As the Detroit Pistons were shocking the Los Angeles Lakers to become 2004 NBA Champions, head coach Larry Brown kept bragging on his team, declaring that they were playing basketball “the right way.”

A tremendous amount of selflessness, sharing and sacrifice defined their team culture and way of play. Brown was right. The mighty Lakers got eliminated fast.

So was Jesus “playing the right way” when He spoke in Luke 13? While many were playing “the religion game,” Jesus was concerned with more than the game's ratings. He wanted it played “the right way.”

To seek other options won't work, He said. Only the narrow door, the right way, would. He wasn't interested in trendy play; wins in life and eternal championships were what He was after.

That's why He passionately said to make every effort to enter through the narrow door. No other door will do.

The door is narrow, not because too many rules and regulations make it small; it's small because of its simplicity. You don't have to bring all your self-justification through the door with you, just yourself.

You don't bring all your rules through the door either. They won't fit. Our rules don't impress God. We simply follow a Person, the Door to life. The right way is playing for a Person, an Audience of One.

Reflect: How would you describe your spiritual style of play? What makes you think it works, that it's the right way? Are you using your own self-defined rules?

Are you understanding that to get through the narrow door you have to drop your own rules and style of play and take up His?

A prayer to consider: LORD, help me to play and to live by Your rules … to follow You just as I am through the narrow door that truly leads to life and eternal victory.

Don't let me settle for selfish shortcuts that actually add weight and block my entrance to living and eternal life. Though there are many doors, help me keep seeing that only one – Your simple, surrendered, narrow door – works. Amen.