The teaching of Jesus includes great words of comfort and also great words of challenge. We need both. Challenge is tough. Many Christians do not like words of challenge. They will run from it, and hop to a church where there is no challenge. But we need to hear it so desperately in a world that is comfortably numb from affluence. The church grows more rapidly in persecution. It shrinks in "affluenza." Some would say that as Americans we have so little challenge to our faith. It's true people are not storming through the door this morning with machine guns and arresting us, but the insidious world with its false promises of utopia now is intruding upon the human heart and blowing its embers as cold as a stone. Affluenza is a massive challenge to the church in America. There are more than one thousand organized religions in America, and even more personal religions. Imagine each one as a door. Which one will you open and enter? Which one brings us to heaven? Most people say it does not matter which one you enter because they all lead to the same place. Open any door you like, and you will still get to heaven. They see it as a personal preference that makes no ultimate difference. This is a lie from the very pit of hell. Jesus Christ said there is only one narrow door that leads to eternal life, and that we need to make sure we enter that door while we still have time. Jesus does not want to inject false fears into our minds, but he does want us to examine our lives so we will be sure to take the narrow way. Christ alone is the narrow way. The true Christian is swimming upstream like a salmon!
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David Bodanza is the pastor of Mission of Grace Church in Westborough, Massachusetts. He is also a practicing lawyer. He holds an M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a J.D. from New England School of Law. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, four...
