The Narrow Path

What did Jesus mean when he talked about the narrow gate that few will find?
Matthew chapter 7
13“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

  A couple of days ago I was sitting in the break room with another employee watching the chaos in the middle east unfold on the news. The girl seemed to have some Christian background as she mentioned what a mess the world was and how soon it could all come to an end. Then she proceeded to say how scared she was and how she really must get her life together. I realized she was  thinking she had to work to get her life right to make it to heaven. Though I don't feel I explained it as well as I could I informed the girl as long as she knew Jesus Christ she didn't have to be afraid.

When Jesus promised the criminal on the cross next to Him that he would be in paradise that day, He did not say "But first you're going to have to get your life together". The only thing thief uttered was,"Lord remember me when you enter your kingdom". This man didn't have time to live the perfect life and right all his wrongs of the past. In that one phrase he showed Jesus of his belief in Him as the Son of God and the realization that he was a sinner who needed forgiveness. He depended on Christ and not his own self.

  John 3:16 says
 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

 John 14:6

6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

 When Jesus died on the cross for us he took every sin we ever committed upon himself  and died so that we would not have to. He is the Savior of anyone who repents of all sin and believes in Him and what He did. What sense would it make for God to allow to Jesus to suffer and shed His blood for us if we could make it to heaven through our own doing? God the Father would not have been the loving Father He is if He had let Jesus  suffer for something we could do on our own. The Bible tells us in Romans that all people are sinners and we all have come short of the glory of God.



  Romans 3:10-18

10As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

11there is no one who understands,

no one who seeks God.

12All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

not even one.”

13“Their throats are open graves;

their tongues practice deceit.”

“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

14“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

15“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16ruin and misery mark their ways,

17and the way of peace they do not know.”

18“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Only Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect and sinless life,  could save us from our sins by the shedding of His blood.He repaid in full the sin debt that none of  us could even hope to repay. Through belief in Him and what He did our sins our covered by His blood. When God sees us He doesn't see our sin, but the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ who intercedes for us.

  Hebrews 7:23-28

23Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

26Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

 We could never live perfectly enough to work our way to heaven.  That narrow gate is knowing Christ and fully depending on Him and His righteousness instead of depending on ourselves. We could never say that we know Christ, yet frantically think it's our works and and how good we are that gets us there. To say that our good works get us to heaven is to fall off the narrow path onto the wide path of destruction.

  Isaiah 64:6

6All of us have become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 

 Romans 3:23

23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 

  Don't think however , that it doesn't matter how we live our lives. To be saved by Christ is to be set free from the bondage of sin. Our good works don't save our souls but our good works show who we are following. We don't sin because we are saved and follow Christ, not so we can save ourselves.

 Romans 6:1-4

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 Romans 6:14

14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. 

 Romans 6:20-23

20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Simply put, the narrow path is repenting of all sin and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and following His Word. We have to fully trust and depend on Him and his righteousness. We could never get our lives together on our own and hope to be perfect enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. If we have to hope we're good enough to get to heaven, we have the assurance that we will never make it there.