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Humans are intriniscally religious, whether or not they believe in god(s). We just have a hard time comprehending the concept of grace (unearned kindness) and rest (giving up on trying to achieve and attain through our own effort).

It’s understandable in a way: what feeling is greater than stepping back and looking at something we sweat and bled to achieve, and getting to say “I did that!”? It’s one of the best feelings ever. That is until we realize that some things cannot be earned and must be gifted. When we encounter something like that we are in trouble because we are trained to earn, not to receive for free. Even if we take a gift, we immediately start planning in our head how we can repay what we “owe” to the person who gave it. That in itself nullifies the gesture of gift-giving and becomes an insult to the gift-giver (Hebrews 10:28-29).

If we cannot get over that impulse to work for what we gain then we risk missing out on the greatest gift of all: eternal life.

Therefore it’s not the religion that requires you to do more that is hardest to follow, but the one that requires you to do less. To attain salvation by that kind of religion we must learn to get over ourselves (or as Jesus put it “deny yourselves”). And self, as most of us have learned through life experience, is often the hardest obstacle of them all to conquer.

It’s why Jesus and scripture spoke so much about dying. For the only way to conquer self is to follow Jesus to his cross and let that old, religious self be crucified. And when you share in his death you will also share in his resurrection and be gifted a new self, made in his image and given his nature. (2 Cor. 5:17)

it’s not the religion that requires you to do more that is hardest to follow, but the one that requires you to do less.

Understanding this, it’s easy to see why he said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14)

The wide gate, the broad road is the natural thinking of man, that says he must work for and earn what he receives for himself–that including salvation. That man asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That man is incapable of receiving the life that only comes from Jesus because all that comes from Him only comes by grace. That man cannot receive salvation from Jesus because he is determined to create salvation for himself. Finally, that man walks away sad because all he has ever understood about life is what he has earned for himself, and he cannot give it up.

But the small gate, the narrow road that is hard to find, is denying yourself (the natural ways of man) and following the way of God demonstrated in the life of Jesus. Stop trying to keep your life or you will lose it, but “lose your life for my sake and you will find it.”

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” – Proverbs 14:12

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