I just moved. Moving isn’t fun. One of the least fun things is finding out that something you want to take with you doesn’t fit through the door. That happened with both tables we were going to take. We took the legs off one and ended up leaving the other behind. I wished our old apartment’s door was much wider.

Jesus tells us to enter through a narrow door. This reminds me of the church that marks the spot where He was born. Constantine made a nice big door, but it got filled in to keep pagan Persians from riding in whenever they pleased. Now you need to bend down to go in. It’s not easy. Nor is it supposed to be. Christianity is about humility. That’s the name of that door: The Door of Humility.

Humility isn’t something we’re good at. Teens struggle with it, and so do adults. We prefer pride, don’t we? We like to think we’re better than everybody else. We think we deserve to get good stuff and only good stuff. We think we deserve nothing bad. We want to claim we deserve an A+ when we really only deserve a C-. We’d get mad if we got cut from varsity to play on JV when really we aren’t good enough to play at all. That’s kinda how pride works.

In our religious lives, it works this way: It finds a way to insert self into salvation. That is, it finds a way to try to make self part of the equation of getting saved. Maybe it’s “I’ll do it all myself. I can earn it.” Perhaps it’s “Jesus’ Death gets me part of the way, but I gotta do the rest.” Perhaps it’s “I need to do something to get to Jesus, then He’ll do the rest.” Perhaps it’s “I don’t need anything from anybody.” But that’s the wide road that leads to hell.

What’s the straight and narrow gate? His Cross. Believe He died for you. Believe He’s been punished for all your sins. Believe He’s won for you everlasting life. Salvation is all His work. It isn’t yours at all. Just trust Him. He even provides you that trust. You trust Him because The Holy Ghost gave you that trust. He’s humbled you to death to confess your sins, and exalts you to eternal life through Jesus’ Death for you. Now on the last day you won’t be humbled with those who trust themselves for salvation. You will join Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the eternal beautiful home, far more beautiful than this place. First last, and last first.