Moment With The Master
“Radical Surgery”
Categories: Moment With The MasterIf your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; 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)
Here Jesus requires radical surgery: a step necessary to remove the habit of sin from our lives.
I am told that when one has heart surgery, the surgeon must break or cut the sternum or breast bone. This radical intrusion is the only way to access the heart and thus solve the problem. When one has a toothache it may need to be extracted. One might mask the problem with pain killer, but the source remains until the diseased tooth is rooted out.
Sin also brings pain. The Psalmist said of sin: “When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was turned into the drought of summer.” (Psalm 32:3,4) One may mask the pain by avoiding the reality, but each time he comes down off his “high” he once again must face the consequences. The problem will never be fixed until he confesses his sin and accepts the uncomfortable steps necessary for its removal.
Though the task of removing sin is difficult, its rewards are well worth it. Jesus says: “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) This painful process will bring peace in this life and ultimate joy in the life to come.
By George Slover
