Middle Life

Pastor and author Francis Chan told of a group within the church he pastored. He'd been preaching on the cross, commitment to Christ, and holiness of life. The group that came to him were alarmed. They felt that his preaching was "too radical." They feared he was becoming a fanatic about it all. They urged him to take a more "realistic" approach. They said that there was a "middle road" that he should take. A flexible road. A less threatening and frightening road. They asked for a road that Jesus Christ never made any allowance for. He still doesn't.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:14 that we're to enter into the narrow gate and to walk the narrow road. He said the other choice was to take the wide road. A road that would lead to the destruction of all who took it. We are conditioned, apart from Christ, to want the wide road. We see it as freedom. Freedom from all the rules and limitations that our flesh despises and we think will suffocate us. The flesh will never choose the narrow gate and the road it leads to. That comes only by the leading of His Holy Spirit. Here's the catch; the deception, if you will, of the so-called wide road. It doesn't lead to freedom at all. Invariably it leads to a life lived for the sole benefit of self. It wants more, demands more, consumes more. The wide road consumes us, and eventually, we are made captive to our desires, which so easily become habits and addictions. We discover, often too late, that we were never free at all.

Many sitting in church each week know this. They reject the wide road, but at the same time, they're very leery of the narrow gate. They're like the group who came to Chan. They want an alternative to both. So they create a middle road. Not so wide, in their thinking, as to lead to ruin, but not so narrow either so as to limit the realization of their goals and desires, many of which are totally centered on self. Somehow, they never see that Jesus never gave anyone this option. Ultimately, the middle road leads to the same place that the wide road does. Too many never realize this until it's too late.

How can this be? The answer isn't complicated. Middle of the road "believers" seek out middle road churches and pastors. Places where their flesh can be comfortable and not overly troubled by the call of Christ to take up their cross and follow Him. The question for each of us is, are we a middle roader and are we a part of a middle road church? If we haven't been confronted with this question, we will be. We are coming into days when the middle road will have disappeared. We'll find it was never there at all. We either walk His road and His way....or we don't. There'll be no third option.

May we die out to our fear of the narrow gate and way. To walk it does involve the carrying of His cross, which becomes our cross. But it isn't a way which restricts freedom. It bestows. It is, as one man put it, " a narrow road that leads to a wide life." On it we find the fullness of His abundance and presence. We find freedom from the obsession with satisfying our fleshly desires which are never really satisfied at all. They always want more. We find in Him the true riches that we were made for and have yearned for. We once thought the wide road led to what our hearts desired, but the narrow gate leads us to discover all these riches were always to be found in Him. Peace, joy, love, life, and infinitely more.

If you've not yet discovered the narrow gate, I pray that you will. Do not shrink from it. Enter in. Discover the life you were created for. Experience the narrow road that leads to the widest of lives.

Blessings,

Pastor O