The Straight and Narrow

 Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

I’ve probably said it before, but this passage from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” was revolutionary for me in terms of understanding that “not everyone is going to heaven” (which was that general attitude that I experienced inside and outside the church walls). It seemed like there was a “who cares” attitude towards heaven and hell, because people were more concerned with human relationships than with getting “right with God” and improving their relationship with their heavenly Father; more with “living the life” for themselves today (improving their personal experience) than “living for Christ’ (not improving their experience with their Lord and Savior). It appeared that the greatest commandment of: Love God, then secondly, love your neighbor as you love yourself had been reversed to love yourself, then others, and then God; (if He even crossed their mind or they had time left).

1 John 2:15 “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

The priorities were “out of whack” and the Lord Jesus was shining a great light from heaven on this reality: that we all need to turn from our self-centered egotistical fallen wicked ways of vainly ignoring our Creator, Father, Maker, Lord and walk in the Spirit on the straight and narrow road, putting and keeping God first. To repent means to stop walking our own narcissistic way away from God on the broad way that leads to Perdition in hell and make a u-turn to walk towards God’s perfect Word, Will and Way … following Jesus on the narrow way to heaven. We cannot have it both ways on the narrow and difficult way to heaven and the wide and easy highway to hell. Jesus said it.

Proverbs 14:12 “ There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”

I read that we live in a time when the majority report is virtually always ungodly, unChristian, immoral and defeatist. The majority report from the wide gate and broad way  of the sinful flesh desires, the God-rejecting world system and Satan that leads to death is ever before us, which is: ‘Forget about what God has said” … sadly meaning, “forget Him altogether.” This is the popular and trendy way of busyness and distraction. Talking with my mother-in-law yesterday, she told me hat people do not even use the word “sin’ anymore. Sin is death on the broad way to destruction. But God’s way is the straight and narrow road that leads to life. The Bible says that Sin brings pleasure for a season, but this wide gate and broad way is merely the fruitless “chasing of the wind” that leads to unfulfilled discontent and unhappiness in a life trying to fill a Christ-shaped hole with the ways of this world that Jesus says leads to destruction. It’s idolatry at the core and  that is spiritual adultery towards our Creator God.

James 4:4 “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Every one of us has to seriously and deliberately decide: Are we going to go with the popular view, the majority “wide gate” view, or are we going to follow the minority “narrow gate” report, which is a report of faith in God alone? Are we able to face the real difficult things of life, to stand for Jesus Christ when it is unpopular to do so? The article concludes; God has a special blessing for those who stand firm for Christ and the truth, even in the face o great unpopularity. Love God and stand with the Lord and walk the straight and narrow with the Spirit.

In Christ, Brian