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The verses you choose portray God as Lucy with her football and ignore the ones regarding grace.

Then either I have done a poor job or you have misunderstood me. Whichever it is, it certainly needs to be corrected.

The person in Luke 13 asked, "Lord, are there few who are saved?" The original post refers to Jesus' own statement regarding the exclusivity of the kingdom. We can't believe Jesus and not believe what He said on that subject.

The question that arises in our minds next must be, "How do I get in?" The answer is not "just mosey on in at your convenience."

"And he said unto all, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." - Luke 9:23

Does this mean we're "doomed to fail on technicalities" because we stumble along the way? God forbid! In Romans 7, Paul addressed this recurring guilt and vexing fear, as he faced the same thing himself:

"For what I will to do, (i.e. obey God) that I do not practice; but what I hate, (i.e. sin) that I do...For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice...I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." - vv. 14, 19, 21-23

When we find in ourselves this same heart, when we are seeking to know the King's will and to do it as an obedient servant, when we are bearing our own cross though stumbling along the way, when we are striving to enter in by the narrow gate, when we mourn over our sins and cry out with the same desperation as this disciple, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (v. 24), then we have this answer and shout with joy:

"I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." - 7:24-8:1

>>The original post refers to Jesus’ own statement regarding the exclusivity of the kingdom.

So, I am wasting my finite life with the things I do for him because they aren’t enough? I don’t pretend to believe for a second that I am one “a few” if a few is a very small number because I’m just not that good.

Sorry, but I will go with the verses that you ignore and take the ones you like in the context of why Jesus even bothered to come to Earth. He could have saved a select, hard-working few without all the drama.

But what is a “few” anyway? There have been 16 billion people on this planet since the start. As a percentage of that, a “few” is still a lot of people. I believe that his “few” is as many as he wants. It might be 6. It might be 6 billion. He is in charge and I fully accept that.