Why is the God's door narrow?

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STT said:
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Thom18:
Not so. When you sin, you abandon the narrow path in favor of the wide path. If you repent, you return to the narrow path. If not, you remain on the wide path. You make the mistake of assuming that someone remains on the same path throughout their entire life, when in fact they can change their course.
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So you think people normally don’t repent?
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What gave you that idea?

Those of us who try our best to stay on the narrow path fail often and stumble onto the wide path. We then repent and return to the narrow path. The Christian life is one of frequent personal failure and constant repentance. So, there is a lot of repentance.
 
Thom18 said:
What gave you that idea?

Those of us who try our best to stay on the narrow path fail often and stumble onto the wide path. We then repent and return to the narrow path. The Christian life is one of frequent personal failure and constant repentance. So, there is a lot of repentance.
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I don’t understand you. The door is open then if repentance is easy to make.
 
It is the type of repentance that makes you not sin, it has to have some sort of effect and effort. There should be some amendment.
 
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I asked a priest about this during Bible study and he mentioned that Christ is the door. Only through Christ, who mentions that the only to go to the Father is through Him.

John 14:1-7
 
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STT said:
I don’t understand you. The door is open then if repentance is easy to make.
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The difficulty of repentance doesn’t have any effect on how wide the path is or how narrow the door is.

The paths that Jesus describes represent how we live our lives. Namely, how obedient we are to God and His Commandments. The narrow path is the one in which we strive to obey Him, the wide path is the one in which we rebel against Him. The door at the end of the narrow path is salvation, and if we die while on the narrow path, we arrive at this door- we’re welcomed into Heaven.

If we die on the wide path, we won’t enter that door.

However, throughout our lives, we may spend a lot of time on the wide path. We’re sinful human beings, and it’s easy for us to stray from the narrow path and walk onto the wide path instead. The wide path is sin, so we end up on this path with every sin. Repentance will bring us back to the narrow path.
 
During that time when Jesus lived, the shepherds would often bring their flocks to a walled-in sheepfold at night like this:

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The shepherd would sleep in the doorway of the sheepfold to protect the flock from wild animals or robbers. The door was narrow so that he could both keep the sheep in and know if anyone or anything was trying to break in.

Jesus is our Shepherd and brings into the fold of His flock. The way is narrow because it is a door. He is the Door and the Way and the Life. He brings us into His flock through the Door of His life, and also guards it against any who would harm us. We can only enter eternity with Him by doing as He commands, just as the sheep must obey the voice of their Shepherd.
John 10:1-16 RSV
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; 2 but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” 6 This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
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7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not heed them. 9 I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
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11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, 15 as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.
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This also brings to mind shepherds to keep us on the straight and narrow.

This is why we also call priests, pastors which mean shepherds who will act as Christ acts, leading the flock towards heaven. It’s a tough job.
 
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Because it’s a very hard, rough rocky path that narrows into a narrow door to enter. It means shedding all sin, excess and things not of God.
 
But you must keep repenting when you sin. It’s not that easy to give up all sin. It’s not about staying a believer longer.

It’s about loving God more then you love yourself or the world. And doing what is right in the eyes of God
 
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STT said:
So you think people normally don’t repent? That is strange to me. It is easy to repent when sin is done!
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To put a fine point on it, no people do not normally repent. True repentance is a turning away from sin. True repentance is difficult because our sins can often be very attractive.
 
God is love, but God is also just. Modern man has falsified the truth about God. He has only retained the only characteristic of God that suits him, namely his mercy. He retains only one thing from God, namely, he is a merciful Father, but he rejects the fact that God is also an impartial Judge who will reward us according to what we’ll have done, and will punish the slightest sin that has been made.
So to reconcile God’s righteousness with his Love, one should understand that his love is to give us graces gratis, so that in return, we do what is right. But what is right is to love God as he himself has loved us. And he loved us by sacrificing everything for us. So in return we must love Him by sacrificing everything for Him. And to sacrifice everything for him is the narrow door, which many refuse to choose.
 
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So why should anyone think that life is beautiful when our innate nature makes us choose the wide path to hell and everlasting torment. On the other hand choosing and staying on the narrow path is not only difficult and almost impossible.

So why did God choose to make us knowing He will lose the vast majority of us to Hell in spite of His Son’s sacrifice on the cross?

I wonder sometimes. Most of the time I just pray for all of us.
 
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Good Morning STT: That’s a very good question. What do you think the answer is? Tradition, dogma and tedious inspection of scriptural passages aside, what does your common sense say?

All the best!
 
Sarcelle said:
So why should anyone think that life is beautiful when our innate nature makes us choose the wide path to hell and everlasting torment. On the other hand choosing and staying on the narrow path is not only difficult and almost impossible.
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“What is impossible with man is possible with God”
In my understanding of things, God being good, He wants us to be His heirs, but God being righteous, He wants us to be worthy of the goods He wants to give us. Imagine that you have a dog that you love, you would like to give him your inheritance, but it is impossible because it is not worthy, it does not have the human nature. If it was possible to give him a human nature, then you could give him your inheritance.
In order for us to be worthy of the goods God wants to give us, we must have in some way his nature, and his nature is the perfect love! but perfect love is manifested in human life by a sacrificial love, like the one Jesus manifested. Our fallen nature has the disadvantage of pushing us toward the earthly goods that take us away from God, but it have the advantage that, with the grace of God, we can manifest a sacrificial love that makes us worthy of God.

I write using an automatic translator, I expect your indulgence for mistakes, and if possible a moderator can corrects bad expressions
 
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The disadvantage of our fallen nature is that many will go to Hell. But the advantage is that some will be heirs of God in Heaven.
If Adam did not sin, all the humanity would probably be in Heaven, but it would be , in a sort of “inferior” Heaven, because no one would inherit God. And if God had no heirs, then his perfect liberality would not be manifested, which is contrary to his extrinsic glory.
As Adam sinned, then some will be in Heaven, and they will manifest the perfect mercy and the perfect liberality of God, others will be in Hell, and they will manifest the perfect justice of God.
Let us never forget that the ultimate purpose of creation is the manifestation of the attributes of God (this is called his extrinsic glory), not the absolute happiness of man.
 
Perhaps one should look at the positive side rather than the negative. The door–whether wide or narrow, and maybe it changes throughout one’s life–is always OPEN, never closed.
 
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