Few Find It

Consider climbing Mount Kilimanjaro via the Rongai Route. Approaching Kibo from the north, this is the least climbed of all the routes on Mount Kilimanjaro but not because it is in any way inferior, it's just that most folks get excited about the more popular paths. Rongai tends to be forgotten . . . there are few that find it.

The narrow way, that leads to life is like that. It is mentioned at the same time as the narrow gate. We read them as the same.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:13-14

The choice between life and destruction is made at conversion. We choose Christ and his sacrifice and we choose life. We choose to turn aside from the broad road and to enter by a small gate. That is all true, but there is more to these verses than that. There is a small, narrow gate, but there is also a narrow way that leads to life. The way to life is not limited to a moment of choice. It is a real path with a distance to be travelled. Jesus is that narrow gate and also the narrow way. He said:

I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:9-10

To have life is to find pasture and abundance. To follow Jesus as the narrow path is to come to the Father.

. . . “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 14:6

We come into the Father’s house through Christ as we journey. A gate is a gate and a path is a path. Jesus is both, and the Father is the goal. When we limit Christianity and the ministry of Christ to conversion and the Cross, we miss the journey he would take us on. Though many enter through the gate, how many experience deep dissatisfaction and disappointment with their faith and even their Saviour because they have not continued? Christ is more amazing than we previously thought.

Therefore He is able also to save forever [completely or to the uttermost] those who draw near to God [the Father] through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Hebrews 7:25

We need to allow for the narrowness of the gate and path, but also for the length of the journey on that narrow way to life. The pathway to pasture and abundance is not behind us. It stands before us, and leads us to the Father’s house. Will we submit to its rigors? Will we press forward to find him and “in the Beloved” receive blessings from his abundant heavenly stores?

Although many pass through the narrow gate, there are few that find this narrow pathway to the Father and to the abundant life he offers.

. . . the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Matthew 7:14

The narrowness of the gate bars entry to those who will not submit to its restrictions. The narrowness of the path perhaps reflects a different characteristic. Is it because few find it that the road is narrow? Is it because few feet have formed its shape that it is described this way? That sounds more like the Rongai Route that ascends Mount Kilimanjaro. For both these paths, their narrowness speaks not of restriction but of a little realised experience, and an invitation upward.