The Narrow Path

SWIMMING UPSTREAM WITH GOD

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14). In my walk with God for 33 years God has graciously and mercifully kept me on the straight and narrow path of life. Choose life not death. I will share a three life experiences that have helped me stay on the path of life. Choose God. Recently I have been watching alot of bad news on the media such as rapes, murders, child murders and war in Ukraine. It is a steady stream of news that brings death into your life if you don't watch what is going in your your eargate and eyegate. What you are feeding on? We need to be feeding and grazing in God's word every day. God's word will wash us clean of the filth of thhis world. In my case, reading the daily news, at work, it felt like rubbish. It left me with an overwhelming desire to spit it out! It occured to me that this daily, bad news that I have been musing on is bad for your spiritual health and growth. It is not the good news of the gospel we read about in the bible. We have to stay healthy in mind, body and spirit. We need to remember that the devil is the Prince and power of the air as it says in Ephesians 2, these are the ways of the world influenced by Satan: "in which you once walked. You were following the ways of this world [influenced by this present age], in accordance with the prince of the power of the air (Satan), the spirit who is now at work in the disobedient [the unbelieving, who fight against the purposes of God]." (Ephesians 2:2, AMP). When we get saved we are no longer under the sway of the evil one. Now we are under the influence of the Holy One. The news media is a constant stream of negativity eroding at our faith (even as Christians) in a good God. We read about human beings gone bad and doing bad to others. There is so much darkness and violence and corruption in the world, much like it was when Jesus our Lord and Saviour came to earth. Jesus is our healer and restorer. Back in Jesus' day it was the Roman empire in power. Ceasar being the emperor of the day. His actual name was Tiberias Ceasar Augustus. He was the second Roman emperor. The emperors were much like dictators. It was worldly and corrupt. Jesus came to save us. But in the midst of this gross darkness and destruction that seems to open its huge mouth ready to swallow up the careless sinners, there is a way that is a narrow place leading to eternal life. Jesus came to lead us on the narrow way. It is a place of constraint and self denial. It is taking up your cross and following Jesus. It is the way of a spiritual new birth into the kingdom of God. The strait way. The Greek meaning of the word 'narrow' in Strong's concordance is, 'a closely defined path God ordained to travel on.' Likewise the Greek meaning of the word 'strait' comes from the Latin word 'strictus.' It means to bind or to draw tight. It describes a narrow passage of water or a tricky situation that will make you feel like you are in tight quarters or a tight spot. Sometimes we are in tricky situations and have to go against the grain of what the rest of the world is doing. We have to go through that tight place with Jesus to enter into eternal life. This is what it means to be born-again into the kingdom of God. You must be born again. Here Jesus is teaching us that entering the strait way or narrow way means we have to be strict in our decision and intent to follow Christ and circumspect in our conversation. It is tight. In other words be careful in the way we walk and that we walk close to Jesus. Jesus is teaching us here that there is a way of sin and sinners and there are but two ways, the right way and the wrong way. There is good and evil. There is the way to heaven and the way to hell. Each one of us is walking in one of these ways and because there is no middle way in the hereafter, therefore there is no middle way now. The distinction between saints and sinners, the godly and ungodly will all be swallowed up in eternity. Which way will you go? Firstly, that which allures multitudes through the wide gate and keeps them in it is known as the broad way. It is the lure of the world. There are many travellers on this way. On this broad way there is an abundance of liberty and the gate is wide open, ready to swallow you up. It stands tempting those that are on the right way. You can go in the wide gate with all your lusts as it gives no check to your appetites and passions. It is the easy way. There are no boundaries, therefore nothing to hedge you in. Do as you like kind of life where you walk on the broad way and there are many paths in it. How true is that today where we see unbridled lusts and passions and evil on the increase. Sin abounds unchecked. It is the way of the damned. It is the broad way. But where sin abounds God's grace also abounds to us. Jesus invites us on the narrow way. Secondly, there are many that travel on the broad way and you will have an abundance of companions that go through the wide gate on to this path. If you choose to follow the crowd it will be to do evil. It will be the wrong way. It is natural for us to incline to go down stream with the crowd and do what most do but it is too great a compliment to be willing to be damned with the company we keep and go to hell with them because they will not go to heaven with us. .They are not worth going to hell for. Sometimes you have to leave bad company. If many are perishing then we have to be even more cautious. We must swim upstream in godliness with Jesus. The narrow way. God's way. What should affright us off this path is the knowledge that it leads to destruction. Death and eternal death is at the end of it. This should be enough to frighten us off it. The way of sin leads to everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. Whether it be the way of open profaness or the back way of close hypocrisy it is the way of sin. It will be our ruin if we do not repent of it. Follow Jesus on the narrow way. The way to heaven. Let us look at the strait gate. Conversion and regeneration (spiritual birth) is the gate by which we enter. In this way we enter a life of faith and serious godliness, where we are out of a state of sin and into a state of grace. We pass there by the new birth. When a baby is born in the natural it too has to pass through a narrow place to be birthed. It is the same principle in the spirit realm. We are birthed through a narrow place into the kingdom of God. As the gospel of John states: "Jesus answered him, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, unless a person is born again [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, sanctified], he cannot [ever] see and experience the kingdom of God.”(John 3:3,AMP). This is a strait gate, a narrow way, hard to get through and hard to find. There must be a new heart and a new spirit and the old things must pass away. The natural bent of our souls must be changed, corrupt habits and customs must broken off and what we have been doing all these days must be undone again. Therefore we must swim upstream against the downward stream and much opposition must be struggled with and broken through from without and within. As Matthew Henry's commentary states, "It is easier to set a man against all the world then against himself and yet this must be in conversion." It is a strait gate therefore we must stoop or bend to go in. We must become like little children to enter. We must be humble before God. High thoughts must be brought low. We must put off the old man (sinful nature) and be willing to forsake all for our interest in Christ. What is pulling you today? Swim against the tide of this world. Just don't get bit by a shark. In case you do Jesus has the power to heal and deliver you. I read someone got bit by a shark in the news today. Important to remember on the narrow way we are not in heaven yet neither are we in Canaan (the promised land) after passing through the Red Sea like the Isrealites did. No, we must go through the wilderness. We must travel the narrow way, hedged in by God's divine law which is exceedingly broad and which makes the way to get in narrow. Therefore the self (the flesh) must be denied, the body kept under submission to God. Corruptions must be mortified. that is put to death. Hardness must be endured. We must resist temptation. We must wrestle with it and be in an agony and be watchful and walk with care. Walk with circumspection on the narrow way of the Lord, feet firmly on the straight and narrow path. The way to true freedom and life is on the God ordained path that pleases God, through the narrow gate. Sharon