He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” (Luke 13:24, NIV)
There’s a course in my town that golfers avoid. It’s narrow all the way around, with trees overhanging fairways and demanding shaped shots. The penalties aren’t in the hazards or beyond the white stakes; the penalties lie beneath the canopies and behind broad trunks.
Maybe there’s a course like this in your town, a course that is, in a word, narrow.
I don’t know how that word sits with you. In a time when many think the best way to go when it comes to God is to throw the doors of his kingdom wide open—so open that God as he is may not even be necessary, but rather God as we think him to be is good enough—it can be a bit of a gamble to utter the word narrow.
Jesus seemed to preach two messages. In one way of speaking, he noted that the kingdom was not nearly as narrow as some rabbis suggested. The Jewish people, for one, were not alone in God’s kingdom; even the Gentiles were to be welcomed—an opening that flourished with the Holy Spirit’s work in and through the apostles. Ne’er-do-wells and harlots weren’t to be turned away either, not if they were willing to release their hearts to Christ and be forgiven.
But then Jesus came up with words like those in today’s passage, where the road to eternity was lined with hedges that keep out those who do not belong. The idea of “casting a broader net” just doesn’t work in this context.
So which is it? Wide or narrow? Well, let’s state what we know for certain: the door to God’s kingdom leaves no room for unbelief. “Whoever believes in me,” Jesus said, “will be saved.” And thus, too, we find that the Scriptures consistently and vigorously defend Christ as the lone avenue to salvation.
If this is “narrow,” we must say, “So be it.” But then we must make every effort to get ourselves and our friends in that broad audience through that narrow door, the door where God’s grace meets our faith.
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Jeff Hopper
May 31, 2013
Copyright 2013 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.