There are many paths that we can walk on but none so eternally important as the narrow path. The narrow path is the only path that will lead you straight to heaven. This is the path that we must find and that we must stay on such that we would live with Jesus forever and ever.
The Christian faith is not the easy way out but the hard way in. The Lord Jesus taught us, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad and easy to travel is the path that leads the way to destruction and eternal loss, and there are many who enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow and difficult to travel is the path that leads the way to [everlasting] life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 AMP).
The narrow path is not hard to find if you are willing to let the Lord show you. The reason so few will find it is because it is the few who seek after it. Many say they desire to go to heaven, but they are only seeking a heaven that is by their design and not seeking one with God’s holy presence.
If your journey is easy, consider you might be on the wrong road. “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray” (Isaiah 35:8 NKJV).
The narrow path is a hard path because it requires that we surrender. It is not a hard path because of how hard we must work to find it and then stay on it, but only because we must yield to the Lord. The hardest thing we can ever do in this life is to surrender ourselves completely to the Lord.
The secret of the victorious Christian life is that it is not yours to accomplish but to surrender to. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57 NKJV).
The narrow path is not reserved for only those that seemingly deserve it. The narrow gate is open, and the narrow path is available to anyone who would choose to be on it. The right to be on it is never by your accomplishments but only by your faith that it is Christ alone who can get you there.
You cannot be too bad to get into heaven, nor good enough to stay out of hell, but by Christ alone will you be saved. “Nor is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name [besides Jesus of Nazareth] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12 NKJV).
The narrow path never has anything on it that does not belong in heaven. But beyond the edges of the path, there are many temptations that will try to tempt you to step off of it. The secret to staying on the path is in listening and adhering to the Holy Spirit, who can guide you that you’d remain on it.
If you’re led by the Holy Spirit, then the path you’re on will show it. “If you go the wrong way—to the right or to the left—you will hear a voice behind you. It will say, ‘This is the right way. You should go this way.’” (Isaiah 30:21 ICB).
The narrow path is not achieved in your abilities to be obedient but in your willingness to let the Lord help you. Nobody can be obedient apart from the inward working of the Lord giving you the power to overcome. Legalism is never the answer because it only relies upon yourself.
Legalism is the letter of the Law, dead ink on paper. Obedience is the Spirit of the Law, Christ in you. “But now we have been delivered from the law… so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter” (Romans 7:6 NKJV).
The narrow path is not narrow to limit how many can walk on it but is only narrow because of the limitation of options there are for how to walk down it. The Lord does not give us a hundred ways to find salvation but only one that we might be willing to take it.
The Lord Jesus is the only One who can say, “My way, or the highway.” “Yeshua said, ‘I AM the Way — and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 CJB).
The narrow path does not allow man the wiggle room to choose how he might walk down it. The more wiggle room you have in your faith, the less likely you are actually on the narrow path. Stop looking for the exceptions to the rules and start seeking the Lord’s help in following them.
The higher you climb up the mountain, the narrower the path will become. “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not set his mind on what is false, and who has not sworn deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah” (Psalm 24:3-6 HCSB).
You may not like that the Lord only provided one narrow path. But the truth is we should all be eternally grateful that He ever provided a path at all that we might find Him. Christ died on the Cross that you would live forever. When you come to follow Jesus, you will be on the narrow path.
With Christianity, you’re either all in, or you’re not. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If you truly want to follow me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share my cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to my ways.’” (Matthew 16:24 TPT).
Blessings to you,
Paul Balius