Whose Way Do We Want
The Lord’s insight. What God restricts man want to allow. What God allows man want to broaden.
Genesis 3:6: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”
Matthew 7:13: “Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
I believe Adam and Eve had many times seen the tree from which God told them not to eat. How else would they know to stay away from its fruit? But after being tempted by the devil, Eve saw the tree in a different light; now she wanted to have the knowledge of good and evil. She wanted what the devil said more than what God said.
So, she and Adam ate the fruit. They decided to follow their way to a place of their choosing rather than to follow a path God chose for them to a place God chose for them. To them God’s command was a restriction that kept them from enjoying all that life had to offer. They wanted to be allowed to live life to its fullest.
In Matthew 7, Jesus talks to us about destruction and about the path we take to life. He tells us life is something we find and enter into by our living. So, we must restrain ourselves so that we live on a narrow path that leads to a narrow gate that opens to life eternal. He wants us to learn to deny our own way of living by restricting ourselves to the way and the path God has chosen for us.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be focused on living life to its fullest when we don’t really know what that means. Perhaps life can only be had when we learn to deny ourselves and to restrict our way of living to that which God has said. This, Jesus warns us, is what will lead us to find the fullest life possible.
In a way, God tells us that what seems like restrictions to us are actually His allowances for us. Because what He allows for us is always good for us and it always leads to life. And like this, we must recognize that the thing we would allow for ourselves is the thing God will always restrict for us because our choices of allowances will almost always lead to death.
But we are like Adam and Eve in that we want to live with more allowances than with restrictions. We believe it is actually more destructive to live a narrow way each day so that we never find a full life. So, we justify our own way of living by broadening the path and gate God has reserved for life.
We see this idea of taking the broad way of living almost everywhere. When God describes marriage as between a man and a woman, we see that as a restriction. So, we broaden the idea of marriage to include a relationship between two people of any sex. We want to allow for rather than to restrict from.
Also, in a similar way, we see many people today who believe the church should represent the people of the communities in which the church is located. The church will encourage people to come as they are without the expectation that they must change who they are. The church in essence is changed by the people more than the people are changed by the Word of God.
We want the life behind the straight and narrow way to be had by allowing a broader and wider way of living. And so that our way of living is not condemned by others, we legalize the broad way and the wide gate so that those who follow the straight and narrow way must allow for a broader wider way.
One way to know if your way of living is the way God wants you to live is to ask yourself if a law is required to allow or to restrict how you live. God tells us to love one another. We don’t need a law to allow or to restrict loving others. Loving others is a straight and narrow way of living that leads to life.
God also describes marriage as between a man and a woman. We don’t need a law to accept what God says about marriage. This is God’s way. This is the straight and the narrow way of living that leads to life.
Learn to live in a way that is delivered from what you want to what God wants. God’s Way is always better than our ways.
Live a Delivered Life.
Live Delivered 