Wide roads

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.  –Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

 Our culture places a high value on freedom. Responsibility? Not so much. We do like the idea of a savior (even as we refuse to admit our role in creating the situation we need to be saved from). We’re just not keen on lordship. Judgment? We resent the implication that we might have engaged in behavior that would make us liable to judgment, much less be answerable to any authority that would hold us accountable. Goodness is in the eye of the beholder, for sale to the highest bidder. And sin is a quaint idea that has outlived its usefulness.

 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  –John 6:9-10 (NIV)

 In this world without absolutes, anything goes. True in all times, this has been taken to ridiculous extremes in the current age. Our society tolerates everything, justifies everything, and engages in verbal and mental gymnastics to legitimize everyone’s “reality”, regardless of how preposterous some ideas may be. In the misappropriated effort to “defend our rights”, words lose their meaning, humans lose their worth, and the cost to future generations is ignored. The ones who suffer repercussions are those who would dare question whether the situation we’ve created could truthfully be called “freedom”.

 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  –John 8:34,36 (NIV)

Remarkably, it isn’t that different from the world that Jesus stepped into over 2000 years ago. He challenged and called people to account. In the process, He made audacious statements about Himself, statements many in His culture were not ready to hear. The invitation was open to all, but He did not sanitize His message to make it more palatable. He loved everyone, too much to allow them to remain in their lost state without hearing the truth.

 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.  –John 1: 9-12 (NIV)

 In the frenzy to preserve our self-esteem, many have believed the lie that we can all find our own path to truth, to life, to God. In a mindset we would find absurd were it applied to practically any other endeavor, we are happy to convince ourselves that any path will do – one is as good as the next. Only that isn’t what Jesus said. And of everyone who has walked this planet, He alone has the credentials to back up His claims. Some will accept them and some will be offended, as has always been the case. The fact that there are not multiple paths to God shouldn’t be a surprise. The wonder is in the fact that God, in His mercy, gave us a path back home at all.

 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  –John 14:6 (NIV)