SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/2/2021 11:10 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “The Two Gates”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
7:13-14
Message of the verses: “13 “Enter through
the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to
destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small
and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
In
some of my Spiritual Diaries I have spoken about some of the Greek terms, as I
got the info from John MacArthur’s commentaries and as we begin to look at
verse thirteen the first word that we see is the word “enter.” MacArthur writes “Enter’ is the aorist
imperative tense, and therefore demands a definite and specific action. The command is not to admire or to ponder the
‘gate’ but to ‘enter’ it. Many people
admire the principles of the Sermon on the Mount but never follow those
principles. Many people respect and
praise Jesus Christ but never receive Him as Lord and Savior. Because they never receive the King and never
enter the kingdom, they are as much separated from the King and as much outside
His kingdom as is the rankest atheist or most unethical pagan.” It is my hope and my prayer that any of those
who read the Spiritual Diaries that I put onto my blogs that all will
understand how it is to enter the narrow gate, to receive Jesus Christ as their
Savior and Lord and thus live with Him in eternity, as this is one of the
reasons that I write these SD’s along with the growth of believers who read
them.
As
we again look at verse 13 we can see that Jesus’ command is not simply to enter
some gate, but He says to enter the “narrow gate.” Every person enters one gate or the other;
that is unavoidable. Now think about
that statement and let it sink in. There
are only two options and one leads to a home in heaven and the other leads to
continual punishment in hell. So Jesus
pleads for men to enter the right ‘gate’, God’s gate, the only gate that leads
to ‘life’ and to heaven.
It
does not matter what people have to say about different ways to enter heaven,
God says that there is only one way.
When I first became a believer I from time to time went backpacking and
I had a patch on the back of my backpack which read “One Way.” That One Way is God’s way for after all He is
God and we must listen to Him.
As
we look at the gospels we can see that Jesus has repeatedly shown the
narrowness of God’s internal standard of righteousness, which is in contrast to
the broad and external standards of the Jewish traditions as He has compared
God’s ways with the scribes and the Pharisees ways all through this
sermon. MacArthur writes “The path to
that narrow way of kingdom living is through ‘the narrow gate’ of the King
Himself. ‘I am the way, and the truth,
and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me’ (John 14:6).”
So
as stated when we tell others the way to be saved from their sins and to one
day enter heaven we are not just talking about something that we believe is
right, but we are telling what God says is right, and that is only one
way. Let us look at a couple of NT
verses beginning with John 10:9 “"I am the door; if anyone enters through
Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” Next we want to look at Acts 4:12 “"And
there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that
has been given among men by which we must be saved.’” One more verse and this one comes from 1
Timothy 2:5-6 “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God
and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the
testimony given at the proper time.”
I
wrote a track many years ago which I named “The Word of God” and in that track
I had four points with verses to back each point. 1) “The Word of God and Sin”; 2) The Word of
God and Salvation”; 3) “The Word of God and the Assurance of Salvation”; 4) “The
Word of God and Growth”; and finally 5) “The Word of God.” It is a simple track, but the way to get to
heaven from planet earth is also simple, and I suppose that is why many people
stumble over it, hope you are not one of those who stumble over it and chose
the wide gate which leads to destruction.
2/2/2021 11:36 AM
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