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Wednesday, November 8, 2017

A Weekly Devotional – Wide or Narrow – Personal Meditation




Comment: Even though I was participating in the prayer, I was like an observer! “Our Father who art in heaven…” mostly all male voices reciting the LORD’s prayer. I was at a firehouse in Southeastern Connecticut in a meeting for the Association of Connecticut Fire Police. We came to the meeting at 0900; with little organization the meeting did not begin until 1015. The Pledge of Allegiance and the LORD’s prayer followed. However, I spent the first hour and fifteen minutes overhearing the filthy language and various other fleshly conversations, that; I suppose when these unsaved people stand at the Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:11-15) may seek to give this account. “LORD, I recited Your prayer at public and religious gatherings my whole life and what do you mean when you say that I am not worthy to enter Your Kingdom and that my name is missing in the Book of Life? 

Devotional: Moving from this meeting: Sadly, everyone who recites the LORD’s prayer may NOT be saved by the grace of God. Some are atheist, most are simply religious and very few are saved. There are very few people who do not know these sixty-six words in the Gospel of Matthew. These were spoken by Jesus Himself to teach His disciples to pray. Matthew records this event in Chapter 6:9b-13. Luke in his gospel records this prayer also in chapter eleven of his gospel account. In either account, having memorized these words do not make you a disciple of Christ.

If you are familiar with the Living Word of God you may be reminded of another statement of Jesus which is recorded in the next chapter of Matthew, chapter seven, verses 13-14. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 

If you consider yourself a disciple of the LORD Jesus, then you are a learner, as this is what a disciple is. He or she is one who follows the teaching of Jesus. (He is the small and narrow Gate) Not because He was a good and humble man, but because He is far better than good and humble, He is the Messiah of God who was first sent to redeem all of mankind back to God, He came as the suffering Messiah, the Lamb, Isaiah 53:1-12; John 1:29-34 and Matthew 28:1-8.

You may know the LORD’s prayer, you may know of God, you may know of His death and you may know of His bodily resurrection, but with all of this knowing you may still lack one truth called FAITH. If you do not personally trust (by faith) that He died for “your sin and rose again for your personal sanctification” then you do not KNOW Him at all. Also, you do not know that He is coming again to earth, not as the suffering Lamb of God, but as the KING of kings and the LORD of lords. If this is your knowledge of God, then you are just another member of those people in the broad way that leads to destruction, as in the book of Revelation, the judgment at the Great White Throne.


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