Seeking Eternal Life

I suppose that Christians often regard eternal life as living for eternity. By "living" they mean being conscious in some kind of body. The idea is if you once "accept Christ" you will be alive forever in Heaven.
Am I correct? Is that what we believe? God stamps us as a person who will live forever in Heaven. We now have eternal life because we have made our profession of belief in Jesus Christ.
Well, let's think for a moment about something Jesus said:
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:14)
Somehow our idea of "accepting Christ" does not sound to me like a road. When we say that all people who have "accepted Christ" will live forever in God's Presence, are we considering what is true generally speaking of Christian people? Do all reveal the Life of Christ in their personality?
A person wrote recently that if all the Christian pastors and evangelists taught that to be a Christian we must deny ourselves, take up our cross of deferred desire, and follow Jesus every day, that most of the Christian people would leave the churches.
I believe that individual wrote the truth. I wonder how many professing Christians in our day actually have attained to eternal life.
If we are to answer that question, I think we are going to have to think about eternal life somewhat differently than we do. I believe eternal life is a kind of life, not merely the duration of our consciousness because we have made a religious statement.