The Bible
starts with a picture of the “Garden of Eden” (Genesis 1) as a place of
perfection where God’s glory was seen and where God himself walked among his
people (Genesis 2:8). It was “paradise”
in every sense of the word.
“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).
After sin
entered the world (Genesis 3), another picture starts to emerge. The focus shifts from “God and his glory” to
the people and their desires. Eventually,
they get together and say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower
that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (Genesis
11:4). Notice the words “us”, “ourselves”,
“we” and “ourselves” (again) in that sentence.
God has been moved out of the spotlight.
Those two
pictures, the “Garden of Eden” on one hand and the “Tower of Babel” on the
other, represent the two paths that we can choose in this life. One is “God-honouring” and the other is “self-honouring”. One is “outward-focused” and the other is ‘inward-focused”. Life is either filled with pronouns like “Him”,
“you” and “yours” (thinking primarily about God and others) or it is dominated
by words like “me”, “myself” and “I”.
Interestingly,
Jesus constantly put people at this crossroads and asked them to choose their
path. For example, Nicodemus, who came
to see Jesus secretly at night, is told that he must make a stand, be “born
again” and “walk in the light” (John 3).
A rich young man, whose devotion to God was not quite as strong as his
devotion to his “stuff”, is told, “Sell everything you have and give to the
poor… then come follow me” (Mark 10:21).
Matthew is challenged to leave his crooked, but lucrative,
tax-collecting business so that he could follow Christ (Matthew 9:9-13). Those choices were difficult and each of them
came with a significant cost, but Jesus never wavered or bargained with
people. He continued to say, “Follow me,
or follow your own path”, because that was (and is) the decision that each
person had to make. It has to be one or
the other. It cannot be both.
Even as I
write this it sounds too harsh and too strict.
I really want to modify the message and make it easier. However, the fact is that there are the only
two choices and they lead to very different places.
Which path
are you on?
“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).
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