Jesus’ Course Correction: The Narrow Gate

I drift, and you drift. We drift from the things and people we hold dear. Not intentionally, but isn’t this the real problem with drifting: we don’t even realize we are? The Holy Spirit succinctly addresses our drifting tendency:

We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. (Heb. 2:1)

Straightforward and to the point: “We must pay more careful attention…” or else… we will drift. Are you paying attention?

Jesus had this to say about our drifting:

“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 the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt. 7:13-14)

Only a few.

For some of you, the broad road is this noisy and busy culture you’ve bought into. Perhaps this is you? For others, this broad road runs right through your church, where the activity of humans is far more prevalent than the activity of the Holy Spirit.

For others, it’s bad choices and bad behavior. Either way, the broad road is jammed bumper to bumper with the drifting and distracted, and “many enter through it.”

So Jesus sets out a course correction for us: the narrow gate.

The culture and Satan are doing their best to sweep you swiftly past this gate. Jesus cautions that we must find it. This means we must look for it, diligently. We will not drift through the narrow gate. And we will certainly not drift into the “life that is truly life.”

But how to find it? First, we must all see our need for a major course correction. Do you think you’re “just fine as is… not perfect, mind you… but doing okay”? Do you think you just need a little polishing up?

My friend, that won’t get it.

Jesus began his Beatitudes with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). He is saying we all must see our spiritual poverty apart from Jesus, before we feel the acute need to look for the narrow gate.

We must, you and I, see that we are bankrupt and speeding toward destruction without Jesus as our Savior. And we must see that, even after he becomes our Savior, we will frequently drift back to the broad road that leads back to the destructive C-minus life, without him as our Lord, guiding and leading us.

Be sure you are looking for and that you find the first gate. The key that unlocks that gate is simple: surrender. Surrender “my claim to my right to myself” (Oswald Chambers). Surrender my Kingdom and surrender my way.

It is not a negotiation; it’s a surrender.

The broad gate of this culture will lead you off to the busy, noisy, drifting, and distracting road to… hell.

Jesus is calling you to his narrow gate.