Choosing Your Road - The One Year At His Feet Devotional
Choosing Your Road
Read: Matthew 7:13-14
“Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Matthew 7:14
“Jesus Christ is God’s everything for man’s total needs.”
—Richard Halverson
IN WORD Centuries of legalism have given us an unfortunate interpretation of “the straight and narrow.” Heaven, we are led to believe, is only for those who can live up to the demands of the gospel, and there are precious few who can. But history tells us that attempts to “live up to” the requirements of God are many. Every religion places demands on its adherents, and while no one lives up to those demands perfectly, many do an awfully good job. Their good job, however, will not fit through Jesus’ narrow gate.
If “straight and narrow” living—doing right and avoiding sin, as most would define it—were the key to life in God’s kingdom, the Pharisees would have had it made. Yet Jesus had more conflicts with these good-works gurus than anyone else. And His encounters with tax collectors and prostitutes were certainly not reflective of a gospel of good works. His mercies indicated a far different approach to the kingdom.
The small gate and narrow road of which Jesus speaks is Himself. And the only people who find Him are those who give up walking the road themselves. When we make ourselves the gate—and we do, whenever we think our efforts are the key—we miss the true gate. “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep,” Jesus says (John 10:7).
IN DEED As much as we may think we have found this small, narrow gate of trust in Jesus, we lapse into self-effort frequently. Once saved by grace through faith in Him, we try to live by effort through faith in ourselves. We try to work for God, rather than letting Him work through us. We try to obey Him with a belief that we actually can, rather than submitting in our weakness to the Spirit who works out obedience in us. We aim to be righteous, rather than trusting Him as our righteousness. But the narrow road always leads away from ourselves. Everything in the gospel is about Him. It’s never our burden, and always of grace.
