Entering the Narrow Gate

By Vutlhari Tlakula

Entering The Narrow Gate is about the practical things that a born-again Christian can do to enhance and catapult their relationship with God. It is based on the fact that many Christians live their earthly lives without ever tasting the reality of a supernatural walk with the Almighty God as it is portrayed through the lives of characters in the Bible. This is a herald that it does not have to be that way anymore. Every believer has the prerogative to walk and live in a close and living fellowship with the Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed Holy Spirit right here on earth. Christianity does not have to be just a 'belief' anymore, but a daily reality that religion has robbed so many believers of for far too long. Are you one of those that have been wondering what the difference is between Biblical meditation and Eastern mysticism? Have you been brainwashed to toss the subject of meditation into the trashbins of paganism? What if you found out that the Bible has more to teach about the subject of meditation than what mainstream religion has made Christians believe? Have you been searching for a well-prepared and practical teaching that is backed by scripture references and experienced-based explanation on the subject? Well, search no further. It is not a secret that many supposed-to-be pastors and believers have wandered off into witchcraft in the search of spiritual power and the miraculous. You do not have to dabble with such forbidden and dangerous practices when our loving Father has provided a way for all to walk in the supernatural. Topics covered in the book include: "Your Relationship With God In A Crisis?"; "Not An Open Book"; "Called or Chosen -- Your Choice"; "Thou Shalt Meditate"; "Be Still And Know" and many more. If you have been intrigued by the subject of Biblical meditation, and you have a thirst to know more of God, then this is the book for you. It is a must-have for every Christian alive today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vutlhari Tlakula
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9780620968591

Vutlhari Tlakula

I am a former professional teacher, a business management consultant and administrator , a church administration consultant, an accredited trainer and assessor, a motivational speaker, author and editor. I am also a passionate teacher of the word of God. I am based in South Africa - born and bred in the province of Limpopo, and have been involved in editorial work for several works not of my own, content writing and editing. When I am not busy writing I occupy my time with training people and giving advice on different issues that include business, education, and spirituality. I enjoy viewing life analytically rather than accepting things and events at face value. I always strive to keep my writing of fiction works at more than just entertaining, seeking to feed my readers with valuable lessons about life.

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Entering The Narrow Gate

Copyright 2021 by Vutlhari Tlakula

Published by Vutlhari Tlakula Publications at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and you have not purchased it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN: 978-0-620-96859-1 (e-book)

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. All other scripture quotations used by permission of the publishers.

Table Of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Your Relationship With God In A Crisis?

Chapter 2: Not An Open Book

Chapter 3: Called Or Chosen – Your Choice

Chapter 4: Thou Shalt Meditate

Chapter 5: Be Still And Know

Chapter 6: Your Mount Of Transfiguration

Chapter 7: Better Covenant, Better Promises

Chapter 8: After God’s Own Heart

Chapter 9: The Same Yesterday, Today And Forever

Chapter 10: Not By Bread Alone

Chapter 11: Everybody Welcome, The Veil Is Torn

Chapter 12: The Logos – Your Mirror Of Glory

Chapter 13: The Temple Of The Holy Spirit

Chapter 14: Imagination, Visualisation And Confession

Chapter 15: Qualification To Enter Through The Narrow Gate

Chapter 16: The Church Of Acts Chapter 29 And Beyond…

Prayer Of Salvation

About The Author

Connect With Me

Preface

I am so glad that you finally secured this copy for yourself. Writing this work was such an experience to me as many of the issues treated here only came to me while I was busy on it as revelations from the mighty Throne of Grace. I believe that you will be blessed and inspired to pursue excellence in God as you prayerfully study – not just read – this work. It is meant to catapult your spiritual development and greatly enhance your relationship with God.

Every word written here is meant to attract your attention to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone and through the working of the Holy Spirit inspired this work. Granted, some of the exhortation penned here may seem unusual to some readers. Well, I would not be surprised by that because that is exactly what I experienced when my spiritual eyes were first opened to this truth. This work is not designed to make you feel small in any way, but on the contrary to lift you up to higher heights in your relationship with God.

I would like to suggest to you to study this work very prayerfully. As you do, ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand things in the work that might otherwise be hidden to you. Spiritual things require spiritual understanding, and may be very ‘distasteful’ to the natural mind. You will not understand this work simply because you can understand any text written in the English language. You may alright, but this English requires, or shall I say, demands that the Holy Spirit give you supernatural understanding of the work. This has to be because a topic like this has been very shallowly treated in the Body of Christ – and I state this without implying any superiority or ‘specialty’ on my side, but through the grace given to me I was able to sit and write everything as I felt led to do so.

I want you to note that throughout all my writings, I choose to write the word satan with a small letter ‘s.’ It is not a typing error, but a deliberate act on my side because that is the place that I choose to give satan as one that is condemned to permanently remain under my feet, as well as the feet of the Body of Christ, and that just as long as he is not yet thrown into the lake of fire prepared for him and his cohorts. I have no respect for satan and will never attempt to make him feel important in any way.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome, and may by all means be sent to the mail address indicated in this work. May I at this stage also add that some of the things that you will study here may not be easily assimilated by doing it just once, but studying over and over again will be of great benefit to you. I say this from experience. It grieves my spirit many times when I see or hear advertisements of men of God coming to a country or a city or whatever the case may be. People are advertised – and no offense please – in a way that will make one think that they are more ‘special’ than anyone else in the Body of Christ because of certain giftings – or graces – in their lives. We are all made to believe that these are the men or women that God has chosen to use, whilst seemingly ‘regular’ believers are there just to spectate or support them. Whilst we may support every good course, this work is meant to make you realise that the same Spirit working in these men or women is the same Spirit working in you.

While God permits it to happen, I believe that it is not His perfect will to have a few individuals ‘rocking’ to the point where they develop brand names, which unbeknown to them these names begin to compete with the Name above all names, that of Jesus. The Church has come to a sad point of idolising personalities within its circles based on certain achievements. I want to submit to you that the status quo prevails only as a result of many of us having failed to position ourselves where God will be prepared to use us all at all those levels. In the Gospel of Mark, the Lord Jesus stated that the signs will follow those who believe, not those that are ‘chosen.’ So it makes no sense to me that you should exclude yourself from those who believe, or give a different meaning to that statement than what it was intended to mean. I want you to realise that believing and accepting that to be God’s way of operation is one way the Body of Christ has limited the Holy One of Israel. What I am saying here is very consistent with Paul’s statement to the Ephesians that God gave gifts to the Church for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ (Ephesians. 4:12-13, NASB).

I am not against the giftings in these individuals, but I am strongly against the attitude of the Church towards such issues. I pray that your eyes will be opened to see just how precious and valuable you are to the Body of Christ. May I at this point share something very sad with you? On December 13, 2010, the Lord showed me a vision of someone that I felt acquainted with – in the sense that I knew him in the vision – teaching the Word of God at a church where I was part of the audience. In the vision I saw that this man was adorned in the attire of a witch-doctor. It was strange to me that it seemed that none of the people in the audience in that church saw what I did on him because none of them looked surprised about the ‘teacher’ in the pulpit. Everything just seemed normal and in good order. The service was concluded and everybody just left in the usual manner. After the vision I got a strong sense in my spirit that there are pulpits within the church that are infested with witchcraft. After careful consideration of that vision I realised that some Christian people fall prey to the pressure to seek power in witchcraft simply because they do not know how to find the narrow gate that the Lord Jesus spoke about, and therefore find themselves having to resort to this kind of satanism just to try and match those that move in the supernatural power of God.

Isn’t that sad? But believe me, this is happening in the church right now, otherwise God would not have shown me this particular vision. I believe it was part of the preparation for this work, that God’s people do not have to live under pressure of the supernatural, but need to access the spiritual avenue through the only way designed by God Himself. I have observed – in my few years as a Christian – how many believers have such hunger for the supernatural. People will suspend everything to go and attend a meeting where a man of God is said to be prophesying upon people. There is of course nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot wrong with believers running around seeking to be prophesied upon. And if you come to look at it closely, you will find that these believers have almost turned the prophetic ministry into fortune-telling. Well, God’s best is for Him to speak directly to you, whoever you are, without you having to depend on some prophet to do it on your behalf as though he is some mediator between you and God. If any man prophesies anything to you, I believe it ought to be confirmation of what you already know, and not the other way round.

There is a difference between honouring servants of God and hero-worshiping them. Failure by Christians to enter by the narrow gate opens an inevitable door from them to find themselves practising hero-worship, which very soon turns the whole organisation into a cult. Don’t you think that is satan’s ploy to neutralise the church and turn it into nothing more than a common cult?

This work is meant to lift you up to where God has always intended for His children to be spiritually, and unadulterated by any other spiritual forces. Whilst He does not want you to suffer from superiority complex, He wants to exalt you; and whilst He does not want you suffering from inferiority complex, He wants you to be humble. The teaching outlined in this work will help you achieve God’s best for you without developing extremism of any kind, but being able to balance exaltation and humility. So, please join me and let us take this trip together, believing God to honour His Word where we are concerned.

Should you need prayer that will introduce you to the Lord and Saviour of mankind, Jesus Christ, please go the end of the book. A prayer of salvation is printed there for your benefit to this end. Be sure to make that prayer with faith in your heart that the Lord hears and honours your humility, and right after that you will be sure that this book has been written specifically for you to enjoy and be blessed by.

Happy reading!

CHAPTER 1: Your Relationship With God In A Crisis?

Imagine that you pay a friend or relative a visit for fellowship or whatever. And all that happens is you talking to someone that does not answer you. Or worse still, you do all the talking without giving the fellow a chance to respond. Tell me in all honesty, how would you feel about talking to somebody that seems to be ignoring even your very presence there? Or how would the fellow feel about you doing all the talking without allowing him to respond, and then you just conclude and say ‘good-bye’? That is interesting, isn’t it? You want to know something sad? That is what the majority of us Christians experience on a daily basis in what we call prayer or fellowship with God. I call it a relationship in a crisis. Have you ever thought about that?

We have this idea about us having to talk to God by faith and believing that He hears and will answer our prayers. That is correct. But there still is something wrong about that. How so? Simple. You just answered the questions above, didn’t you? You will either doubt whether the fellow really exists or your eyes are playing a trick on you, or wonder whether or not the fellow is really interested in your visit. Why do I bring this up? I want to challenge you to a more meaningful and practical time of fellowship with God. Why? It has never happened at any other time in history except our dispensation that God seems to be very quiet on His ‘visitors,’ if you will. If you read your Bible carefully, you will learn that God is an interactive Fellow. He talks because He has a mouth. You should never regard it normal or acceptable to approach God in prayer and leave that closet without having heard from Him.

Does that sound far-fetched? Well, that is because religion has trained us to see it that way. Well, you know, God will only talk when He wants to. Who are you to want to force Him to speak back to you? But you know, the last time I checked, God was called our Father. If you talk to your natural father and he does not respond to you then, would you not immediately conclude that something is wrong somewhere? Either he is deaf or is simply not interested in you? Well, why do we think it normal when it comes to our interaction with God our Father? Jesus said, talking to His disciples, If you, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew 7:11, NKJV).

Jesus was simply saying, Fellows, your Father, God, is more interested in you than your earthly fathers are. That makes sense to me. He knows and understands my purpose for being down here than my earthly father ever will! For one thing, your earthly father may even say to you, I don’t even know why I gave birth to you. Actually, you were a mistake. Your mom had forgotten to take the pill the night you were conceived! I’m trying my best to stir you up to a more effective time of fellowship with God. All the people that we read about in the Bible used to have a normal relationship with God, beginning with the man Adam from the very onset. Hey, even Cain the murderer did hear God talking to him! And Abimelech too (Genesis 20:1-8)! Abram, or Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and many others, let alone Enoch, did.

You read all through the New Testament and you find the same story. God had a meaningful relationship with those people. And you know what? He has not changed one bit! But why don’t we experience Him at that level? Well, if you ever feel the need that you should worry about anything, that is it. It should bother you that you go into your closet for prayer ever so often and spend hours, but still come out wringing your hands and saying, Well, we believe God you know, and by faith we know He has heard us. But the truth is, you are rightly wrong. That is never a normal state of affairs with God.

God so longed for fellowship with man to the extent that He had made it a habit to visit Adam in the Garden of Eden daily in the cool of the day for fellowship with Him, until the guy blew it. You see, it was not God’s fault but man’s that things ended up the way they did between them. Man turned his back on God; not the other way round. And since then, God has been yearning to have man back in that fellowship with Him. But because we are tied up in our natural existence, we find it very hard to have any meaningful relationship with Him. The covenants that He made with the men that we read about in the Bible were all attempts by God to get man back to where he was with Him. All the prophets He has ever sent were all echoing the same sound, Return to the Lord, oh man!

I hope that this work will challenge you to seek a far deeper relationship with God than just being born again with the prospect of going to heaven. Hey, this is not all about going to heaven – and thank God we