Close to where I live is a walking trail that I particularly love. On it are gates at any intersection with a road. These gates don't go all the way across the path, but only far enough across the path to let a single person walk through. They limit access to anything larger than a person. You can't drive a car through them. You can't walk through them side by side with someone. This is like the narrow gate.
The narrow gate has room for only one thing: Jesus Christ. There is no room for any other religion. There is no room for additional requirements. There is no room for additional baggage. If you have requirements tacked onto your religion, or if you're carrying baggage with you in the race, let it go; there is no room for it. If you are easily able to carry these extra requirements and this excess baggage with you, then you should look around you to see what road you're on.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life: no one comes to the father except through me." (John 14:6). If He is the way, then there is only room for us to walk through Him. Nothing else will fit. How is it that 1 in 3 people claim to be saved (About.com), but the Bible says "only a few find it"? Romans 10:2-3 refers to the people who add requirements to their salvation: they have a zeal for God, but a false religion.
I'll leave you with this quote from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary: "This plain declaration of Christ has been disregarded by many who have taken pains to explain it away; but in all ages the real disciple of Christ has been looked on as a singular, unfashionable character; and all that have sided with the greater number, have gone on in the broad road to destruction. If we would serve God, we must be firm in our religion. Can we often hear of the strait gate and the narrow way, and how few there are that find it, without being in pain for ourselves, or considering whether we are entered on the narrow way, and what progress we are making in it?"
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