SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/3/2021 9:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The Two Gates”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
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.”
There
is another thing that we need to discuss here and that is that the person who
enters the narrow gate must enter it alone.
There is a correct saying that goes along with this and that is “God has
no grandchildren,” God only has children.
An example of going through this narrow gate alone is to picture a
turnstile, which only lets one person to go through it. The Jewish people are mistaken to believe
that all of the people of Israel will enter into heaven. “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned
it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).
This verse is speaking of Abraham and it states that he believed in the
Lord, and then God counted it to him as now being righteous. Abraham did this alone, and so this does not
mean that all of his descendants will be saved.
John
MacArthur writes “Furthermore, God’s gate is so narrow that we must go through
it naked. It is the gate of self-denial,
through which one cannot carry the baggage of sin and self-will. When we sing, ‘Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to Thy cross I cling,’ we are testifying to the way of the gospel. The way of Christ is the way of the cross,
and the way of the cross is the way of self-denial. ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him
deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall
lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it’ (Matt.
16:24-25).”
I
am sure that most of you know the story of when Jesus confronted the rich young
ruler which is found in the gospel of Luke.
His problem was not that he was rich, but that his riches owned him,
therefore he would not accept the offer of salvation that Jesus gave to him as
his riches controlled him. Jesus wanted
him to love Him with all that he had, and MacArthur writes about this: “To love God with everything we have is to
jettison self-self confidence, self-achievement, self-righteousness, and
self-satisfaction. ‘Unless you are
converted and become like children,’ Jesus said, ‘you shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 18:13). The
mark of a child is dependence, utter dependency for everything he has. Saving faith is not merely an act of the
mind; it counts the cost (Luke 14:28); it is also a stripping of the self and
crying, as did the tax gatherer in the Temple, ‘God, be merciful to me, the
sinner!’ (Luke 18:13). Easy believism is
not scriptural believism. The narrow
gate means that those who enter do so stripped of all they possess, rather than
adding Jesus to their accumulated treasures.
Salvation is the exchange of all that we are for all that He is) see
Matt. 13:44-46). And as He did for Job, the
Lord will give back much more.” “44 The
kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and
hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and
buys that field. 45 "Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, 46 and upon finding one pearl of great value, he
went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matt. 13:44-46).
There
is more things to discuss about “the narrow gate” but we will do this in our
next SD, Lord willing, as we try to finish up this section at that time.
2/3/2021 9:28 AM
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