July 21: The narrow gate

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.    (Matthew 7:13-14 — New American Standard Bible)

This is a tough passage. We’d like to think that everyone will be saved, that God in His love will forgive anyone for anything. And it’s true that anyone can be forgiven for anything, but we have to ask for it; we have to be willing to put our past behind, change direction, and surrender to God’s way of doing things. “Everyone’s going to heaven” is a lie of the devil designed to make people complacent, trusting that everything will somehow work out in the end. The truth is that heaven is for those who fight to get there.

In his book, Mere Christianity, CS Lewis says: “We must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world — and might even be more difficult to save.”  Being nice, good, giving to charity, and refraining from lies and adultery are not enough. God asks us to enter through the narrow gate, to refuse to go with the flow of the society around us, to push ourselves to do what He wants.

The shocking message of this verse is that many will be lost and only a few saved — the opposite of what most people assume. God in His wisdom knows that most people, in and outside of the church, will be lost. Most people don’t want to make the sacrifice of entering through the narrow gate — it requires too much effort, they have to give up too much, their friends aren’t going that way, their family doesn’t understand. Sadly, most people will choose to reject heaven.

The problem is a chronic shortcoming of the human race: pride. People don’t want to be told what to do, not even by God. They want to be their own bosses. People don't want to admit they’re wrong or that they need God. They like to think they can handle things by themselves, and that they can do as they please. Loving and serving God, and acknowledging their need of a Savior sounds like slavery to them. Most people will not humble themselves to the point of being saved. Salvation is there — it’s available as a free gift — but only for those who approach the Lord Jesus in humility.