Dec 15 - Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus said,

Enter through the narrow gate;

for the gate is wide and

the road is easy that

leads to destruction, and

there are many who take it.

For the gate is narrow

and the road is hard

that leads to life, and

there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

What is the "road ... that leads to life"? What is "the way," "the mechanism," that creates for us the conditions to be saved?

You know the story. God is holy. We are sinful. We don't deserve to even approach his presence. On our own, as it says in Ephesians 2:1, we are "dead, doomed forever because of our many sins." On our own that is our fate – death.

Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on ourselves or earn our way to God (and impossibility) on our own. Rather, we have a Savior!

Christ paid our penalty.

And to all who believe (really, for all who accept Christ's gift) he takes our sin upon himself and puts his righteousness onto us. He is, thus, "the way" (the only way) to being made right with God. He is the "mechanism" by which we are saved.

He is ... as it says in today's verse ... the only correct gate to go through to receive eternal life.

Yes, there are plenty of other gates, Jesus clearly implies. And they are wide, and they have big bright neon signs over them proclaiming the lie that you can go through them in an easy and convenient way.

But don’t mock God! Jesus says there is truly only one way to the Savior and into his salvation.

And it is a narrow way.

One way. Therefore, Jesus says, "enter through the narrow gate that leads to life."

In Christ's Love,

a guy who recently spent

several days with his dad

making a gate

(in life Jesus makes the gate

and if we let him, he installs it

-- installs his righteousness

on us – by himself)