Someone asked Him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

He said to them, "Make every effort to enter in through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to."

Luke 13:23-24, NIV

I have to confess that this is one of Jesus' sayings that makes me extremely uncomfortable. It would have been so nice had Jesus, when asked the question if only a few would be saved, had responded with something like, "Don't worry, we are all going to the same place by different paths, so only a few really bad people will be lost."

But we all know that this was not even remotely close to His answer. 

His answer involved a command that required more effort than most of us would like to make. Most of us, were we to be truly honest with ourselves, prefer little effort as compared to every effort. It's kind of like when the rich man wanted to know what else he lacked upon learning that he was checking all the right boxes on the commandments. When Jesus told him that he needed to sell everything he had and then follow Him, the rich man became sad. Apparently he had been looking for less effort instead of more. Or when the man asked Jesus who his neighbor was, it is likely he was looking to limit his scope of effort, not expand it. So he was probably disappointed when he learned just how large the amount of the total population was made up of "neighbors" he was supposed to love and take care of.

The fact is that God has always required best effort, while men's preference has always been the bare minimum. We want to know how much we need to give so we can have the rest for ourselves. We want to know how much we need to worship, so we can keep the rest of the time for what we really want to do. Is it any wonder that the religious organizations that preach the bare minimum are likely the most popular? Just give us a few hours of "worship" at Easter and Christmas and our consciences will be soothed and we can get on with "our" lives.

But God is not a God of the bare minimum effort, and He never has been. Nor is He a God of the "broad path society" or the "limit who is our neighbor club." He has always required a people who will love Him with all of their heart and all of their soul and all of their mind and all of their strength. Furthermore, He does not insist upon the narrow path as a punishment, for His narrow path is brightly lit and readily identifiable. It is a lot more restrictive that the broad paths that we might prefer, this much is true, but it is a path that is filled with good people who want to be on that path and who are more than willing to help you along the way.

One more thing: There are few endeavors in life that are excellent that do not require extra effort. Getting straight "A's" in school is hard (or used to be). Getting that gold medal is hard. Receiving a promotion is hard. But all of these things are eagerly sought by those who refuse to settle for mediocrity. Why then should we be looking for anything else in our service to God our Creator and to Jesus our Savior? We should be eagerly seeking ways to increase our service to the Ones that we owe our very existence and salvation to, not less.

We owe them our very lives! Why would we want to repay this debt on the "cheap"? While we know we can never earn our salvation, we are still required to make every effort to enter by the narrow way. And if we truly love the Father and the Son, why would we want to do anything less?