Poor Innocent Victim

Good morning! God gave us a lovely sunrise this morning and we thank Him for that. Uh oh...sorry, I had another dream last night. A sect of priests owned a very sharp sword. As a part of some festival, the priests selected for themselves a bunch of small cuts or to have a hand cut off. No further detail is necessary, and I'm sorry to have such rough dreams. However, I woke up realizing that hands are poor innocent victims in this sin thing. Jesus gave this advice in the Sermon on the Mount:

"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out 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. And 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: 29-30)

My right hand cannot cause me to sin for sin comes from the heart and is a decision to rebel against God. Cutting off a hand will do no good for me; my wicked heart of flesh would still lust after the things of this world. I could still see the wrong things with one eyeball that I had done with two, but the eyes are also innocent victims for they do not control themselves. If I catch a movement in my peripheral vision, the eyes will look because of their programmed reactions. An image that is seen but later causes sin trouble is in the heart and not on the eye.

We have a tendency, or perhaps it is a bit of bad advice from the adversary, to think that by making ourselves blind and hand less we will please God and get into Heaven. The hands and eyes cannot cause us to sin, but they may be used in sin by the wickedness of the heart. Our one hope in this, as in all things, is the grace of God through faith in Christ Jesus. All of creation groans under the curse, and the poor hands and eyeballs no less than any other having been singled out for chopping and plucking by our Lord. But Jesus did not say 'when' the hand causes sin, but 'if'. Eve did not sin because her right eye saw the forbidden fruit and her right hand reached out for it, but because her heart listened to the adversary and decided to rebel. We cannot chop off parts to rid ourselves of sin. We must depend on Christ to free us from this sin thing.

Jesus didn't command body modification. He said that if a person can cure himself of sin, go for it, and then He gave a couple of suggestions for a starting point. When we realize that the end result of our elective surgeries is to chop out our mind and heart to rid us of the sin, we hopefully see how only Christ can save us.

God loves you, go in His grace today.
Bucky