NOTES for Mat 7:13-29
As He concludes the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus very sternly warns His listeners, and us as well, against the characteristic divide between hearing—and even accepting as true—His teaching and embodying it in one's life. I would even say the divide between “theoretical” and “practical” Christianity. Serving the truth in practice requires effort to overcome the “resistance of the environment”—perhaps this is the meaning of the images of the “narrow way” and the “narrow gate”—whereas “theorizing” creates almost no inconvenience in this life.
Accepting true teaching must bear fruit: a change in life expressed in actions and an inward recoil from sin and lawlessness. If this does not happen, then there was no real acceptance either, and then: “I never knew you; depart from Me!”