Cut It Out!

[Note: Here's another one from the archives- August 28, 2008 or somewhere thereabouts. This is one of the times where I really felt The Holy Spirit showing me new cool stuff in Bible verses I'd read a million times before, and as someone who particularly struggles at times with knowing if God has really spoken to me and such- these kinds of moments are always very awesome to experience and a great reminder to me of Jesus' work in my life. So I hope it's helpful for you. And yes, I totally had to reference Joey Gladstone from "Full House" in the title, so you can imagine the appropriate snipping hand gestures with it too. :-)]

I want to segue a bit into a spiritual matter for a second. I want to post this because I was doing my quiet time on Sunday and I felt like the Holy Spirit had really shown me something new from some familiar verses (He's always doing stuff like that when I'm paying attention ;-)) and I wanted to share with someone- for the moment I wrote it down in my notebook.
     Anyway, I was reading Matthew 5, where Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount. I've read all these verses many times before, but Matthew 5:27-30 really hit me. Jesus tells us that to even look at a woman lustfully is the same as committing adultery with her in your heart. And then He goes on to say that if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. (Which is really kind of significant in His Jewish culture there, because for most people in that area of the world, the right hand is their "good" hand. Not in the sense that it's necessarily the hand they write with- but typically the left hand was reserved for one duty only- wiping your butt. Seriously. Thus, the right hand was used for shaking hands and so forth.) Just interesting to note. But Jesus said it's better for you to lose one part of your body and get into Heaven than to have your whole body intact and be thrown into Hell. So yeah, even if you're left with just your poop-wiping hand, it's still better to be one-handed and get into Heaven than to get into Hell with your whole body intact.
         The point is that Jesus takes sin very seriously. I don't think He literally means body dismemberment here necessarily, but perhaps there's other things in our life that we need to cut off completely if they cause us to sin. This can range from movies, TV shows, videos, books, comic books, music- any of it. If it causes us to think impure things or dwell on sinful things- get rid of it! This definitely also applies to habits. It might mean to stop hanging out with certain people and to not go to places of temptation. Whatever you have to do to cut the sin out. (1 Thessalonians 5:22) "Avoid every appearance of evil."
 -Also, this ties in to what Jesus was saying about cutting off body parts because whatever a man dwells on, he becomes! (Proverbs 23:7 KJV- "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.") Thus, it becomes a part of his body when a man sins and since as Christians we are the body of Christ, we have to cut off whatever slows or hinders us or causes us to sin. (Hebrews 12:1-4) We must be perfect and holy because God is perfect and holy. (Matthew 5:48)
And we need to do Philippians 4:8 - think on the pure things of God alone.
       Anyway, I just thought that was a really practical way to put those verses into practice- and when I say all this, believe me- I'm preaching to myself too.