The Narrow Way

Once we have accepted the offer God made to us we need to follow Jesus Christ as his disciples. This means that we should put Jesus Christ as our number one priority in our lives.

Jesus said that He is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. This means that any other means of reconciliation with God will fail. The only way that exists to restore fellowship with God is to believe in what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross [1], [2].

Jesus described the way as a narrow way and that few will find it [3], [4].

So why is this way narrow?

This way is further explained in two examples with warnings of two groups of people who externally seem they are on the way but in reality are not. One group is false prophets and the other group is people who seem to be his servants but are not [5], [6], [7].

The first warning seems to be for us to be able to identify and avoid bad leaders. The best sign to look for is to see what fruit they bear according to [8]. To do so we need to know what good and bad fruit means and how to spot a man who bears good or bad fruit.

Good fruit is described to come from the Holy Spirit which is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. [9]. The bad fruit is described as the works of the flesh and are listed as: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. [10].

So when we go through life and encounter Christian leaders who bear bad fruit, we should know it is a hallmark that they are false prophets or leaders. Especially if they predict events in the name of the Lord which fails to happen [11]. We are to stop, or if not possible avoid, such people at all costs [12], [13], [14].

The second group are the deceived workers who believe they belong to the Lord because they do all the works that he commanded them to do but they still get rejected. Jesus does not disregard their work. But Jesus adds that they must be doing “the will of My Father in heaven” [15]. Both false prophets and deceived workers will experience the second death. There is also an important clue to why in the text: “I never knew you; depart from Me; you who practice lawlessness!” [16].

So here we clearly see that we must be aware of a few details to avoid falling in this group. We must know the will of our Father in heaven, we must understand what it means to know the Lord and we also should avoid to “practice lawlessness” since doing so will automatically disqualify us to participate in the kingdom of heaven.

I would like to emphasize that there are more descriptions in the bible about people who externally seem to belong to the Lord but who will be rejected. One is the parable of the ten bridesmaids [17], another about servants [18], [19].

What do we conclude by this?

We must accept that the payment has been made through the blood of Jesus Christ the once begotten Son of God.

We must admit that this is the only way to restore fellowship with God which goes through Jesus Christ. Any other way will fail which is well summarized in a very emotional request in Gethsemane from Jesus to His heavenly Father which we can read about in [20], [21].

We also must make sure that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, that we know our Lord and also do the will of our Father in heaven so he may know us. [22]

We get the Holy Spirit as a gift who helps us to do the will of our Father. [23]

This is done by repenting and being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins as described in [24].

To answer what the will of our heavenly Father is we need to understand that His will goes through the entire scripture which especially for us includes His plan of salvation but it also lays out the roadmap of the future through the prophets. So this is usually a lifelong process for each and every one of us individuals where we sit and learn from the Bible who God is by reading the lives of people who have or have not lived as He likes. This way we can learn how He works, what He likes and dislikes and then act accordingly.

We know that we love Him by keeping his commandments [25], [26], [27]. And we also have a new commandment between true disciples which is very simple, to love one another. [28]

We also know that if we choose not to keep His commandments we no longer love Him and He cannot have fellowship with us. [29]

References

[1] John 14:6. [2] John 10:7-9. [3] Matthew 7:13-14. [4] Luke 13:22-25. [5] Matthew 7:15-20. [6] Matthew 7:21-22. [7] Luke 13:26-27. [8] Matthew 7:16. [9] Galatians 5:22-23. [10] Galatians 5:19-21. [11] Deuteronomy 18:21-22. [12] Matthew 7:15. [13] Romans 16:17-18. [14] 1 Timothy 1:3-4. [15] Matthew 7:21. [16] Matthew 7:23. [17] Matthew 25:1-13. [18] Matthew 25:14-30. [19] Luke 19:11-27. [20] Matthew 26:38-39.

[21] Mark 14:32-36.

[22]1 John 2:23-27.

[23] John 14:26-27.

[24] Acts 2:37-39.

[25] John 14:15-18.

[26] John 14:21-23.

[27] 1 John 2:3-6.

[28] 1 John 2:7.

[29] John 14:24.