YouTube – How narrow is the narrow road?
How narrow is the narrow road? In discussion with somebody this person said to me: It can’t be that extremely narrow that you are walking on a tight rope all the time. The problem is that there is only one narrow road, there is only one entrance through which we will enter into the kingdom of God and that is Jesus Christ. When He said narrow He really meant narrow. After we have accepted Jesus Christ and we come into this wonderful hope of eternal life, Jesus wants us to follow Him because that was His instruction. His invitation was: Follow Me. Many people had some other things that pre occupied them. One guy said: I want to go bury my dead brother. Jesus said: Let the dead bury their own dead. If we don’t want to follow Jesus He doesn’t force us to follow Him.
Jesus offers us salvation for free, but then He says: Follow Me. He never forces us, not one minute, we can turn and walk away any minute. The reason why Jesus takes us along on this narrow road is to teach us, to make us suitable for His kingdom. To teach us, His ways to make us acquainted to them, so that we can get to know His voice, so that we be suitable for His Kingdom. That is not easy, because if we decide to walk with Jesus, there is no turning back. He says if anyone puts His hand to the plough and he looks back he is not worthy of the kingdom of God. So if we decide to follow Jesus Christ we must do that with our whole heart. He will never beat us over the head with a stick if we want to go, the door is open we can go. But then we will not be suitable for His kingdom, it is our choice to go.
What happens is, when people start following Jesus Christ they need to repent of their sins they, got to repent of themselves, so now we are not doing what we want any more now we starting to do what Jesus wants. That is a very difficult thing for us, but it is always voluntary. You never had problems in your life and now suddenly, since you are following Jesus, everything is going wrong. You know why that happens? The devil is upset with you because now you are no more part of his kingdom anymore. Where you had everything going for you and everything going well suddenly the devil has got his sight set on you and things are going terribly wrong, also on the other hand the Lord Jesus needs to teach us and discipline us, and get us into His ways. I need to follow His commands because I want to please Jesus. I want to do what is pleasing in His sight so now I read His commands in the Bible and the Words of Jesus, what He said what we should do. because that’s what he wants me to do. I love Him and I go along with Him and I do everything exactly the way He wants it because that is what he asks of me. If I walk with Him, I do what He wants me to do. That goes against my flesh and now I need to sacrifice myself, that is not nice. Sometimes it’s terrible sometimes, it’s harsh. You know I don’t feel good because suddenly now I need to change my mindset. It’s not about me anymore it’s about what Jesus wants. That comes as a shock to many people, they turn around and they say no this is not for me. There are also a lot of spectators sitting around you, and now that you changed you are not part of the scene any more and they reject you. You got to decide: do I go with Jesus or do I go back to my friends, do I go back to the world? Those are difficult choices to make, you have to contend with your own lusts and the things you wanted to do, you have to give that up and follow Jesus. You need to become obedient to Him and as you go along He teaches you more and more and more. There is no way of skipping a class, He takes you through it all and if you refuse He just leaves you. The Holy Spirit won’t beat us over the head, He speaks to us softly, if we don’t want to obey we grieve Him. He goes away from us. It is a voluntary walk. But if we don’t follow Jesus we get into darkness, we start doing sin, we drift away, we loose our confidence we can’t pray, we get separated from God and it is all because of our own erring, thongs that we want and we go away. The Holy Spirit will nudge us to come back but the Lord will not treat us harshly. If we stay in the race He will definitely test us and that can be very harsh.
God promised Abraham a son and it took many years of persistent waiting and waiting and waiting and believing and eventually after many years Isaac was born. There was much joy and everything is so wonderful because the promise was fulfilled, Isaac was born. Then one night God spoke to Abraham and said: Take Isaac, your son go sacrifice him for Me. The Lord will do the same to you and me. He will give us stuff and then He will say to us: Do you love Me? More than what I gave you? If we fail that test we drop out, we drop out of the race because then we don’t love Jesus more than everything. That is what He wants, that is harsh, that is tough, those are tough decisions. You might have to choose between something that God gave you, now you have to give it up because you must demonstrate that you love Jesus more, if you don’t then you have demonstrated that all these other things are more in your life. That is why He said to Peter in John 21:15-17 Do you love Me? He said Yes Lord, You know that I love You and He asked him three times. Jesus will want of us to demonstrate our love. That is difficult because you can’t see Jesus but if we don’t pass the test then we have to go back, be tested again, if we stay in the race. Jesus wants total devotion and when I say: Lord I love You I love You more than everything. He says ok: lets see and He will test you, He will test your persistence and it is not easy. The Lord gives us salvation for free and then He takes us along the road and we need to past the test. He will call us to do something and then I say Lord I am busy and then. I failed the test I am not walking with Jesus any more. I am walking with myself. That is how narrow the road is and it will get narrower and narrower the longer we go on this road, it is not going to get easier and Jesus won’t push us. He will call us and if we don’t want to come we can go.
We read in Romans 5:1-5 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
The Lord gives us the Holy Spirit to help us to guide us along this road, we can refuse the Holy Spirit, we can ignore the Holy Spirit at any time. The moment we grieve the Holy Spirit it goes away from us and the teaching stops and our progress stops and we are not suitable for the kingdom of God. We go into darkness, we are separated from Jesus, He doesn’t talk to us, our relationship with Him dies. He doesn’t force us into a relationship and then we fall out of the run, we fall out of our relationship with Jesus Christ and He will say to us: Go away from Me, I never knew you. But you will say: Lord I believed in You! He will say to you: I wanted to teach you My ways, I wanted to guide you. I said: I will never leave you, I will be with you in all trouble but when the trouble came you forsook. Me you turned your back on Me and walked away. That is why Jesus will say to us go away I never knew you. The Lord Jesus wants to help us to get extra oil in our lamps so when He comes, we will be ready. When the Bridegroom comes that we will be ready, have oil in our lamps and waiting on Him with extra oil. But if we are not willing to submit, let the Holy Spirit guide us, He will just leave us and then it will be forever too late, because we ourselves, have fallen away from Jesus. The narrow road is extremely narrow, it is not a road where we are tied down with shackles. We go voluntary, we can drop out any time, but then we drop out from Jesus and then it is forever and ever lost and we will go into darkness. We won’t see His glory and we won’t go into His heaven.
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