There is a false belief that has been a cancer to Christianity today. This is the erroneous belief that most people are walking the way to heaven.
This is not reality. These are not the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Jesus said many enter through the gates of destruction. Many lead lives and walk in a way that is destroying their soul, rather than sanctifying it. The destruction of one’s soul is what brings one to hell. This should be a sobering reality to us because there’s this heresy floating around that sounds something like this: “I’m a good person, I’m sure I’ll go to heaven.” “Hey, I’m a pretty nice dude, a good guy.” “Most people are going to heaven today, we’re all ok…just be a good person.”
What a clear contradiction right out of the mouth of our Lord though! Christians wake up!
Jesus never said that being a “good” person will bring you to heaven.
For one, what defines a “good” person anyway? Everyone has such broad definitions… How can we know?
Jesus makes a bold claim that no other religious leader has ever made: “I am THE way, THE truth, and THE life. No one can come to the Father, EXCEPT through me.” (John 14:6). (My emphasis added with the capital letters). Sadly, many Christians have lost this conviction. Many Christians themselves assume “Oh, Christ is A way, not THE way” or “Well, I do believe he is the way…for me. But maybe not others.”
By this individualistic thought process we throw out (or at least ignore) Christ’s command to “preach the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16) This is why inviting others to a life in Christ and being a bold witness is incumbent upon us. Erroneously, Christians have fallen victim to religious indifferentism by excusing themselves in such a way: “Living by the Gospel and revealed truth is A way of life, but not THE way of life. Christian morality is A way of life, but not THE way of life we have to live to enter into heaven.”
Heresy.
Now this doesn’t mean we force others into believing what we do. We all have a free will, given to us by God, to choose. But many of us do not present the Gospel to others in our everyday life. Many of us like to hide the fact that we are Christian. What does this mean for us? Christ challenges us to conviction: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this faithless and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38). Those are some grave words.
Do you hide your faith in Christ? Are you silent about it and prefer to avoid conversing about it? Reflect on the words of Christ.
St. Pope John Paul II said that the Church, “Proposes the truth, not imposes it.” Christ proposed the truth to those who walked with him on earth, not imposed it. He allowed his disciples to walk away if they so rejected truth such as in John 6 and the infamous Judas. I mention this because there may be some reading that will say, "Oh, she wants Christianity to be forced upon people..." No. God does not force His love upon us. He gives us the choice to choose Him.
Unfortunately, many Christians have fallen victim to believing this heresy that Christ is A way, not THE way - for everyone. As a result, little effort is put into fervently living out their faith and conforming their every thought, word, and deed to Christ. Little effort is put into seeking God’s will in all things and desiring to know the truth so as to be set free from their sins (John 8:32). True discipleship is demanding. Enough of this “compartmentalizing” the faith by boxing it into the narrow confines of church on Sunday, or one’s own private prayer but then acting, speaking and believing as a pagan otherwise.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’” (Matthew 7:21-23)
This passage is a reminder of how many Christians today have been led astray. There are many who profess to believe in our Lord, yet few that sincerely seek His will in their everyday life. Being nice does not get one into heaven. Being a “good person” does not get one into heaven. Our Lord never said this. Good intentions don’t get you in heaven; in fact, they may very well lead you to hell. Only living your life in accord with the Truth will move you to heaven. This means following Christ and the ways of morality He has revealed to us, not the ways of immorality the world presents to us. There are many worldly Christians who follow the latter way of the world.
In the end, it’s believing in our Lord and doing His will. Living by His will. Christianity is not something we should believe in privately; it’s a lifestyle, something that should permeate our every thought, word, and action. “Does this please the Lord?” “Does this thing offend Him?” “I love the Lord so much, I would never want to hurt him by choosing to sin in this way…”
Do you really want to be so foolish as to arrogantly boast that “I’m a good person though…,” when apparently just doing good deeds in Christ’s name isn’t enough according to Christ Himself? (Matthew 7:21-23) When you meet Jesus the Just Judge after your moment of death, and look at Him face-to-face at our judgment, are you going to be so arrogant as to say, “Lord, I did good things. I donated some money to this cause…I went and took care of my sick relative for a time…I was a Eucharistic minister…I served in this ministry…I went to Catholic school for 12 years…” …Yet meanwhile, you continue to choose a lifestyle of sin, be it supporting abortion, continuing to choose to use contraception when this is very clearly against God’s will, continuing to choose to gossip and talk about other people’s business behind their backs, continuing to choose to view impure movies, pornography, continuing to choose to not attend church every Sunday …Or yet meanwhile you continue to choose to get drunk, continue to choose to be sexually impure – in whatever way – outside of the marriage covenant, continue to choose to fudge those tax forms, continue to choose to support same-sex marriage, and so on.
Yes, truly living by the Gospel is demanding. Discipleship involves discipline. It involves self-control, not self-indulgence in impure passions and disordered desires.
These things are not God’s will, are we insane? Yet many Christians choose these sins over a life for God. Like I have said before, we’re all sinners. I am a sinner before the Lord. You are a sinner before the Lord. But the difference in all sinners is the difference between the one who tries with all their heart, soul and strength to live by the Lord’s ways, repents after sinning, and makes firm resolves to avoid that sin again, versus the sinner who continues to willfully choose sin.
The Lord has far more of a virtuous and fulfilling life than this! Have we been pounded and ingrained so deeply with lies from the Father of Lies in our culture that we can’t discern what is truth anymore? Or perhaps we do know what is right, but we don’t want to follow it – we outright reject it because it’s “too hard.” Some “pick and choose” what they prefer to believe. I think that’s one scandal of Christianity and all these various denominations: If you don’t like our Lord’s teaching on divorce, go find a church who will accept it (a.k.a. basically preaches a false gospel and jeopardizes your eternal salvation).
Brothers and sisters in Christ, like I referred to earlier in John 6, some of Jesus’ disciples walked away because they thought “this saying is too hard.” Christ let them walk away. You better believe it broke his heart inside and saddened him, especially when we ourselves do this because he loves each one of us and wants us to be with Him for eternity. But they had a choice; you have a choice. You have a choice after confronting the truth to either carry that Cross and follow Him, or put it down and walk away, not accepting (or avoiding) His truth, and thereby rejecting eternal life and choosing eternal damnation. This is a sobering reality that many Christians choose to ignore because this is the “hard stuff” of discipleship.
But ignorance of the truth is alienation from the very life of God, as St. Paul tells us! We choose to cut ourselves off from God! “So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do [those who do not follow Christ and His ways], in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess.” (Ephesians 4:17-19)
One of the graces St. Catherine of Siena was given by our Lord was that He allowed her to see and understand the true worth and beauty of one soul. It was radiating such incredible light and beauty that she fell down in worship, thinking it was the Lord Himself. An angel corrected her, and told her to rise, because it was not the Lord. He told her that she was given the gift of being able to see the incredible glory of one soul. The glory of your soul is far beyond what one can ever imagine! This is true because we are made in the “image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1:27)!
Sin ruins that image. Sin makes our souls ugly; it darkens our intellects and weakens our wills so that as we continue to choose to walk down the path of sin, we get wrapped up in more worse and serious sins and they become harder to escape. Then eventually, we become so lost in our darkness that we begin to not be able to even realize we are in sin. If you don’t know you are in sin, then you can’t repent. If you don’t repent, you can’t be forgiven. Your eternity could reside in hell. This is the seriousness of sin. The consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Eternal death if it is mortal and we do not repent.
Thank God, Jesus came to save us, not condemn us.
The thing is, however, is that we condemn ourselves because we choose to not live by God’s will and revealed truth. We choose not to avoid sinning and just let it continue to happen with little concern. Or even scarier: We project our own will onto God. Rather than be humble and sincere before the Lord and genuine seek truth about moral matters, we want to manipulate God’s will so that it’s more fitting to our own personal belief system. That’s called making yourself your own god. This is the creed of our culture today: Do whatever you want, whatever seems good to you, whenever you want. You make up your own truth about life, its meaning, its purpose. You make up your own truth about morality.
This is the heresy of relativism.
Oh how among Christians, the “Jesus of today” has about 50 different positions on the issues of sexual morality…and they all contradict each other! Can God contradict Himself? No, He cannot. He is all truth. This is impossible. Therefore only ONE of these positions is actually the truth. The truth about faith and morality lie within the Catholic Church. What a blessing to be Catholic! The others are either sincerely mislead, or have concocted fabricated lies that have fallen victim to the pressure of the trending lifestyles of today (ones that will certainly damn one to hell) or they are made to fit what one wants to believe.
People don't seek truth outside of themselves anymore. They make up their own truth within.
I think the hardest part about being a Christian is dying to your own will and fully living for God’s. Our own human wills are so weak, so limited in their own scope and view of things, not to mention the entirety of life itself! But this is the essence of Christianity – to live all for Love, to be conformed to Christ, who is love, and to die to ourselves, our own self-centeredness.
This is what is at stake: our souls. For eternity. And today, we need to hear this message more because as Christians we get bombarded with the opposite through the media and other societal systems. We don’t get this type of message a lot and we all need reminded of it because so much of the Gospel is watered down today. We rarely hear about what's at stake. This reflection is just a reiteration of the words of our Lord. Know that you are made for such great beauty and glory.
Where do you stand with the Lord?
Do you truly seek God’s will in all that you do?
Do you see your Christian faith as a private matter?
What are you wrestling with in the areas of morality?
Where are you stuck?
Where is your life not conforming to God’s will (especially in matters of sexuality, which is a huge soul-sucker among many today)?
Go to the Lord! Be honest, be sincere, tell Him what you’re afraid of if you were to choose repent and live according to His ways…tell Him what you’re afraid will happen, what you’re afraid you will lose. He is gentle, so compassionate.
Yet He is all-powerful! Meaning, whatever mess you think you’re in, HE CAN get you out of it – you just have to beg for the will, the strength, and then resolve with all your will to be faithful. Say, “Lord, I know this is not your will. I know this is something endangering my soul…but if I give this up, I’m afraid that…” Go on, tell Him! Cry it out if you have to - wrestle with the truth. Our Lord loves a humble heart, one that is sincere in seeking Him, the Truth. And remember, “For human beings, this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26). Whatever situation looks impossible to you from a human standpoint, you need to remember that God WILL make it possible! Amen! We can rejoice in hope always!
May our Blessed Mother teach us always how to say "Yes!" to the Lord, even when the situation looks scary, dark, bleak, or risky. You better believe our Lady as a devout Jew knew all the risks and suffering the forthcoming Messiah would undergo; and by saying yes to being His mother and conceiving and raising Him, she knew very well that she would have to undergo much suffering and risk with Him, in raising Him and remaining with Him all the way to the foot of the Cross.