Matthew 7:13-14 KJV
(13) Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: (14) Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Luke 13:24 KJV
Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
Those who ask for verifiable beliefs are being absurd. By faith, we believe that Jesus created mankind and the environment to sustain life and we hold for real the promise of everlasting life to those of us who believe in Him and overcome the god of atheism (unlike the atheist, he happens to know that God does exist). When we are asked to prove those beliefs, we are asked to petition Jesus to recreate the whole universe repeatedly for the edification of each who denies the claims of our faith. Isn't that pure absurdity?
When the discussion against belief in God caresses absurdity, God prevails.
The call to join the Ekklesia of Jesus is made by any means of witnessing: person to person, radio, internet, television etc... To those of us who receive the call and accept the invitation, Jesus must reveal Himself and the Father and open up our minds in order to know Him and to understand His Gospel that prepares us to regain the lost Immortality (Read Matthew 11:27; 16:17; Luke 10:22; John 7:4; 14:21). According to those passages, no intellect can enable us to grasp the Godhead and His Gospel, and to adhere to His rules (doctrines) of engagement (Ephesians 6:12) that prepare us to be victorious over sin as Jesus was victorious over sin for our sake. We, the invitees (Matthew :14) who signed up to "try out" for the Kingdom of Jesus, must be enabled by Jesus Himself (Luke 24:32,45) to be vigilant while we carry His cross (Luke 9:23) in our daily routine. Even though we signed up, it is not by our own resolution and merit that we will enter the Kingdom of God nor by our own intelligence. We will attend Ekklesia sabbath after sabbath but we will miss the promise of salvation if Jesus does not reveal Himself and The Father to us so that we know and do His true will (Matthew 7:21). Our salvation will hang in the hands of our preacher, rabbi, or priest, hoping that he is not one of the many false prophets who throw many astray (Matthew 7:22-23). That is why it is written that many are invited to sign up for the Kingdom but few are chosen (Matthew 22:14; Luke 13:23-24). While the intellect can never enable us to grasp Jesus and the Father and His Kingdom, Jesus calls upon our reason (Isaiah 1:18; Acts 18:4) to navigate through (2 Corinthians 13:5) the obstacles of false doctrines of men (Mark 7:7) on the hazardous road (Matthew 11:12; ) that leads to the Salvation offered by Jesus. Thus, we must ask Jesus in prayer to open up our minds to keep us in the right path so that we are not "carried about with every wind of doctrine" (Ephesians 4:13) and be lost.
John the Baptist came out of nowhere and started preaching baptism. Most of his countrymen must have been asking what to do with that new doctrine. Many went to him to get baptized and the baptism of John turned out to have been the key to open up eyes and heart to believe in Jesus (Luke 7:29-30)
Jesus led by example. He also got baptized (Matthew 3:13-15). Otherwise, we would be saying "Jesus did not get baptized, why should I?"
As you have read, Jesus calls everyone, whoever you are, to believe in Him and offers us everlasting life, that is, immortality. It is important to ask the question "Who does Jesus exclude in His offer?". The answer is that nobody is excluded.
Hence, the invitation is to the lowest human being to the highest one. Think about the lowest human you may know and do not know, Jesus asks that vile human being to believe in Him so that he can be saved from our lost world and live eternally. Think about the highest human being that you may know or do not know, Jesus asks that formidable individual to believe in Him so that he can be rescued from our lost word and to regain the lost immortality. The world is considered already lost because Jesus was sent to save it.
The salvation that Jesus offers the world is only valid with Him and through Him as verse 17 implies. There is nobody else involved in the pledge to validate and redeem it, not even Mary His mother because the only requirement to be saved from our lost world and receive everlasting life is the belief in Him, Jesus, the Saviour (John 3:16.17; Acts 4:12).
Thus, Jesus does not care about you think you are, He is calling on us to believe in Him because He knows that our world and all that is in it had been lost. Our world was so badly lost and it is so bad that Jesus had to die to save all of us who believe in Him.
Jesus teaches a lot of things for us to keep observing and living to overcome our doomed fate.
When we sign up to believe in Jesus and start learning about Him or from Him, listening, or reading about Him, we come to realize that to believe in Jesus takes more than lip confession of belief and that we must act in case His rules of living may not square off with our ethics of living. In the eventuality that our ethics of life check out with His doctrines, then we have to worry about false teachings or doctrines of men. False doctrines do invalidate the promises of salvation and immortality that we were offered as we read in Mark 7:7.
Thus, we have to earnestly fetch through our belief system for the doctrines that are unsettling.
Jesus asks us to believe in Him so He can save us from our lost word and thus grants us eternal life. It turns out, as you have read in Luke 14:27, that we must bear our cross and follow Him! Jesus will not accept our enrollment without bearing our cross to follow Him. If we do not bear the cross, we cannot be His disciple and we cannot follow Him. The verse does not say that without the cross we MAY not become His disciple as if the cross is just a requirement, rather, the verse seems to indicate that the cross is needed to become a real follower that can walk after Jesus. We cannot take even one step behind Jesus to walk after Him without our cross. Hence, when we accept the call and sign up with Jesus, without our cross, we will be stationary, unable to walk the road to salvation. The doctrines of Jesus will not make sense or Jesus will not make sense if we do not bear our cross. Note that the lowest vile human being and the highest human being must bear their cross to follow Jesus. No exception. The richest man who accepts the call to come after Jesus must carry his cross and the poorest man who accepts the call to come after Jesus must also bear his cross, crippled or not.
As a Christian, Jesus wants us to give up all including our immediate family and He commands our absolute surrender to Him while we carry our cross. It does not sound too appealing to become a Christian because we are signing for what appears to be a miserable life. Yet, that is part of the program. Therefore, we must be sure that we are totally following Jesus without any iota of doctrines from men along the path. If we are called to even forfeit our own lives, we do not want to die in vain because Jesus warns us that many false prophets will manage to lure our souls away from true victory. Jesus prophesies that He will tell some powerful miracle working Christians that He never knew them:
Therefore, in the battles that we will rage against the principalities, we must be vigilant and we must be certain that we are following the real Jesus and not some mere men. It hurts a lot to be a Christian (Romans 8:17; Hebrews 6:11;12:4; Revelation 12:1; 17:6). As Jesus did, we have to constantly keep in touch with the Father in heavens, in the name of Jesus, sustained and guided by His Holy Spirit to carryout the great commission of Acts 1:8
Pay attention to the wording in 1 Peter 1:10-11. Verses 10 and 11 speak of the Prophets before Jesus Christ having the Spirit of Jesus Christ in them looking in the Redemptive time of Jesus. That is a clue to keep in mind when we take a look at who Jesus was before He was born (Luke 2:11).
Here is a list of what I can gather from the Bible.
New heavens and new earth (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22-24; 2 Peter 2:12-13)
No more sun nor moon (Revelation 21:22-23; 22:5). God lighted the world before he placed the stars at their locations (Genesis 1:3) They were solely to mark day and night and time (Genesis 1:14).
Street of transparent gold (Revelation 21:21)
Access to the tree of life (Revelation 2:7; 22:2,14).
Revelation 6:10-11 EMTV
