Sermon on the Mount: Straight and narrow path

Hymn 288

Press on, dear traveler, press thou on,

I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.

It is the straight and narrow way

That leads to that eternal day,

That turns the darkness into light,

That buries wrong and honors right.

Press on, and know that God is all;

He is the Life, the Truth, the Love.

It is the way the Saviour trod,

It is the way that leads to God.

Think of the words: No cross, no crown;

Though tasks are sore, be not cast down.

________________________________________________________________________________________

THE HOLY BIBLE

Matt. 7:13, 14 KJV

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: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

TLB (The Living Bible): Heaven can be entered only through the narrow gate! The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes who choose its easy way.

The Message: Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.

Ps. 119: 33-37, 105 NLT

Teach me your decrees, O Lord; I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions; I will put them into practice with all my heart. Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. Give me an eagerness for your laws rather than a love for money! Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word. Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

Prov. 1:8, 10, 15-16 KJV

My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: . . . if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

Prov. 2:13, 14, 16 NLT

These men turn from the right way to walk down dark paths. They take pleasure in doing wrong, and they enjoy the twisted ways of evil. . . . Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman, from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman.

Prov. 4:25-27 – KJV

Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.

Prov. 4:10-27 NLT

My child, listen to me and do as I say, and you will have a long, good life. I will teach you wisdom’s ways and lead you in straight paths. When you walk, you won’t be held back; when you run, you won’t stumble. . . . The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness.

Gal. 5:13, 16, 17, 19-23 NLT

You have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.. . . . let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. . . . The Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. . . . When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

John 5:1-3, 5, 8-9, 13-14 NLT

Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk! Instantly, the man was healed! But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.

Ps. 16:8, 10-11 KJV

I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. . . . For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life.

Mark 10:17-19, 21-23 KJV

When [Jesus] was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, . . . go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

Matt. 16:26 KJV

What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Matt. 9:9-13 NLT

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. Follow me and be my disciple, Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum? When Jesus heard this, he said, . . . I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.

Luke 9:56, 59-62 KJV

The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. . . . And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

John 14:5-6 KJV

Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Matt. 16:24 KJV

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Acts 26:1, 4, 9-16, 17-19 NLT

[King] Agrippa said to Paul, “You may speak in your defense.” So Paul, gesturing with his hand, started his defense: . . . “I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene. Indeed, I did just that in Jerusalem. Authorized by the leading priests, I caused many believers there to be sent to prison. And I cast my vote against them when they were condemned to death. Many times I had them punished in the synagogues to get them to curse Jesus. I was so violently opposed to them that I even chased them down in foreign cities. One day I was on such a mission to Damascus, armed with the authority and commission of the leading priests. About noon, Your Majesty, as I was on the road, a light from heaven brighter than the sun shone down on me and my companions. We all fell down, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is useless for you to fight against my will.’ ‘Who are you, lord?’ I asked. “And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. Now get to your feet! For I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant and witness. . .. I am sending you to the Gentiles to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God’. . . . And so, King Agrippa, I obeyed that vision from heaven.”

John 10:27-28 KJV

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life . . . .

Matt 4:19 KJV

And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 594:12-13

Sheep. Innocence; inoffensiveness; those who follow their leader.

SH 472:5-6

The way which leads to Christian Science is straight and narrow.

SH 324:19

Paul was not at first a disciple of Jesus but a persecutor of Jesus’ followers. When the truth first appeared to him in Science, Paul was made blind, and his blindness was felt; but spiritual light soon enabled him to follow the example and teachings of Jesus, healing the sick and preaching Christianity throughout Asia Minor, Greece, and even in imperial Rome.

SH 11:22-27

We know that a desire for holiness is requisite in order to gain holiness; but if we desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it. We must be willing to do this, that we may walk securely in the only practical road to holiness.

SH 451:2-4

Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. Students of Christian Science, who start with its letter and think to succeed without the spirit, will either make shipwreck of their faith or be turned sadly awry. They must not only seek, but strive, to enter the narrow path of Life, for “wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” Man walks in the direction towards which he looks, and where his treasure is, there will his heart be also. If our hopes and affections are spiritual, they come from above, not from beneath, and they bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit.

SH 507:6

Spirit names and blesses all. Without natures particularly defined, objects and subjects would be obscure, and creation would be full of nameless offspring, — wanderers from the parent Mind, strangers in a tangled wilderness.

SH 326:3

If we wish to follow Christ, Truth, it must be in the way of God’s appointing. Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also.” He, who would reach the source and find the divine remedy for every ill, must not try to climb the hill of Science by some other road. All nature teaches God’s love to man, but man cannot love God supremely and set his whole affections on spiritual things, while loving the material or trusting in it more than in the spiritual.

SH 238:22

Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion over mankind, arise from worldly weakness. He who leaves all for Christ forsakes popularity and gains Christianity.

SH 21: 15-20, 25-6

If my friends are going to Europe, while I am en route for California, we are not journeying together. . . . Our paths have diverged at the very outset . . . . Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thitherward. He is like a traveller going westward for a pleasure-trip. The company is alluring and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for six days, he turns east on the seventh, satisfied if he can only imagine himself drifting in the right direction. By-and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he would borrow the passport of some wiser pilgrim, thinking with the aid of this to find and follow the right road. Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope of forgiveness, — selfishness and sensuality causing constant retrogression,  — our moral progress will be slow.

SH 242:15

In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.

SH 151:21

The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth.

SH 38:24

Jesus mapped out the path for others. He unveiled the Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love. To those buried in the belief of sin and self, living only for pleasure or the gratification of the senses, he said in substance: Having eyes ye see not, and having ears ye hear not; lest ye should understand and be converted, and I might heal you. He taught that the material senses shut out Truth and its healing power.

SH 324:7

Unless the harmony and immortality of man are becoming more apparent, we are not gaining the true idea of God; and the body will reflect what governs it, whether it be Truth or error, understanding or belief, Spirit or matter. Therefore “acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace.” Be watchful, sober, and vigilant. The way is straight and narrow, which leads to the understanding that God is the only Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, in which we must conquer sin, sickness, and death, either here or hereafter, — certainly before we can reach the goal of Spirit, or life in God.

SH 248:19-32

Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models. To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.

SH 698:23-7 FRUITAGE

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

This has been proven to me in every way. When Christian Science came to me, I was a wreck, physically, mentally, and financially; but since the reading of Science and Health turned my thought toward the light, I have found that, as far as I am willing to receive the word and live it, all comforts are supplied me. I am especially grateful for the spiritual help. I know that things which I did and thought last year I would not do or think this year, and am satisfied. Through the careful and prayerful study of Science and Health I have been lifted from sickness to health, from sorrow to peace, from lack to plenty, and, the most beautiful of all, from darkness to light.  — Mrs. H. S. C., Seattle, Wash.

SH 126:22-23, 26

I have set forth Christian Science and its application to the treatment of disease just as I have discovered them. . . . I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in “the straight and narrow way” of Truth.

SH 178:32-4

Whoever reaches the understanding of Christian Science in its proper signification will perform the sudden cures of which it is capable; but this can be done only by taking up the cross and following Christ in the daily life.

SH 454:5-9

The understanding, even in a degree, of the divine All-power destroys fear, and plants the feet in the true path,  — the path which leads to the house built without hands “eternal in the heavens.”

________________________________

Hymn 131

I am the way, the truth, the life,

Our blessed Master said;

And whoso to the Father comes,

Must in my pathway tread:

A way that is not hedged with forms;

A truth, too large for creeds;

A life, indwelling, deep and broad,

That meets the heart’s great needs.

To point that living way, to speak

The truth that makes men free,

To bring that quick’ning life from heaven,

Is highest ministry.

Hymn 305

Shepherd, show me how to go

O’er the hillside steep,

How to gather, how to sow,—

How to feed Thy sheep;

I will listen for Thy voice,

Lest my footsteps stray;

I will follow and rejoice

All the rugged way.

Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,

Wound the callous breast,

Make self-righteousness be still,

Break earth’s stupid rest.

Strangers on a barren shore,

Lab’ring long and lone,

We would enter by the door,

And Thou know’st Thine own;

So, when day grows dark and cold,

Tear or triumph harms,

Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,

Take them in Thine arms;

Feed the hungry, heal the heart,

Till the morning’s beam;

White as wool, ere they depart,

Shepherd, wash them clean.