Are You the Few?

Missey Butler

CBN.com -- Have you ever heard a statement that so challenged you, that you just knew you couldn’t rest until you discovered the meaning or located the answer?

That’s exactly how one particular verse took hold of me early on in my Christian walk. The verse is found in Matthew 7:13-14 and it says:

"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."

When I read those words it was almost like a spiritual ball and chain had been purposely placed around my heart. I have discovered that God can very lovingly and relentlessly compel us to a deeper understanding of His ways.

It was those last six words,“few there be that find it” that stubbornly held me captive and kept me in a place of close introspection in my day-to-day walk. Every time I read those words, I would be gripped with the question, “Am I one of the few included in that group?

I was always very inquisitive as to who made up this select group of people and what exactly were their qualifications? I would continually quiz myself as to whether or not I was getting closer to becoming one of the few included in that group. As time went by, the desire became so big inside of me, that it culminated into a non-stop heart cry!

Then one day, it was as if my eyes had been opened for the very first time and I “saw” that the Kingdom of God was not way off in the distant sky somewhere, but rather a dwelling place located right on the inside of me. (Luke 17:21). Now that was quite a revelation. I soon began to understand that the many and various dealings of God in my life were meant to produce in me a type of “narrowing,” if you will.

My road was no longer the broad road of selfish will that it had always been. God’s steady hand of refinement, (which was meant to decrease me) was gradually merging me into a small, one lane, narrow road, which was leading me to the very gateway of life, spoken of by Christ Himself! (John 14:6).

I heard one time about a popular book that made it to the best seller list in the early 1980’s entitled, The Road Less Traveled, and I couldn’t help but think about that book as I sat down to express these thoughts.Yes, God calls each one of us to walk the straight and narrow, but what He calls us to do, He also provides the ways and the means to do it. Our human nature will always choose the easier, softer way (the road “well” traveled) and regretfully, that is the broad road that many prefer to go down. But that is not the Highway of Holiness, the solitary road that leads us directly to the cross.

When you stand before Him on that bright and glorious day, will you be counted among the few? If so, you will be forever grateful that you decided to make that divine detour!

"And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that way." (Isaiah 35:8)

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