The Narrow Gate: Part 2 The Hard Way And The Easy Way

"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

We live in a world today that's all about ease.  All about convenience.  We want what we want when we want it.  We've made so many things in life easy.  When given the choice, who wouldn't pick the easy way over the hard way--right?

But Jesus reminds us in this verse that the easy way isn't always the best way.  Some things in life don't come easy.  Some things we have to work for.  And often the harder we work for something, the greater the reward.  Ask any successful athlete how they succeeded, and you'll find out it came with great effort, and hours of training and practice.  Ask a concert pianist how much they sacrificed to develop that gift God gave them--the hours they've spend at the piano are likely incalculable. 

Jesus offers us just one path, and it is a difficult one.  It requires a great deal of faith, and a great deal of effort to stay on that narrow path.  But He paid a tremendous price on the cross to offer us that path, as difficult as it is.  But the reward for taking the hard road is life, while the penalty of following the easy path is our destruction.  Proverbs 14:12 reminds us of this, "There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death."