Matins Devotion: October 3, 2024

Matthew 7:13-29

On the one hand, salvation is an easy road to walk. On the other hand, it’s profoundly difficult. On the one hand, salvation is a wide and inclusive road. On the other, it’s narrow and exclusive.

So salvation is, in a sense, easy. It’s not a road you have to pave, or a road you have to find. Jesus set the path before you. He shed His blood for you to pave it. He forgave your sins and clothed you in His perfection that made you worthy to enter the house of God. That’s all easy. But following Him isn’t because your pride hates the idea that Jesus gave you a solution anyone could possess. Likewise, Satan wants you to believe what he convinced Adam and Eve to believe, that your God is holding out on you, that there’s something greater to the right or the left of your Lord’s footsteps. So resisting the temptation to carve your own path, the temptation to reject pure doctrine and to chase after sin, that’s what makes the road hard.

Likewise, the road of Christ is broad and inclusive, in a sense. Christ has shed His blood for everyone. He forgives the sins of the mighty and the lowly, the rich and the poor, those of every tribe and tongue. He cherishes them all. There is no one Christ does not want walking with Him on the path to the kingdom. But that path is also narrow because a man can’t remain on it if he won’t die to himself. A man cannot possess the love of God if he refuses to love his neighbor he refuses to turn from his iniquities.

So don’t reject the steps given to you by the Holy Spirit. Don’t make the easy and broad road hard and narrow for yourself. Stay with your Lord. Turn from your sins. Love God and your neighbor. And in all things, trust that your Lord has paved the path. He’s destroyed your sins, made you worthy to live with Him forever, and given you the right to be called a child of God. So keep walking that path until your Lord embraces you fully on the last day.