Do You Take Sin Seriously?

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." - Jesus (Matthew 5: 27-30)

Just as with murder and anger, Jesus raises the bar, no that is not right... he puts the bar where it was intended to be from the beginning on the subject of adultery. Again we read, "You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery". Adultery had become an act and Jesus says, "nope, it is about the heart". Just like with anger and murder, Jesus tells us that adultery begins in the heart. It is not only possible, but it is a reality that people have hearts filled with lust, yet most will not commit adultery today.

God's plan has always been to reconcile people to Himself. From Adam's fall, to the Old Law and through Jesus, God has been and still is working to restore things to a pre-fall condition. I understand that it will not be complete until Jesus returns and brings with Him a new heaven and earth (whatever that means). But for God, it was never about changing the actions of His greatest creation. Actions can change and the heart remain the same. God wants changed hearts! He wants everyone to live sin-less lives. He wants everyone to be like His Son. That is His plan.

So, Jesus looks into our hearts and says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away." Is He advocating the mutilation of our bodies to eliminate the source of sin? Of course not! What He is calling on us to do is to take sin as seriously as He does. "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matthew 6:21-23) He calls on us to police our eyes. We are responsible for what we allow to enter into our hearts. He says, "if you can't control your eye, better to live this life without it than to allow the eye to send a person to Hell." Of course He is using figurative language to make a point.

Then He says the same thing about the hand. His point isn't that we should start doing away with body parts;His point is that we should view sin with that kind of seriousness. Imagine cutting off your own arm. I watched the movie "127 Hours" and saw the lengths a person will go to in order to save their physical life. Jesus says... what about your spiritual lives? Like the rock that trapped that young man in that canyon, sin has many of us caught between the Rock and a hard place. He condemns our sins and He provides an escape to those who will follow Him. In the movie, the young man tried everything he could think of to escape his situation, but in the end he had no other choice than to remove the thing that held him captive. We must do the same!

The Hebrew writer puts it this way... Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12: 1-2) The solution to our problem is found in Jesus. He both pioneered and perfected faith and fixing our eyes on Him and following Him will move us away from sin and into the life that He calls us to, the restored life.

Sin is serious business. Too often, we take it lightly; we toy with it and walk along the edge of the cliff. Other times we just run headlong into sin without any regard to its' consequences. But Jesus calls on His followers to confront their sinfulness, deal with it and "cut it off" at its' source. He says start with the heart and the actions will take care of themselves... no lust in the heart means no adultery.

What about you? Do you take sin that seriously? Do I? It was sin that separated man from God in the Garden and it is sin that separates us from Him today. (Isaiah 59:2) Thankfully that is not the end of the story... God wants reconciliation, He is pursuing that with you! How will you respond to His appeal?

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)