This week Michael writes that Jesus said in Matthew 16:25-26 “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” He said in 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.” He said, there is a broad way that leads to destruction. But I am the narrow gate and the narrow way that leads to life everlasting.
Then in John 10:7-11 Jesus explained that He is the narrow way and the narrow gate, saying, “Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came
before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” This is affirmed in John 14:6 when Jesus proclaimed, “I am I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the father except by me.” The life that Jesus offers is eternal and 1 John 5:13 confirmed saying, “these things have I written to you so that you may know that you have life everlasting.”
The politically correct will say that Christianity is too exclusive. They say that it’s narrow minded to have a narrow gate and a narrow way that few find; it’s elitist. Likewise, the people of Jesus’ day asked him, “weren’t we good enough? Didn’t we do works in your name?” Jesus said to them, “depart from me you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.” Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, so you have to be “all in” to enter in. To approach God’s throne of grace we must enter through the narrow gate and leave our selfish self at the door. According to Galatians 2:20, “I was crucified in. with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher Oswald Chambers said that “the kingdom of self is heavily defended territory.” However, Total abandonment means to relinquish control of my own life to the Lord, giving up the option to reclaim it. In a wedding ceremony, the vow we make to God and to one another is to give up the right to ourselves in dedication to our spouse. Likewise, as sons and daughters of God, to bring ourselves through the narrow way Jesus Christ, we need to leave our selfish selves at the gate. To enter in we must enter on His terms, not ours. Jesus is the only way. On our own we do not deserve God’s grace and mercy for salvation. For there is none good (in the flesh), no not one. However Jesus Christ lived the perfect life. “He who was without sin became the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him”.
To approach God’s throne of grace, we must “put on the Lord Jesus Christ”.... clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless by His blood to stand before His throne. To forsake the devil and the ways of this God-rejecting world, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Resisting the devil is to turn our hearts unto the Lord and walk in the Spirit ... to set our affections on things above and not on the things of this fallen world. When we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The cleansing is in the walking in the light with saving faith, total abandonment and absolute Trust that we may live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
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