What is the Narrow Gate? How do we receive life if the way is hard?
We named our Boutique the Narrow Gate Boutique because we found it to be an interesting part of scripture in Matthew 7 that depicts the real truth of life and life after death. On one hand, you have the wide gate and the easy way that leads to Hell; and on the other hand, the narrow gate and the narrow way that leads to Heaven.
Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. So where does that leave us? In short, it leaves us ALL as law breaking sinners who have sinned against the one true God. The righteousness needed to enter into Heaven, is not a righteous that we possess in ourselves. No matter how much we attempt to adhere to the law of God, we will forever fall short (as did the scribes and Pharisees). Many times we even attempt to add to the law of God, thinking it makes us “extra Holy” to some extent, or “more acceptable” to God.
The righteousness we need is found in none other than Jesus Christ. In the book of Roman’s (chapter 3, v21-26) it is explained like this:
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, but it is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; for the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
We enter into this Narrow Gate, and Narrow Way by the wonderful grace of God, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. No amount of works, good deeds, etc. will allow us to enter in. As a sinner charged as guilty and facing the broad way of destruction and ultimate damnation, the good news of the Gospel shines the grace of God on us and opens the eyes of one that was once dead in sin and closed in sleep, to awake to the newness of life that is found in Christ. The “Narrow Way” is not an easy way, or a life of comfort by any stretch of the imagination; but it is the only way, and to know that you are at peace with God because of Jesus Christ, is the best news imaginable!
“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend.
For I perceive the way to life lies here.
Come, pluck up, heart; let's neither faint nor fear.
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
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