I’ve been thinking about Matthew 7:14 lately where Jesus says (I like red letter version so I’ll implement that here
), “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 is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it”.
Well if this narrow road leads to life, I want to be on it! But what is the narrow road? What does that look like in everyday life?
I do know that, as a child of God, my purpose is to bring glory to my Father. To be on the narrow path my priorities must be lined up to where my main focus is glorifying God. This can be done in countless ways such as worshiping, loving others, storing up treasures in heaven, serving the people around us, making decisions that reflect His love, living daily for Him, and on and on.
So if this is our main purpose as believers, then that means the devil seeks to STOP US from doing anything that glorifies God because he definitely doesn’t want us to be on the narrow path.
The only thing the devil needs to do is distract us a little bit from our main purpose in order to have us going down the wrong path. And unfortunately, we are so easily distracted! He’ll use anything to do this.
For each person he uses a different strategy, depending on what tempts us. He may persuade one person that they have to constantly work and do more so they end up abandoning their family. He might get another person to be so wrapped up in church activities and programs that they lose focus on Christ. It might be little things like spending too much unproductive time on the computer, or getting angry with someone, or letting the wrong people have an influence on your life, that lets Satan have a foothold. Each time we choose to do something that distracts us from Christ, the devil is delighted. Then, when we make exceptions for what we are doing and try to justify in our minds why it’s ok, the devil knows even more that his plan is working.
I think one way to be sure we are on that narrow path is to constantly evaluate whether or not what we are doing is glorifying to God. Anything that isn't we shouldn’t be doing.
For me, I can get sidetracked when trying to do school. My mind will wander or I’ll start reading something that has nothing to do with the assignment. And when I’m praying….whew! My mind wanders for sure! If I’m not telling myself to stay on track I’ll find myself millions of miles from what I was praying originally, then I kick myself, and have to refocus.
It might seem like on the race since we’ll be on the narrow path because we are doing ministry and living with fellow believers. And since we’ll be living with so few material possessions we won’t have much to distract us. But I think it will still be easy to let our minds wander from Christ if we aren’t consciously making the decision to stay focused. There will be so many new things. New people, cultures, languages, environments, food, and we’ll be thinking about family and friends at home, what life was like, etc. I can see being so caught up in these things that our minds wander from Christ and we lose focus. It will be important for us to stay in the moment and live for Christ and nothing else, striving to stay on that straight and narrow path that we are called to.
