DAILY DEVOTIONAL – November 23, 2020
“Narrow Minded”
Prayer: Lord, Jesus Christ, You lived boldly and faithfully to Your Heavenly Father, remaining perfect in all of Your ways and all of Your words. Even as You remained silent before the wicked men who falsely accused You and crucified You, Your silence was found to be without fault. Help us, Lord, to follow after You and live and speak in truth no matter what the cost, knowing that the reward You have earned for us in heaven is great. Amen.
Scripture: Luke 13:23-30
23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30 And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
Devotion – “Narrow Minded”
Jesus always had a way of seeing through a person’s questions and getting right to the heart of their question; or right to the heart of what they should be asking. As Jesus was making his way from town to town preaching repentance and salvation, someone listening asked him, “Will those who are saved be few?” Notice how Jesus completely changes the subject of the question when He answers. “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” While the questioner asked about “those” people, Jesus pointed the question right back at the one asking the question. “You strive to enter through the narrow door.” In other words, don’t worry yourself about how many will or will not be saved, instead, worry about whether you will be saved.
One of the biggest complaints people have against Christianity is that it is too exclusive – it claims to be the only truth and the only way to God. What they fail to understand, or what they fail to acknowledge, is that truth by definition is exclusive. You cannot know what is true without knowing what is false, and if something is true then, by definition, anything and everything else that is not the truth is false. To reject Christianity because it is too exclusive and not inclusive enough, is itself exclusive. It is a self-defeating argument.
I don’t have to tell you that sharing the Truth of Jesus Christ is a fast-pass to conflict much of the time. That’s probably why many of you are hesitant to talk about Jesus and share the very truth you confess to be true and the only way people might be saved from death and damnation. To be truly loving is to tell people the truth even if it hurts. We should never share the truth of Christ’s love in a hurtful way, but always tell the truth.
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “A gospel which seeks to go after and please men will be welcomed by men. The true gospel of the grace of God, needs a divine operation upon the heart and mind to instead change a man and make a man willing to receive into his utmost soul such a distasteful truth. My dear Brethren, do not try to make the Gospel tasteful to carnal minds. Hide not the offensiveness of the Gospel, lest you make it of none effect. The sharp angles and corners of the gospel are its strength: to round them off is to deprive the Gospel of power. Toning down is not the increase of strength, but the death of it.”
Jesus said in response to His questioner, “24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’” The same Lord who willingly laid down His life for even those that crucified Him, loved this questioner enough to tell them the truth – that Jesus is the only way to salvation and any other way will lead to death. The narrow door is narrow because it is the truth, and by nature, we want “our truth” not The Truth. This is why Jesus says strive to enter through the narrow door.
What does Jesus mean that I should strive and work hard? How much do I have to do? What boxes do I need to check off to prove myself a Christian? What’s the cut-off? Does God grade on a curve? Do I need to strive to meet perfection, or do I just need to strive to make the cut by being relatively better than those around me?
Most English translations have Jesus saying “strive” or “make every effort” or “work hard” to enter through the narrow door. Though this is somewhat the sense of the word being used in the Greek, a more exact translation would be “agonize” over entering the narrow door. In fact, the Greek word translated as “strive” is the word “agonenzo.”
King David, who experienced plenty of agony in his life because of his own sin, was said to be a man after God’s own heart. This same King David wrote in Psalm 51:
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Those who will enter the narrow door agonize over the fact that they are helplessly lost and without hope in and of themselves. The few that enter through the narrow door agonize over their sinfulness and their depravity. Those who enter through the narrow door confess their sins to God and plead for His mercy. Those who enter through the narrow door respond to the offensiveness of the Truth of Jesus by dying to self because they know that no human has the ability to save themselves and that our desires, our thoughts, our ways and our religion is the problem. Those who enter through the narrow door find themselves more often in repentance with a broken heart, and yet, those who enter through the narrow door are not depressed in their agonizing over sin because through faith in Christ they have received the joy of forgiveness freely given by God to those who repent and seek Him.
Jesus said in verse 30, “And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” The ones who truly understand and celebrate their insignificance are the ones who will truly understand and celebrate the significance of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and the significance of their eternal inheritance that has been laid up for them already in the Book of Life.
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotional, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
