Roads
Scripture Reading — Matthew 7:13-14
“Broad is the road that leads to destruction … Narrow [is] the road that leads to life.”
Matthew 7:13-14
As we think about our life journey with Jesus, the Way, we find that Jesus has lots of helpful guidelines for us. Our Scripture for today comes from his “Sermon on the Mount,” which is like a guidebook for everyday living in God’s kingdom.
Sometimes this style of living is called “the Christian counter-culture.” That’s because the God-honoring lifestyle of following Jesus often goes against popular opinion. In other words, we take the road less traveled.
Taking the narrow road doesn’t mean we are narrow-minded or we just prefer to go against what “everyone else is doing.” It means, quite simply, that we do what we do because God calls us to do what is right.
Jesus indicates that many people want to follow an “anything goes” lifestyle. But in that kind of world people tend to be selfish, putting their own desires ahead of everything else, and lots of other people get hurt. Eventually that kind of life leads to self-destruction, so it hurts the selfish individual too. How many lives, marriages, families, communities, and societies have been harmed and even destroyed because people have insisted on going their own way?
Jesus calls us to enter “the gate … that leads to life.” In John 10:7 he calls himself “the gate.” He alone opens the way to life—now and for eternity!
Forgive us, Lord, for wanting to go our own way. Have your way with us; mold us and remake us, guiding us to do what’s right in all we do. Amen.
About the author — Gerrit J. Bomhof
Gary Bomhof is pastor of First Christian Reformed Church, Red Deer, Alberta. He and his wife, Jo-Ann, have four children and five grandchildren.
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