December 19 Daily Devotional

In His steps

The greatest inducement of all, however, to enter in at the strait gate and to walk the narrow way, is this. There is Someone on that road before you. You have to leave the world outside. You may have to leave many who are dear to you, you have to leave yourself, your old self, and you may think as you go through that gate that you are going to be isolated and solitary. But it is not so. There are others on this road with you.... There are not as many as there are on the other way, but they are a very choice and separate people. But above all look at the One who is treading that road ahead of all, the One who said, ‘Follow me’, the One who said, ‘Let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me’. If there were no other inducement for entering in at the strait gate, that is more than enough. To enter this way means to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an invitation to live as He lived; it is an invitation to become increasingly what He was. It is to be like Him, to live as He lived whose life we read of in these Gospels. That is what it means; and the more we think of it in that way the greater will the inducement be. Do not think of what you have to leave; there is nothing in that. Do not think of the losses, do not think of the sacrifices and sufferings. These terms should not be used; you lose nothing, but you gain everything. Look at Him, follow Him, and realize that ultimately you are going to be with Him, and to look into His blessed face and enjoy Him to all eternity. He is on this way, and that is enough.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, ii, pp. 235–6