Choosing Between Straight and Narrow, Wide and Winding

Years ago, I returned to my boyhood hometown to attend a high school reunion. Deciding to take a trip down memory lane, I drove past the house where I grew up and visited the “grammar school” I had attended. Going into the school surprised me in several ways. 

For one thing, the demographics had changed. Many of the kids there had last names like Gonzales, Lopez, Torres and Martinez. The closest to my name was probably Tamayo. But what surprised me most was the size of the school. It was much smaller than I remembered.

 

I can still recall my first day of school, walking down what seemed like a long, cavernous hallway to my kindergarten classroom. When I revisited the school, however, the hallway wasn’t long at all. It was so narrow I could touch both walls with my arms extended. It was barely wide enough for two people to pass.

 

Over the years since my grade-school days I’ve learned lots of things in life are narrow. Have you ever seen one of those videos on social media of a car or bus perilously traveling a single-lane road around a mountain in some Third World country? Turning around is unthinkable. The driver of the vehicle must be praying no one’s approaching from the opposite direction.

 

We’ve all encountered a narrow bridge where only one vehicle can cross at a time. If you arrive and several cars are coming from the other direction, you have no choice but to wait until they’ve gone by. Sometimes the same is true for tunnels carved through mountains. They’re either one-way, or you have to wait your turn when another vehicle is coming through going the other way. 

 

Traveling in Europe, I saw many narrow stairways in old parts of towns. In the walled city of Sopran, Hungary the entrance is a narrow tunnel that centuries ago was intentionally designed to repel the advance of enemy soldiers. Even Rock City on Lookout Mountain has its “Fat Man’s Squeeze” through which only slender people can pass – one at a time. Narrow can be so annoying.

 

We frequently hear complaints that Christianity is “too narrow,” that its teachings are too restrictive, too exclusionary. Jesus Christ offered no apologies for the ‘narrowness’ of following Him. Speaking to a large crowd during what is commonly known as His “sermon on the mount,” Jesus admonished, “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” (Matthew 7:13-14).

 

On another occasion, while Jesus was teaching in some towns and villages someone asked, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He responded, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able…” (Luke 13:23-24).

 

Some might argue, ‘But isn’t this narrow-minded? Aren’t there many ways to God? As long as you’re sincere?’ Jesus’ answer to this is simple, yet sobering. Speaking to His disciples just before the Passover Feast, He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Yes, this sounds narrow, even dogmatic. But Jesus was declaring, “There’s no other way.”

 

While other religions and belief systems urge their adherents to seek God’s acceptance through good works or by keeping various rituals, Christianity is unique in asserting there’s no way we can merit His approval or assurance of eternal life. Ephesians 2:8-9 states categorically, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

 

The “faith” it talks about is Jesus’ substitutionary death on the cross, shedding His blood to make the once and for all payment for our sins: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).

 

If that seems too narrow for some, it’s because we don’t – and can’t – fully comprehend the holiness and righteousness of God. It’s not a matter of good outweighing bad, or of “cleaning ourselves up” to become acceptable. In the Lord’s eyes, “good enough” can never be good enough: “…all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). Hence Jesus being the one and only way to God.

 

It’s not just the New Testament that teaches just one path to God. In the Old Testament the prophet wrote, “And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it – only those who walk in the Way – and fools will not stray onto it” (Isaiah 35:8). Similarly Psalm 1:6 warns, “For the Lord guards the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” 

 

Narrow might not be our preferred course for travel, but it’s the only way of avoiding the temptation to defy or ignore the precepts and principles God has provided through His Word. King Solomon, who suffered firsthand the consequences of choosing the wide road, offered a “Beware – Danger Ahead” caution among his many proverbs. In fact, Solomon felt it was so important he repeated it: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25). 

 

The question we each must ask ourselves today – and every day – is, “Which way am I going to take? The narrow one – or the wider one that seems so enticing?” In the annals of rock music, there’s a “Highway to Hell” but a “Stairway to Heaven.” Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

Requirement To Earn God’s Acceptance: ‘Do Nothing’

Have you noticed how much of life involves earning what we want? It starts when we’re kids and Mom and Dad give us a small allowance, often with the caveat that we perform certain chores like cleaning our room or putting our toys away. We go to school where we’re told to pay attention, do our homework, study and prepare for tests so we can earn good grades. 

Then we get into the work world and find a similar principle: To earn money we must perform specified responsibilities to the satisfaction of our boss or supervisor. But it doesn’t end there. To find a better job, gain a promotion or get an increase in pay, we have to earn it.

 

For athletes, it’s always about earning. Making the team, winning a spot in the starting lineup or a role as a key backup, then maintaining or securing that position. They have to earn it – every day.

 

So, it’s not surprising to assume the same would be true of the spiritual realm. Many people expect the prevalent message to be about earning: Earning God’s love, earning His acceptance, earning salvation and admission into heaven. Doing our best to be ‘good enough.’ Except for one thing: That’s not what God teaches in His Word.

 

The Scriptures teach that no matter how much good we do, it will never be sufficient to earn God’s acceptance and approval. Isaiah 64:6 declares, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags….” In case that’s not clear enough, Romans 3:10-12 tells us, “There is no one righteous, not even one… All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

 

“But I’m a good person,” someone might argue. “Look at all the good things I’ve done – and continue to do. Why isn’t that good enough?” That was the attitude of a rich ruler who, according to Luke 18:18-23, approached Jesus Christ one day while He was addressing a sizable crowd. He asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” A reasonable question, right?

 

“‘Why do you call Me good?’ Jesus answered. ‘No one is good – except God alone. You know the commandments: “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.”’” The ruler probably felt rather smug upon hearing this because he replied, “All these I have kept since I was a boy.” Check, check, check, check – and check.

 

What Jesus said next stopped him cold. “‘You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.’ When he heard this [the ruler] became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.”

 

The Lord wasn’t giving this man a lesson in generosity, or the pitfalls of affluence. He was helping him to understand that no matter what we do, we can’t earn – or pay – our way to eternal life. It’s not a matter of performance, but a matter of the heart.

 

Someone who had studied the world’s religions, along with Christianity, concluded, “Religion is spelled with two letters, DO. Do this, do that. Christianity is spelled with four letters, DONE.” Because, as we just observed during Good Friday and Easter, Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection did for us what we could never achieve ourselves. As Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

 

I think back to my high school years when I first heard the truth that salvation – God’s acceptance and the assurance of eternal life – is solely a matter of faith, not anything that we do. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

 

This isn’t an isolated passage because many others say much the same. For instance, a few verses earlier the apostle Paul affirms, “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4-5). And elsewhere the apostle explains, “[God our Savior] saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

 

There’s absolutely nothing we can do to earn God’s grace – His unmerited favor. As an old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe; sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

 

However, the fact that we can do nothing to earn or deserve the Lord’s forgiveness and acceptance into His holy family doesn’t give us the license to do whatever we want. Two other verses, I call them the “do nothing” passage, specify how we’re to act as those whom God has redeemed: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). 

 

Just as Jesus willingly went to the cross, denying His own interests to become the atoning sacrifice for our sins, as “new creations in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17) we are to put the needs and best interests of others ahead of our own. In this way we can, “prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15).