TWO ROADS

“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 7:13b-14 NIV)

Our culture… is all about celebrating ourselves, finding more life for ourselves, [making more happiness for ourselves]. But no matter how hard we look, none of the maps lead there.

We spend years heading down the road of living for self instead of dying to it, and it’s difficult to admit we’ve made a wrong choice. We’ve gone too many miles. We’ve invested too much in the journey. So we double down and step on the gas, [rather than repent of our ways and turn around]... When we’ve chosen the wrong road, we don’t like to acknowledge it to ourselves or to anyone else…

There are two different paths. One path is narrow, difficult, and marked “death,” but leads to life. The other path is broad, crowded, and marked “life,” but it leads to death. In Matthew 16, Jesus tells us what we can expect when we follow Him down the narrower road:

“Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it.” 

-- Kyle Idelman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”

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