Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
A 2017 study found that the more entitled people are, the less likely they are to follow instructions. The reason, according to the Cornell University and Harvard Medical School, authors, appeared to be that people with a higher sense of entitlement don’t follow rules they think are unfair.
And let’s be honest. A whole lot of what Jesus preached didn’t sound fair to the people of the time, and they don’t 
sound fair to us.
Love those who hate you?
Put God above your own family?
Give up everything you have and follow? Really, everything?
Small wonder that they and we so often fail to follow His instructions. Will it really matter if we don’t care for the ill, house the homeless, feed the starving, love the unlovable?
Well, yes.
The more we have, it seems sometimes, the more likely we are to believe we deserve to keep it, and get more. The more we have, it seems sometimes, the less likely we are to give it up, in a meaningful way, anyway. The more we have, it seems sometimes, the less likely we are interested in the abstract in the constricted road and the narrow gate.
The broad road is easier. It beckons us with earthly pleasures.
There’s only one thing to keep in mind.
Destruction and eternal isolation are on the other side of that wide gate.
