Wednesday, June 29, 2016

When Doing Something That Is Right Is Wrong

My Utmost For His Highest
 
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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