The Question That Won't Go Away

On Seeking the Kingdom and Recognizing the Path

There's a particular question that has echoed through human history, appearing in different forms across cultures and centuries. Sometimes it's phrased philosophically: "What is the good life?" Sometimes religiously: "How do I please God?" Sometimes more desperately: "What must I do to be saved?"

But perhaps the most illuminating version, the one that cuts through our modern abstractions and ancient pieties alike, is the question a rich young ruler once posed to Jesus: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Or, as we might say, "What must I do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?"

Now, one might think this question has been answered so many times, in so many ways, that there's nothing left to say about it. The libraries of the world, after all, groan under the weight of theological treatises, pastoral guides, and devotional manuals all claiming to point the way. And many of them, no doubt, contain genuine wisdom.

But here's the problem. The question itself assumes something we're meant to discover along the way: that finding the answer requires more than collecting information. It requires discernment.

The Path and Its Obstacles

The biblical writers understood something about the spiritual life that our modern therapeutic culture often misses. The journey toward God is not merely a matter of acquiring the right knowledge or performing the correct rituals. It is a path, and like all paths, it has obstacles. Some are obvious: our own pride, laziness, or moral failures. These we can at least see and name.

But the most dangerous obstacles are often the ones that appear to be helping us along. Jesus speaks of wolves in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15), and the metaphor is more precise than we might initially realize. The wolf doesn't announce itself. It doesn't growl or bare its teeth. It looks, for all the world, like one of the flock. It speaks the right language, knows the right Scriptures, wears the right vestments.

I've known several such figures in my own journey, from my Catholic upbringing in the 1980s through my Pentecostal years in the 1990s and beyond. Not all were malicious. Some were simply mistaken, confusing their own agendas with God's purposes. Others, I'm afraid, knew exactly what they were doing. They understood that religious authority, once established, provides access to things far more valuable than mere money: influence, loyalty, the shaping of souls.

The early Church fathers warned constantly about this danger. Read Irenaeus on the Gnostic teachers of his day, and you'll find the same pattern: leaders who claimed special knowledge, who positioned themselves as necessary intermediaries between the seeker and God, who (and here's the tell) benefited materially from their spiritual authority.

So what's the seeker to do?

The Art of Discernment

Here is where we must be clear about what we're not saying. We're not suggesting that all religious leaders are frauds, or that organized religion is inherently corrupt, or that you should trust no one but yourself. That way lies chaos, and eventually, isolation.

What we are saying is that discernment is not optional. It is, in fact, part of the very answer to our question. The Kingdom of Heaven is not for the gullible or the lazy. It requires what the biblical writers call wisdom: the ability to distinguish truth from counterfeit, substance from show, the voice of the true Shepherd from the voice of the wolf.

John's first epistle puts it plainly: "Test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 John 4:1). Notice the verb. Test. Not accept automatically. Not reject cynically. Test. Examine. Consider the fruit.

And what does such testing look like in practice? Jesus gives us the criterion: "You will recognize them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). Not by their eloquence. Not by their credentials. Not by the size of their following or the beauty of their buildings. By their fruits.

Do their lives display the character they claim to teach? Does their ministry produce genuine transformation in others, or merely dependence on themselves? Do they point people toward Christ, or toward their own authority? These are not abstract questions. They have concrete, observable answers.

The Narrow Path

Now, here's what strikes me as most remarkable about Jesus's teaching on this subject. He doesn't merely warn us about false teachers and send us on our way. He tells us something about the path itself: "The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matthew 7:13-14).

This is not what we want to hear. We live in an age that promises easy answers and quick results. Lose weight without changing your diet. Get rich without working hard. Find God without transforming your life. The contemporary religious marketplace, whether we're talking about prosperity gospel preachers or therapeutic spirituality gurus, largely operates on this same principle: maximum benefit, minimum cost.

But Jesus refuses to play this game. The way is narrow. The gate is small. And lest we miss the point, he adds that few find it.

Why so few? Not because God is stingy or cruel, but because the journey requires something most people aren't willing to give: the surrender of our own sovereignty. We want a kingdom we can manage, a God we can control, a path we can walk on our own terms. What we're offered instead is a Kingdom that demands our allegiance, a God who won't be domesticated, and a path that requires we die to ourselves.

That's the point. The question "What must I do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?" cannot be answered with a simple formula because it's not asking for information. It's asking for transformation.

Seeking and Finding

Jesus himself provides the answer, though not in the form most of us expect: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Of course, this statement has been used (and misused) in countless ways over the centuries. Some have wielded it as a weapon of exclusion. Others have tried to soften it into a vague endorsement of sincerity. But what if we simply take it at face value? What if Jesus is claiming not to possess the answer, but to be the answer?

This changes everything. It means the Kingdom of Heaven is not a place we access by accumulating the right knowledge or performing the right rituals. It is a reality we enter by knowing a person, by following him, by being transformed through relationship with him, by allowing his life to reshape ours.

And this is where the command to "seek first the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33) takes on new meaning. We're not seeking abstract principles or hidden wisdom. We're seeking a person. And persons, as anyone who has been in a genuine relationship knows, cannot be reduced to propositions or controlled through techniques.

The seeking never ends, but neither does the finding. Each discovery opens onto deeper mysteries. Each answer generates new questions. And perhaps that's as it should be. The Kingdom of Heaven, after all, is not a static destination but a living reality, always expanding, always inviting us further in.

An Invitation, Not a Conclusion

I began with a question: "What must I do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?" And I've suggested that the question itself, properly understood, is part of the answer. It trains us in discernment. It warns us about obstacles. It prepares us for a narrow path and a demanding journey.

But let me end with something more personal. In my own journey from Catholicism to Pentecostalism and beyond, I've encountered many who claimed to have the definitive answer to this question. Some were sincere but misguided. Others were wolves. A few, thank God, were the real thing: faithful guides who pointed not to themselves but to Christ.

The difference, I've found, lies in this: the true teachers are still seeking even as they teach. They know they haven't arrived. They're fellow pilgrims on the narrow path, perhaps a few steps ahead, but conscious that the Kingdom's depths exceed anyone's full comprehension.

So here's the invitation. Don't settle for easy answers or charismatic leaders who promise the Kingdom on their terms. Seek the one who is himself the Way. Test the spirits. Examine the fruit. Be willing to ask hard questions and to keep asking them.

The path is narrow, yes. But it's also real. And the destination, the Kingdom of Heaven, is not some abstract spiritual realm divorced from concrete reality. It is the renewal of all things, the restoration of creation, the reign of God breaking into our broken world.

That's worth seeking. That's worth every obstacle, every wolf avoided, every hard question asked.

The invitation stands.