THE NARROWEST GATE

There is no way to approach the idea of life without considering Jesus’ bold and unnatural comment, “He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39), and “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). Many people believe that this narrow way is speaking of how narrow the way is to get into heaven, but Jesus never mentions heaven. He mentions getting ‘into life.’ He says the way to find life is a ‘narrow gate.’ The way to find life is ‘whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.’ This is the gospel of the kingdom, where self-realization is by self-renunciation.

There is not a second, or third, or any other way. Many people talk of self-expression who have no self to express. They have inward chaos and call it a self. No one can express themselves until, by losing themselves, they have found a self to express. We can knock and bang at the doors of life all we want, but in the end, if we want to find life, we must find it by the narrow door of self-losing. Jesus could say, ‘I am the Life’ because he went through the narrowest of narrow doors of self-losing. The narrow gate is not life, it leads to life, just like the wide gate is not destruction, but it leads to destruction.

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Jesus