Good morning and welcome to todays Daily Manna for Thursday, August 07, 2014

TOPIC: Strive to Enter In

TEXT: LUKE 13:23-35

Key verse: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” Luke 13:24.(KJV)

Abraham Lincoln, in a speech he made in 1863, said: “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever
grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with
unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

Even now, this has been the attitude of many people. Unfortunately, some Christians are among them, living without heaven in focus. Based on the
character of people, Jesus was certain that there would be few who would be saved. But He cautioned: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” For Him, it
would take earnestness, focus and
determination to make heaven.
Jesus, while answering the enquirer’s question: “are there few that be saved,” was point-blank that those who merely wish they would make heaven but would not do anything about the salvation of their soul, could
never get there.

Many people, today, do not take this warning seriously. Some
will even seek to enter through another way other than the right channel, while others will make attempt when it is too late and as such shall not be able to enter.
Earnestly give serious thought to your relationship with God. How much striving have you exerted to get into His Kingdom? Are you merely wishing you will be there? Make the most of today’s opportunity to enter through
sincere repentance, faith in Christ and God’s kind of righteousness.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Heaven has no space for those who refuse to get saved.