October 2-The Narrow Door

Happy Tuesday friends. I hope you’re having a good day. After I wrote yesterday’s devotion, I went back and re-read the verses again that preceded the passage I used. And i just kept reading it over and over. In multiple translations trying to wrap my brain around it. 


In Luke 13:24, Jesus is speaking to a random person as He is traveling through the towns and villages on His was to Jerusalem. The person asked “Lord are only a few people going to be saved?”


““Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail. When the master of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. You will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Lord, open the door for us!’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘But we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ And he will reply, ‘I tell you, I don’t know you or where you come from. Get away from me, all you who do evil.’” Luke‬ ‭13:24-27‬ ‭NLT‬‬


I don’t know any other way to read this except for exactly what Jesus says here. So many will believe they are fine. Believe they know Jesus and call on Him. Use His name. They believe they know the Lord because...they grew up in church, they are church members, they do good things, they know the Bible, and 100 other reasons. But the truth is, we don’t earn our place to walk inside the door before the Master closes it. The only way to be on the inside when the door is shut is through the grace and the blood of Jesus Christ. Period. No other way. And Jesus says “many will try, but few will enter”. 


I do believe there is a heaven. I believe it is a very real place. But I also believe that everyone who thinks they are going there probably are not. Jesus said so and I believe in Jesus and what He says. I think we have an obligation to friends and family around us to remind them to “work hard” because that that door is narrow. 


Dear Jesus, thank you Father for loving me and for providing a door for us to enter in. Thank you for being a God of second chances so that when we fall down, you pick us up, dust us off and help us start walking again toward the door. We praise you today Lord and give you glory. Help us to hear your voice and to follow you. You are good and you alone are holy. Hallelujah and amen. 


Love you dear one,

Pam



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