If your right hand causes you
to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that
one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
—Matthew 5:30
“Jesus did not say that
everyone must cut off his right hand, but that “if your right hand causes you
to sin” in your walk with Him, then it is better to “cut it off.” There are
many things that are perfectly legitimate, but if you are going to concentrate on
God you cannot do them. Your right hand is one of the best things you have, but
Jesus says that if it hinders you in following His precepts, then “cut it off.”
[…] There are a hundred and one things that you dare not do— things that would
be sin for you, and would be recognized as sin by those who really know you.
But the unspiritual people around you will say, “What’s so wrong with doing
that? How absurd you are!”” CHAMBERS
There are two principles at
work here. The first principle is that that you must be willing to abandon those
things that lead to you to sin, to live in disobedience. To not live in the way that you formerly did
before your rebirth. Those things must
be cut off from your life. An alcoholic does
not leave a bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter. They do not hang out with their drinking buddies.
(1 Corinthians 8:17-24) “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the
Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their
thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life
of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their
hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to
sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of
greed. That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about
Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You
were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self,
which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude
of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness.”
The second principle is that you are to refrain from those things that
are not sinful that lead others to sin. That
cause them to stumble. If someone believes that something is wrong, that is not
actually wrong, and then in believing that they are sinning, does it anyway,
what happens in the heart is sin. They intentionally
do something that they believe is disobedient toward God. It is not so much what they did, but why they
did it. So you must cut off those things
in your life that might cause others to stumble. (Romans
14:13-17) “… make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle
in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the
Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something
as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is
distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by
your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you
know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of
eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”
(1 Corinthians 8:9-13) “Be
careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling
block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all
your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to
eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom
Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this
way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what
I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat
again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”
And if you are thinking, I don’t see why I should give something up just
because someone else thinks it’s wrong, read Matthew 22:37-39 and John 15:13 again.
You
will find your answer there. CHARLEY
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