cutting off limbs

This past week in church, our vicar preached a sermon on Matthew 18. It included two verses that I hadn’t heard in quite some time;

⁸ If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

I don’t know about you, but there are some verses in the Bible that truly disturb me and this is one of them. In fact, out of every other passage in the Bible, this one just plain confuses me. 

When I think of this verse a certain memory comes to mind; a Little House on the Prairie episode. Little House on the Prairie? Yes, really.

Caroline, Laura’s mom, has a bad cut on her leg that has become infected. In fact, it’s so bad, she becomes delusional. Reading through her Bible she comes across this exact same verse. Taking it literally Caroline is about to cut off her leg when. . . admittedly I don’t remember the ending. But I know for sure that she does not cut off her own leg. Breathe easy folks, Caroline remains unharmed.

It gets me to wondering though, did Jesus really mean for us to cut off parts of our body to save our souls? That just doesn’t make sense. Perhaps this is an occasion when Jesus was speaking figuratively rather than literally. 

Let me give you an example. Several years back I was struggling with a sin that has clung to me for years, being hypercritical. I had struggled with it for years, but admittedly, it was a “hard habit” to break. 

 As God began convicting me of this sin, I became more aware of how hypercritical I could be—judging everyone and everything. Knowing that God wanted me to be free of it as much as I did, I prayed for Him to change me. But this judgmental attitude wasn’t about ready to go without putting up a fight—a big one. There were days when I despaired of ever overcoming this sin. 

The problem was that being judgmental was like second nature, it was a part of me. Almost as if it were another member of my body, albeit an unseen one. As God dealt with this issue, it sometimes felt like my very soul was being ripped apart. I struggled with guilt and shame, failure and fear. It all cut me to the core. 

Here’s the great part though, God changed me; He changed my heart. I knew that judging others was wrong, but only the Holy Spirit was going to transform me. 

Though it was through His power and Spirit that I learned to put this sin behind me, the process was anything but pleasant. At times, it was downright painful, as if I was being cut to the very core of my being—almost like it might have felt to gouge my eye out or cut my hand off. Though it didn’t happen literally, it might as well have for all the pain I went through as God refined me.

 If there’s a sin that you long to be free of, hear the good news. Although it will hurt at times, it won’t  involve any self-maiming. Yes, it will be painful. But you won’t be going it alone. The Spirit, God’s Holy Spirit, is with you. I’m pretty sure He’ll get you to where you want to be, as well as where He wants you to be. Though it will be painful at times, take heart, it’s worth a short term sting to deal with a life-long sin.