Daily Devotional For Friday, September 26, 2025
Good day. I hope your day is going well. Let’s pick up where we left off from yesterday. Jesus said this in Matthew 7:13-14, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. (14) But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it” (NLT). The picture Jesus gives us here of this gate is a tiny gate that is easily missed and this is why you have to look for it to find it. This gate is so small that the only thing you can bring through it is yourself. New Testament scholar R. Kent Hughes writes this about this gate:
“The tiny gate is a perfect metaphor for the Beatitudes. Alexander Maclaren, the great preacher of a little more than 100 years ago, liked to poetically picture the first two Beatitudes as the sideposts of the small gate. One denoted the first Beatitude and the need for a consciousness of spiritual bankruptcy, and the other stood for the second Beatitude’s demand for sorrow over sin. This is indeed a small gate, and few people are willing to shed what is necessary to get through it! No one naturally likes to be poor in spirit or to truly mourn their sins. We must come to God holding nothing in our hands except our inadequacy and our consciousness of sin” (Source: R. Kent Hughes, The Sermon On The Mount: The Message of the Kingdom, p. 243).
Did you see it? It seems that each of the Beatitudes is a sign post directing a person in a way to find this narrow gate. And what we see with Jesus’ words above is that once you have entered through this gate, the path remains narrow, and sorrow, difficulty comes to those who stay on that path. Once you enter then you have to be willing from that point on to take up your cross to follow the Lord Mark 8:34. Jesus said those who enter through the narrow gate must expect and not be surprised by persecution that comes to those who stay on this narrow path (Matthew 5:10.
This narrow road also imposes boundaries and limits on us not in a repressive way, but in a liberating way. It is by staying on this narrow path that our thoughts about God and truth are both expanded and confined. For example, our culture has crazy and wrong views of God they believe are right because those in our culture say so. Scripture reveals to us who God is and what is real truth.
This means our view of salvation and heaven are narrowed. All roads do not lead to God. Jesus is the only way, truth and life (John 14:6). To teach, preach and live this is narrow. The Apostle Peter, when speaking before the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, made this narrow point in his sermon to them in Acts 4:12.
This means our desires, passions and loves are narrow. This is the point of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:37-40. This means that not everything is okay for us. Walking down this narrow path restricts us morally, spiritually, and ethically. A truly spiritually free person walks this narrow path. New Testament author Helmut Thielicke writes this:
“But in talking about all this, have we not made an amazing discovery? As we have heard that this is a hard and narrow way that leads through dying and dark places, have we not suddenly seen in the narrowness the breadth, in the dying the living, and in him, who seems to make living so hard, the great liberator?” (Source: Helmut Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again, p. 182).
The good news is that the narrow path is very rewarding and fulfilling and it in the end leads to eternal life. This is Jesus’ point in John 17:3. There is no darkness or abyss waiting for the person who goes through this narrow gate and stays on this narrow path. There is joy because at the end of it is Jesus waiting for us. I do not think it is accidental or by coincidence that Jesus put Matthew 5:13-14 where it is in Matthew’s Gospel. It is placed at the end of Jesus’ Sermon On The Mound for a reason. Matthew knew that many hearing those words that day on that hill would marvel at such teaching, but reject it. That is why Luke’s version is slightly different. Look at Luke 13:24, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (NASB).
Jesus’ point there can be no neutrality here. You are either on the broad path that leads to death and destruction or you are on the narrow path that leads to life and heaven. You do not accidentally go through this narrow gate. You only enter through the narrow gate by intentionally choosing to do so. It is a choice of life over death. Moses said the same thing to the Hebrews in Deuteronomy 30:19. It is the same choice Joshua asked the Hebrews to make in Joshua 24:15.
Assignment: Have you entered through the narrow gate and are you still walking on the narrow path? If your answer is “yes,” what is the proof? If you say, “Well, I attend church and I am in a Bible study,” that is not enough. Even the devil and his demons show up for these. In your choices, is it consistently WWJD? Or is it what you choose to do? If you want to know, read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) and see if these sign posts are part of your walk with Christ. If you would like a deeper explanation of these, you can read my devotions from mid August-September 2024 on them.
Scripture To Meditate On: Proverbs 4:26-27, “Watch the path of your feet; And all your ways will be established. (27) Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil” (NASB).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please help me to stay on the narrow path however challenging, difficult and hard it may be, even if it comes with persecution. When I get to the end of this narrow path, all I want to see is You. I want to hear from You, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly