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Narrow is The Gate!

Narrow is The Gate!

“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 (how) narrow is the gate and difficult (confined) is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).


There are two pathways mentioned:

1)     Wide Gate and Broad Way Leading to Destruction

2)     Narrow Gate and Confined Way Leading to Life Eternal!


50 years ago, when I read this statement of Jesus, I felt that Christianity was narrow, and restricted, taking the pleasure out of living with a boring life! Now after knowing my Jesus for 50 years and having a personal and intimate relationship with Him, I have concluded that my life has become narrow, constricted, restricted, and a lonely path in a pathway where not many travel, and IT IS SOLELY BY MY CHOICE, not just because Jesus said so.


Jesus is The Only Way!

“Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:5-6).


I have heard people say, “All the roads lead to Rome. Likewise, there are so many roads to heaven!” It is not true! While there are many angels, demons (followers of Lucifer), and heavenly beings, there is ONE AND ONLY GOD, God the HIGHEST, God Almighty, GOD SUPREME, and The Lord of Hosts, God Jehovah—God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! Among all the angels and the ‘Sons of Elohim,’ there is ONE and ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD, JESUS, who came declaring, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me!’


There is no other way to salvation; there is no other way to come into the presence of the Father; there is no other way to become like our Father without being like Jesus: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29).


If you are searching for ONE TRUE GOD, and craving a relationship with HIM, there is no other way to Him except through adoption through Jesus Christ our Lord: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the [a]right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).


Single but Isolated in a Narrow Path!

Many youths (children of God) are single and isolated today. You are isolated and separated by God because of the values you have been brought up in. You are not living in a world where you are traveling broadly and where anything and everything is accepted. Because of Christ, your pathway has become narrow, and your choices are limited.


Remember, Joseph was a different young man with gifts and talents. Because of his God, he was separated even from his brothers who wanted to kill him but ultimately sold him as a slave. He did not want to fulfill his master’s wife’s demands and was sent to the dungeon. But God was with him and used him to deliver Egypt from famine: “(God) sent a man before them—Joseph—who was sold as a slave. They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons (his soul came into iron). Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him. The king sent and released him, the ruler of the people let him go free. He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his possessions, to bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his elders wisdom” (Psalm 105:17-22).


Rahab was a prostitute and yet different from her entire community to choose a narrow path to Judaism over paganism. Here are the words to the Jewish spies by her choice of following a narrow path of God: “Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.  For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon, and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.  And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord, since I have shown you kindness, that you also will show kindness to my father’s house, and give me a true token (a pledge of truth), and spare my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death” (Joshua 2:8-13)


Married and Separated to God’s Narrow Path!

How many young people wait on God for God’s choice of marriage? And yet, Isaac waited on God to bring him comfort through the woman by God’s choice while he was grieving the loss of his mother. God saw fit to fill the void of Isaac by bringing Rebekah who was willing to separate herself from her family for the will of God. Here are the words of a praying Eliezer and what followed in fulfilling the will of God in the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah:  “And this day I came to the well and said, ‘O Lord God of my master Abraham, if You will now prosper the way in which I go, behold, I stand by the well of water; and it shall come to pass that when the virgin comes out to draw water, and I say to her, ‘Please give me a little water from your pitcher to drink,’ and she says to me, ‘Drink, and I will draw for your camels also,’—let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’. Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and he took Rebekah, and she became his wife, and he loved her…So, Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death” (Genesis 24:42-44, 67). Look for God’s perfect will for your marriage.


Parenting in a Narrow Path with Godly Values!

Psalm 127 speaks of giving authority to God to build our home: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so He gives His beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed but shall speak with their enemies in the gate” (Psalm 127:3-5). When God builds our home, He gives us ideas, blesses our workmanship to function wisely and not as a slave, and gives us plenty of rest and sleep. God also blesses us with a family and children who will be mighty in the gates of our cities. This demands that we give control over to God and train up our children to walk in the same narrow path we are walking on: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and (even) when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).


I thank God for the families that bring their children in the admonition and the fear of the Lord, as we have done so with our children. I heard our daughter saying the other day, “Mom, I must watch my children every moment of the day from things that are coming out from the enemy in so many ways than one, through television, schools, friends, and associations. Our path is narrow, very narrow, and our choices limited!” I was reminded of the verse of Jesus with which we started this message!


Watch Your Health and Live Right with Narrow Choices!

Six years ago, I was given a bad report that my heart was weak, and I was dying. I checked in with a Christian doctor who examined my heart with catheterization. He was prepared to place stents and call in a surgeon to do open-heart surgery if needed. But he wheeled me out of the operating room in 45 minutes and met me in the recovery with these words: “You have four critical blockages in your arteries, two 100 % and two 90 % but I am going to leave you alone. Because your heart has automatically developed a ROBUST CLOUD of NATURAL bypasses that keep your heart healthy. You must still be careful about eating right and doing exercise to keep yourself fit. The GREAT ONE has protected you with natural bypasses but YOU MUST STILL DO YOUR JOB!”  


In one of the subsequent visits, I shared this passage from Proverbs with my doctor: “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:20-23). I emphasized the last verse (23) underlined and shared that it had come true in my case by my heart springing up issues of life by the natural bypasses!


Early this year, I had to check into the ER with breathing troubles. I had collected fluid in my lungs because of eating junk in various restaurants every day for 8 continuous days. I had to see my cardiologist after that visit who confirmed that too much salt collected fluid in my lungs and that I had to watch what I ate. I will not forget his words: “Listen to me, you have to walk in a straight line, in a straight and narrow path, not eating all kinds of junk and expect to be healthy!” My precious Hema is making healthy choices of food prepared with care and wisdom and today, I am walking that narrow path and keeping myself healthy!  


The Bible gives us the solution to walking on the narrow path to health and life!


Control your lips and live long: “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:11-14).


Keep God’s Word in Your Heart for the health of your body: “Keep (My Words) in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to all their flesh” (Proverbs 4:22).


Keep the Fear of the Lord for healthy bones: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones” (Proverbs 3:7-8).


Fear the Lord for the fountain of life: “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death” (Proverbs 14:27).


Fear of the Lord for lengthening of our days: “The fear of the Lord prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened” (Proverbs 10:27).


A Leader Must Follow God in God’s Straight and Narrow Path!

Samuel told King Saul that God had chosen a different leader, David: “But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you” (I Samuel 13:14). A short but powerful resume of David is found in Psalm 78:70-72: “(God) also chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the ewes that had young He brought him, to shepherd Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So, he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands!” David was a man of integrity and faithfulness to God. God was his Shepherd and David was His under-shepherd. Saul followed a broad way, but David chose a narrow one, pleasing God!


One of the greatest examples in the Scriptures is Apostle Paul who gave up everything to follow Christ and follow Him fully: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to (arrive at) the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended (laid hold of it); but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:7-14).


Paul’s declaration:

· “One thing I do!”

· “Forgetting those things that are behind!”

·  “Reaching forward to those things that are ahead!”

· “I press toward the goal!”

· “For the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus!”


That’s it!

Our pathway is narrow!

Our gate is not broad but constricted and restricted!

Our choices are limited!

Jesus is the Way!

God’s Word is law!

God’s will be our will!

God’s family is our family!

For Christ, we are separated from our families, friends, and the world!

We are in God’s Concealed Kingdom, the Kingdom within all the world's kingdoms!

God is training you and me to walk the narrow path before His Kingdom is established to rule the earth!

“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 (how) narrow is the gate and difficult (confined) is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).


Prayer

“Heavenly Father, I give myself to You, fully and completely. Let Your will be done in me. Take me in Your path, and only in Yours, to finish my journey in You. In the Precious and Wonderful Name of Jesus, I pray, Amen! Amen!!”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

John Jeyaseelan


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