So, by now, at this stage, you know, the shame, the blame, the “oh, I should have dones” or the “oh, they should have been”, all of those things start bubbling up. And so, forgiveness is the fifth key. Have I begun to forgive everyone and everything from my past? Everyone take a nice deep cleansing breath. I feel you holding your tension there. Now, notice it doesn’t say, “have I forgiven?” It said, “Have I begun to forgive? Have I just started? Have I said, am I willing to have this idea of forgiveness in my life? Am I just willing?” That’s all it takes. Am I willing to forgive myself? Am I practicing unconditional love and acceptance and take time to release and resolve my negativity? Am I practicing unconditional love and acceptance? Am I practicing unconditional love and acceptance? It didn’t say, “Am I fully, unconditionally loving the world?” but am I practicing it and am I taking the time to resolve the negativity that pops up because, guess what. We’re human. The negativity is going to pop up. Something’s going to pop up, and are you taking the time to heal, to forgive, to comfort? Are you getting a little trend there? 

Gratitude

The sixth key was gratitude. Do I take time to notice all of the good in my life rather than focussing on the negative? Okay, so you know this phrase. We all know this phrase, right. There are ten people who say you’re wonderful and there is one person who says you’re not and guess who we think about all the time. Go back to gratitude. Go back to forgiveness, self-forgiveness there. But do I take time to notice all the good in my life rather than focussing on the negativity? Do I praise the good I find with my thoughts, my words, and my actions? Am I willing to see the gift that lies behind every challenge and call forth that hidden good? Am I willing to do it? Am I willing to just be open to see something a little bit differently, to look at it through the lens of spirituality, through the lens of the kingdom, through the lens of love and compassion? 

The First Six Keys

So, the six first keys, commitment, vision, awareness, circulation, forgiveness and gratitude. And I have to tell you, if you just picked one of those and focused on that, your life will be different. And we have some people in the class. Would you say that there have been lives transformed during our class? There has been amazing healing that has happened, some amazing forgiveness work, some, a lot of “aha moments” by people just taking these principles and for one week, diving into them and practicing them, taking the time for their own spiritual growth, and the results have been astounding. 

Living in the Flow

And so, the seventh key is living in the flow. What exactly does that mean, living in the flow? Well, it’s really talking about all of those other six steps. If we practice those until we’re at a point where, you know, we’re in balance, and we’re allowing life to happen and we’re not frustrated with life, we’re just allowing, it’s like that river, just nice and peaceful. The world around us may be crazy. The terrain that we’re going through may be rugged, may be challenging but we have a purpose. We can live that purpose serenely with peace in our heart and flow through life gently and easily. 

Neil, Douglas, what was his name? Owen Ritz. David Owen Ritz — thank you. David Owen Ritz. Thank you, Rusty — in the book says, “Abundance is not just a spiritual quality, it is a way of life. Incorporating the principles of abundance into your daily living and abundance will be your way of life.” So, it’s just going to be the way of life. And we’ve started to uncover that and started to experience that in the class. It’s not something that we’re striving for; it just becomes how we live through that consciousness of abundance. 

He says, “The more you find yourself living in the natural law of abundance” – oh – “You will find yourself living in the natural flow of abundance. When you live in the flow you become part of the natural order of creation, part of God’s rich abundance.” 

So, it’s really when you can take those questions and turn them into I AM statements. All of those “am I” questions, working with them, taking the time until they start to become I AM statements or truths for you. And when you start to dip into that truth of who you are, that’s when you start to live in the flow and that’s where things start to click. That’s where this idea — you know, things will still happen, but guess what; you’re poised and presenced and able to move through them with ease and grace. 

Charles Fillmore, in his book Prosperity — Charles Fillmore is one of the co-founders of the Unity movement and he wrote the book Prosperity during the Great Depression. And he said, “God is the source of a mighty stream of substance”, a mighty stream of substance, “and you are a tributary of that stream, a channel of expression. Blessing the substance increases the flow.” “God is the source of a mighty stream of substance and you are a tributary of that stream, a channel of expression. Blessing the substance increases the flow.” So, just like that picture, you are that stream. You are the tributary. 

You know, when I first started thinking about the idea of flow it’s like, “Okay, I’m like on top of it and I’m flowing down the river” or “I’m in it and I’m swimming.” But what Fillmore is saying is that you are the tributary. You are what brings. Do you know what a tributary means? A river or stream flowing into a larger river or lake. It is the source for a larger body of water. This is the source for the larger creation of the world. You are the source of what you create in the world. You are the source of what we create in the world. 

You are the tributary, not just the water, not just the fish, not just all of the minerals and food that’s flowing down there, not the life-giving. You are the all of it, for you are the channel of that invisible substance. You get to create life. You get to create your life through your lens. You get to create a life that’s purposeful, that’s prosperous, that’s peaceful when you allow it to flow, when you practice any one of those other six aspects of life on an ongoing day. You’re not just floating in it. You are it. You are part of the great flow of abundance being expressed into the world. You are creating the ecosystem in which you live. You are building, bringing prosperity to those further down the river to the great ocean of life itself.

You Are Never Alone

And here’s the wonderful thing. As you think about this, as you flow, remember you are never alone. You are never alone. So I would like to read a quote. Listen to this wisdom. “A tall, tall wall looms in front of me. What’s the view on the other side? What does it look like? It’s a view I could never see on my own, the view from the top.” Now, anybody have any tall walls looming in front of them, anybody along your path in life? Do you ever see, you know, a rock that’s in the middle of your flow and you’re heading right to it? Yeah, we all have those. A tall, tall wall looms in front of me. What’s the view on the other side? What does it look like? Can you even see what’s on the other side? Sometimes we can’t. Sometimes it’s a mystery. It’s a view that I could never have seen on my own, that view from the top of that wall, the view from the top. By the way, this quote was spoken by Choyo Hinata. He is a middle blocker from Karasuno High School volleyball team in the Japanese anime Haikyuu, season three, episode one, in case you wanted to watch it. And what incredible wisdom, because you are never alone. You are always co-creating. 

If you think about it from the volleyball team, you can’t win a volleyball game on your own. Even in doubles, you’re always part of a team. You are always co-creating with each other. You are always creating our life experience with each other. You’re never alone. Everything that you do on that river flows down. It flows downstream. So, is it filled with love and compassion and kindness or is it filled with a toxic oil spill? “You are always interacting with those around you, and we are co-creating this world together. You are always choosing how you get to the top.” You are always choosing how you co-create by using those other six keys. It’s a choice. 

Once you know about it, it comes out of the realm of ignorance and comes into the realm of “well, that’s something interesting” until you start to practice it. And once you put it into practice, then you start to begin and feel the reality of it, then it starts to move you. And the more you practice it, like anything, the more it becomes who you are. “And there is no end to your potential.” 

There was a long quote at the end of the Haikyuu anime episode that I watched last night with my daughter from the sensei. Now the sensei is a young high school teacher who’s sponsoring the volleyball club. The sensei essentially said this, what the students saw at the top, the sensei saw as a step, just one step because it’s all evolving. The game of volleyball, as he puts it, was evolving. People learn to block because people are attacking and the blocks evolve because they need to stop the attacks. The attacks evolve because they need to get through the blocks. And then you have different — you have back blocking, you have combination blocking, and you have combinations on the offensive side because everything is always evolving. Now you know the secret to volleyball. And he said at the end, the same is true for understanding. The same is true for consciousness. The more we understand, the more we learn that there’s other things that we can grow into. 

A Greater Joy

When we get to those goals that we have for ourselves, we then realize, “Oh, there’s an even greater goal and a greater joy when I align myself with that greater presence and power, when I allow myself to be a part of that infinite expansion of that flow of the river.” Consciousness evolves through evolving understanding and awareness. 

Our consciousness evolves through practice, tenacity and a fighting spirit. And our consciousness evolves through unbounded faith, simply a willingness, simply a willingness without knowing how, without understanding “how am I going to get there when I’m coming from here?”, not understanding how I’m going to forgive, but just having a willingness to forgive. That’s when our consciousness evolves.