Sadly enough, looking in from the outside of the Kingdom of Heaven, often times people get discouraged because they believe the path to Heaven is extremely narrow. They believe Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who died on the cross and bore all of our sins, being the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one comes to the father except through Him is very narrow minded.

John 14:6 reads ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Or that Jesus is the bread of Life

John 6:35 reads “³⁵And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”

Or that Jesus is the Light of the world and whoever follows Him shall never walk in darkness.

John 8:12 reads “¹² Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

People who don’t have a relationship with Jesus the Christ, our Lord and Savior believe these to be very narrow and there are other methods and paths to the Kingdom.

However, why would God send His ONLY Son, which He loved, to be sacrificed for us if it wasn’t the ONLY way? If there was another way, God would not have sacrificed His son. John 3:16 reads “¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” It is very disrespectful to God to say, although Your Son died for us, we will create our own manmade methods to get to your kingdom. What we fail to realize there is nothing spiritual that man can make, and anything physical that we can make over a period of time, God can tear it down in less than a second.

It seems ridiculous that we say the path to the Kingdom of God is too narrow through Christ Jesus. He did not shed his blood, have His loved poured out, only as one potential method only for those who decide to take that path through His name. If there was another way, He would not have gone through all the pain and suffering He went through to redeem us of our sins.

In Matthew 26:39, Jesus went a little farther in the garden at Gethsemane and fell on His face and prayed saying “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” Jesus saw the pain, suffering, torture, and horror He was about to endure for the sins of the world, which He had no part in. Even He, Christ Jesus, asked the Father, His Father, if there was any other way and when He received no response, He knew He was the ONLY way.

If we had to sacrifice our life or a life of one of our loved ones to save just one person, and after it was done, it was said well you didn’t have to do it because there are many other ways it could have been done, it would be a total sign of disrespect. That is what we are doing to Jesus when we try to say there are many ways to the Kingdom.

So in actuality, the path to the Kingdom of God is not narrow at all. Through believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, our Rock and Redeemer, He makes a wide path for us to walk on. However, it is a very specific path. Many times we confuse the difference between narrow and specific. A few definitions of narrow are: not wide, extremely thin, restricted, limited size or scope, constricted, and tight. Now, the definitions for the word specific are: distinguishing something particular or special or unique and stated explicitly or in details, or simply put “direct.”

Now, with these definitions, God’s instructions to come to Him were very specific, but not narrow at all. If the path was narrow, we would not have the freedom in Christ that we have today. However, it is clearly stated that He is the path to the Kingdom. The direct and only path, however that path is wide with freedom. We are free to be used the way our Lord wants to use us to carry out His will. We are children of God, our Father, waiting for instructions, specific instructions to carry out His will.

Saying the path is narrow is absurd. In retrospect, the path to hell and eternal damnation is much narrower than the path to eternal life. Living in continuous sin without repentance is the narrowest path to eternal damnation. However, that path is not specific at all because Satan uses many tools and falsehoods and lies to cause us to carry out his evil intentions and not trust our Lord.

With the new technology, we have maps and GPS systems to lead us to a specific location or destination, or to locate exactly where we are. However, without the map or the GPS system, we get lost and turn down dark narrow streets or alleys and we are lost and don’t know what to expect at the end of the road.

This is the same with our spiritual lives. Our Bibles are our maps, our GPS systems, to the heart of Christ, to arrive at our eternal destination, the Kingdom of Heaven, to see Jesus face to face, and hand him our resume of how we lived our lives for Him, in His image, so we can hear the sweet words from His mouth:  “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Thank you God for the specific instructions you sent us, your only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and for loving us so much that you sacrificed His life, to redeem us by allowing Him to be crucified on a cross, with arms open WIDE, pouring out His love upon us as He returned home to You. Thank you Jesus for your faithfulness to Your Father, and Your faithfulness to us that you carried out the Will of the Father and died for us although we did not deserve it.