Are you on the road less traveled?

Matthew 7:13-14

“Enter through the narrow gate. For 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 7:13-14

Robert Frost wrote, in his poem The Road Not Taken: “I shall be telling this with a sigh some ages and ages hence; two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Frost wasn't referring to the broad and narrow roads of Matthew 7:13-14 but if we take the narrow road, the road less traveled, it will truly make all the difference in our lives.

Obviously the small gate and the narrow road lead to Heaven while the wide gate and the broad road lead to hell. We all start out on the broad road. We are all born sinners. Romans chapter 3, verse 23, tells us that, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. In other words, all we have to do to end up in hell is nothing, just by traveling down that broad road. But in order to get on the narrow road to heaven, we must make a conscious decision to change. It is not true, as many people think, that all roads eventually lead to Heaven. Proverbs 14:12 says, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death”.

The broad gate might be entitled “self-sufficiency”, while the narrow gate might be named “surrender” or “commitment”. 

Many people visualize the two roads side by side but the people on them are going in different directions. Others imagine that the narrow road runs right through the middle of the broad road, but again with the people on the two roads going in opposite directions. It is true that Christians on the narrow road are, in a sense, swimming upstream or going up the down staircase - going against the general grain of society. 

Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 No other way will lead to heaven. Only faith in Jesus Christ will shift us from the broad, easy, popular way of the world that is headed toward destruction and put us on the narrow way that will take us to an eternal home in heaven. 

Our present choice of which road we take has eternal consequences, so now is the time for us to choose wisely. Moses challenged the Israelites, and us, with his words found in Deuteronomy 30:19-20a, “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.” 

I hope each of us who reads these words will take the narrow road, the one less traveled. It will make all the difference! 

Father, we are all sinners and started out traveling on the broad road to destruction, but you sent Jesus so we can move over to the narrow road and go in the opposite direction to spend eternity with you. Thank you; thank you; thank you. Amen.